Ostriches are abundunt in this dry part of kenya, North Eastern province(NEP) with mainly the somali Ostich race. They are present in almost all the districts but little effort has been directed to its commercial exploitation as an alterntive to pastoralism. Local communities here attach alot of Nutritutional and medicinal value to ostrich meat and its products. I have come a cross many isolated ostrich populations in the region which can become perfect ostrich farms.

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Dear freinds.
This post is just to bring to your attention how an introduced ailien species known as prosopis Juliflora is rapidly colonsing the sanctuary and it is environs replacing indiginous acacias and other forage plants for the giraffes and the gerenuks. we have tried a number of measures such as harvesting it for firewood and cleaaring, but this seems still not effective. The plant originally from south america was introduced in kenya in early 80s just to increase green cover in arid and semi arid areas of kenya. It is now becoming a serious problem blocking water corridors and supressing all kind of indiginous vegtations. Your ideas and opinions on control measures of this plants will be of great importance.

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Dear friends. I recently had the chance to visit and sensitise youth groups in the famous Dadab and Hagardera refugee camps in Kenya. I was invited by some official of UNHCR and CARE Kenya to talk to the youths in the area on general environmental issues affecting their life. We had a great moment together as we were entertained by traditioanl groups and school children following my talk . Since the collapse of the Somali republic in 1991 the influxes of refugees in these camps have been constant and now most of the the current youth were born in these camps. Ofcourse direct consequence of this is the impact to the environmnt as this people directly depend on the ever diminishing dryland natural resources available causing serious vegetaion destructions. This is manifested in terms of charcoal burning, firewood harvesting and massive green cuttings for shelter materials especially in the refugee camps areas. it was obvious to me that continuous exploitation of deadwood for the immediate needs of the refugees and the host communities without regards to its sustainability will compromise the natural regenerative capacity of the environment, and thus compromising its ability to meet the needs of the future generation. Dead woods are home to several insects and rodents that play an important role in nutritional cycles, and also serve an important food source for birds, thus contributing significantly to the complex food web. As we all know there is increasing global and local recognition of the inter-dependence between environment and development and often environmental destruction is directly proportional to the level of povety. I therefore urge development agents in the area to sandwitch environmtal programes with other development issues.

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North eastern, the third largest province in Kenya, is mainly characterized by arid climatic conditions with an erratic rainfall of less than 250mm a year. The area is mainly inhabited by Somalis, who rear livestock as their main economic activity.
Garissa district, the headquarters of the region represents one of the most degraded ecosystems threatened by desertification, biodiversity loss, deforestation and fuel wood shortages. the reasons include the prolonged shifta wars, livestock- wildlife conflict and the influxes of refugees and their livestock from the neighboring Somalia.
However, the vast district is historically home for large mammals including elephants, the endangered rhinos, buffaloes and finally the big cats. Older people still vividly remember how they had some rough time with these animals. Other than the big cats (Lions, Leopards, Cheetahs) most of these animals have disappeared, thanks to the illigal trade in trophies (tusks and horns) in the 70s. However, due to recent improvement in security in the province,elephants have reportedly returned to garissa which used to be a migratory corridor connecting the Tsavo and Kora ecosystems to the grater Somalia ecosystem.
Specific sightings have been reported in Bura division of Garissa district in past two years. According to the area Kenya Wildlife Service Honorary Warden Mr. Hassan Sheikh Ali, who recently encountered a breeding herd of 14, with their calves in Jambele area, south of Garissa, the elephants have invaded farms in the area and destroyed mango trees.
The animals have also been seen in Modika, Balambala, Balich and Bananey, in north of the district.The big question is how will these elephants be accommodated by the local pastoralists/ farmers who have not had to deal with any since late 70s, when elephant poaching was at its peak?
Historical corridors and water access points have been blocked in the recent past, and this could be a source of new battle between the destructive beast and the people. Too many people in Garissa view the return of elephants as a disaster in the making and they may not be supportive of the government conservations goals.
Ali A Hussein

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Dear frieinds. This post is just to inform you that Tana river is the only source of water around garissa district in kenya greatly defining population distribution pattern. The 440-mile Tana River is the longest river in Kenya, rising in the Aberdare Mountains to the west of Nyeri. Initially it runs east before turning south round the Mount Kenya massif. The river then turns into the Masinga and Kiambere Reservoirs created by the Kindaruma dams. Below the dam the river turns north and flows the north-south boundary between the Meru and North Kitui and Bisanadi, Kora and Rahole National Reserves providing the much needed water support to all these dryland biodiversity pockets. In the reserves the river turns east, and then south east. It passes through the towns of Garissa, Hola and Garsen before entering the Indian Ocean at Ungwana Bay. The sanctuary is located along the eastern side of the river near garissa and the giraffes acess it through marked watering corridors. However due emerging river bank farming along the flood plains of the River farmers continue to block these ancestral routes for accessing the river by expandings their farmlamds. Nevertheless, in collaboration with government agencies we are trying to reach out to these farmers not to block the access points. Efforts are also underway to sensitise the farmers to tolerate the presence of wildlife around their farmlands.

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Happy new year to all of you out there. we are doing well, just adjusting to the post election violence in our country, but thinks have normalised. As a way of creating awareness among school children the Giraffe sanctuary committee in collaboration with wildlife clubs of kenya (WCK) representatives at the district level, are intending to start awareness programmes for school children. This will take in the form of the Talks, lectures, video shows, tree planting activities, seminars, clean up activities and conservation rallies. We actually intending to involve other stakeholders to raise some fund for these activities.We will be very much assisted by Mr. Mohamed Ahmed who is the WCK representative for the region. We had along discussion moments with mr. Mohamed and agreed on how to share tasks. The picture above shows one of our discusion meetings at the sanctuary, on the righthand side is Mr. mohamed, myself on the left with the sanctaury chairman at the centre.

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Communities sorounding the sanctuary are mainly pastoral somali communities who are traditinally nomads and moves around with ther livestock in serach pasture and water. To facilitate this, the community have traditional houses made of grasses and other plant materials popularly known as herio. The house is normally circular in shape as you can see in the picture above. I am the guy infront of the house and this is where i slept for that night. Women are the main architechs of this houses,while the men look after the livestock. The housing materials have cooling effects and the outsides teperature are drastically reduced making life possible in the desert.

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Imagine sighting one of the most endangered animals in Kenya in this remote corner of the country. i encountered this rare animals in Ijara ( southern part of Garissa district now given district status). We took this pictures recently while we were taken round a visiting professor from Germany. Wild dogs are critically endangered in the conservation world and are hard to come by.Dear friends I must say thank you for all those who supported us towards getting the computer for the sanctuary. I would like to say thank you to Susan M, Pirjo I, Inaga G, Willam H and Antonio C for their contribution towards this special appeal.

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Dear readers
This post is just to share with you some of management issues we are currently facing in the sanctuary. Their are number of human activities which are currently exerting great pressure in the habitats of the giraffes. one such problem is charcoal burning which is the biggest threats to the Acacias in the sanctuary. Every days we loose good number of acacia trees to charcoal burners as can be seen in the pictures above. Other human activities include sand harvesting, farming and expanding settlements(notice one the villages in the middle of the sanctaury). we are currently trying to cope up with some of these managemnt issues threatening the giraffes.

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