PLANTING TREES IN THE AMBOSELI NATIONAL PARK

WE PLANT TREES IN THE AMBOLESI NATIONAL PARK

Our non profit organization ‘ Free Spirit ’ created the “re-green the planet”, a reforestation program dedicated to restoring the forests all over the world. In Africa, we offered seedballs to the Lion Guardians foundation in order to promote coexistence between people and lions. A Seedball is a seed inside of a ball of charcoal dust mixed with some nutritious binders. The biochar coating of the ball helps protect the seed within from predators such as birds, rodents and insects and extremes of temperature until the rains arrive ! Once soaked, the seedball will help retain and prolong a moist environment around the seed to encourage germination. We offered seedballs to the Lion Guardians organization in the Amboseli national park.

We offered seedballs to the Lon guardian organization

PROMOTING COEXISTENCE

The needs of wildlife are increasingly in conflict with the needs of people as human populations continue to grow. In arid landscapes where farming is not always viable as a consistent source of food or revenue, grasslands must be devoted to livestock grazing. However, the conversion of land to pasture fragments already diminished habitat for vulnerable wildlife, while overgrazing can lead to soil erosion and near irreversible desertification. Despite the challenges, addressing human needs does not inevitably lead to the degradation of rangeland habitat.

The savannah ecosystems of East Africa have evolved under heavy grazing from migratory wildlife and pastoralist communities such as the Maasai for thousands of years. Cow dung from community herds has been shown to enrich soils and increase plant diversity in nutrient limited grasslands, even across millennial scales. Determining the most effective and beneficial land-management strategies may provide guidelines for similar habitats across Africa, potentially serving as a model for global adaptation. (Full article)

WE SUPPORT THE LION GUARDIANS PROJECT

Lion Guardians is a conservation organization dedicated to finding and enacting long-term solutions for people and lions to coexist. Founded in 2007, Lion Guardians began with five Guardians in one small area within the Amboseli-Tsavo ecosystem. Currently, there are Lion Guardians-based projects successfully running in several countries and in our core area of Amboseli, our operations span over close to a million acres. We are committed to workable solutions that are scientifically-driven and transferable across areas.

WE MADE A DONATION OF 61000 TREES TO LION GUARDIANS

In 2019, we made a concert in Paris to raise funds to plant trees in Kenya. We donated 11 000 seedballs to Lion Guardians.

« Dear Free Spirit team,

We are writing from Lion Guardians to thank you for your kind donation of 25kg of seedballs to our organization. Our program manager, Merishi, received the seedballs last week and was very appreciative of your generosity! Please see the attached photo.

Over the remainder of this year, we hope to use these seedballs for school programs in the communities across the ecosystem where we operate, a project which we initiated with great success last November. Our team has also developed an initiative that will involve our Guardians in seedball distribution. As a part of our Guardians’ duties to promote coexistence of communities with lions, they assist community members by reinforcing bomas (livestock enclosures) to keep livestock safe from predators overnight. They do this using branches from wait-a-bit trees (which have extremely sharp, hooked thorns) as fencing material. We would like the Guardians to take seedballs with them on their daily routines and throw the wait-a-bit seedballs in areas they take branches from, in order to replenish the trees in these areas and ensure future sustainability of these practices. We are very excited to begin this project, and will start handing out seedballs to Guardians at our upcoming team-building event, the Lion Guardians Games, next week. We will be sure to send you updates of these activities as they take place.

Thanks again for your generous support! It takes a community to conserve lions and preserve cultures, and we are thankful you are a part of ours.«

-Kate Yoshida

In 2021, in collaboration with the US Department of State and the US embassy Paris, we made a donation of 50,000 seedballs to Lion Guardians.

Seedballs Lion Guardians coexistence lions people africa kenya