PEOPLE

One of the keys to conservation is managing the way people interact with these wild spaces, and the game that they harbor. As human populations increase, and pressure on resources mounts, it’s crucial to invest in ways that makes it profitable to local populations to keep conservation alive.
It’s also about preserving traditional cultures in the face of Westernisation and development: people are integral to these places, and conservation isn’t just about animals.

Mara North Conservancy: http://maranorth.org/
Serian in the Masai Mara lies in the Mara North Conservancy, of which we are one of the founding members, and part of the management. It is a partnership of 11 camps and over 800 local Masai landowners.

The project was born of a realization that the income from park fees was not going to the community at large, and as a result, the product we held so valuable was in decline, and required a more complete approach to conservation.

The key emphasis has been on making sure that the income generated by tourism partners is shared out equally amongst landowners, thereby ensuring their interest in conserving the area.

Additionally the aim has been to seek a holistic approach to long-term conservation by incorporating education of the local communities, and using the income generated by the conservancy for finding alternatives to traditional cattle ranching, which threatens conservation efforts.

NCA (http://www.ngorongorocrater.org/welcome.html)

The Ngorongoro Conservation Area runs on similar principles – it is a wildlife area that incorporates the local Masai people, who

Supporting local schools
Get them while they’re young! Instilling values into the people that will inherit these spaces is crucial. If people can access a good education, a world of opportunities opens to them, and they need not be limited to living off the land… This takes pressure off our protected wildlife areas: if people can earn a living without recourse to agriculture or livestock
they are less dependent on key conservation areas to eke out a living through agriculture or livestock, both of which are threats to protected wildlife areas.
In the Masai Mara, we have provided water tanks and guttering for rainwater harvesting at our local school, and have also funded a number of students’ secondary education.
In Serengeti South, we refurbished our local school’s classroom, re-flooring and constructing desks, as well as building a food-store, without which they were unable to receive food supplies from the government.
Additionally, we encourage our guests to bring stationery supplies that we collect and donate to the schools on their behalf. Some of our guests have also contributed significant sums of money, which we use to build them infrastructure for the schools – the idea being that investing in good education is the key to conservation.

Koiyaki Guiding School: http://www.koiyaki.com/
We are strong supporters of the Koiyaki Guiding School, through employment of the school’s graduates, and through providing them with a base for valuable work experience placements.

Promoting local employment
80% of our employees are local to the area in which our camps are situated: we prefer to contribute to the local economy and increase the skill levels of rural communities by employing people who may not have great language skills or experience in tourism, but who have invaluable knowledge of the bush and their environment, and can grow through in-house training and apprenticeships.

In the Masai Mara, we have made a point of increasing employment of women, and we outsource all local procurement to women that we support in the community. Indeed, in all of our camps we source as many of our supplies as possible from local producers.

In our Ngare Serian private conservancy, we employ 6 people as rangers to look after our private conservation area, thereby teaching them the value of conservation and directly involving them in protection of the environment and its wildlife.

Promoting local culture
We have designed itineraries that draw on the rich local culture and bush lore, such as ‘Hunt with the Hadzabe’ and ‘Walk with Warriors’, both centered around the innate and age-old symbiosis that the Hadzabe and Masai share with their environment. Unveiling the value of their traditional skills and knowledge goes a long way toward preserving and celebrating these beautiful cultures.

Beautiful beading
We embrace the Masai culture that we are immersed in, and the intricate beadwork is one of the elements we have incorporated into our camps. All the beading is done by local Masai ladies, and we offer the possibility for them to come in and teach our guests some of the basics too. We also support Mara Beads (provide link).

Mara Marathon
Serian sponsors the Mara Marathon every year, which is a fundraiser for education in the local communities.