ELP-Kenya Anti-poaching Effort

The Dalton Academy ELP blog chronicles our annual Experiential Learning Program through the eyes of students. Each article features an account of a student’s experience traveling across the world for the purpose of gaining – through practical engagement – valuable insights into issues of global relevance.

Gazing out the window, Liu Yixuan felt a surreal, dream-like wonder on her first bus journey through the heart of the Kenyan savannah. She saw a paradise teeming with wildlife; a blessing of nature worth defending.

Her ELP mission was to assist Kenyan anti-poaching efforts. The first few days were spent clearing a conservation area of barbed wire traps left by poachers to ensnare these protected animals.

While the team’s efforts were welcome interventions, Yixuan learned through her guide of the tremendous ethical complexity facing conservation efforts. One such issue concerns the deforestation of a specific type of tree that provides food for the region’s giraffes. While aware of the impact on wildlife, local villagers can’t afford alternative sources of fuel, so they’re forced to clear-cut the area to satisfy their energy needs, despite the risks it poses to the giraffes.

Yixuan and her team resolved to try and mitigate the impact of clear-cutting by building more eco-friendly stoves for the villagers to reduce the pace of forest depletion. Although they were only able to help several families in their brief 10 days in Kenya, her hope is that these kinds of  solutions – applying scientific, engineering and technical expertise to biodiversity conservations efforts – may form the basis of achieving long-term environmental sustainability.

The experience reinforced Yixuan’s views on the sanctity of nature, believing now more than ever in on our universal duty to preserve her blessings. In her own words, the ELP left her with a profound sense of having ‘more love to give and more divides to bridge’.