Sharpe's Longclaw (Macronyx sharpei) Case Study

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MBZF Grant 172517373
Bird

Continent: Africa

Country: Kenya

Grant Amount: $11,500

Awarded Date: June 13, 2018

SAMUEL BAKARI

Friends of Kinagop Plateau


254

South Kinangop

Nyandarua

20319

Kenya

Tel: +254 721 470 215

Mob:

Integrating traditional framing with emerging technology for the conservation of hioghland biodiverity in Kinangop

Our project is designed to integrating traditional livestock farming with emerging technology for the conservation of highland biodiversity in Kinangop by working with farmers to strengthen sheep flocks. With successful sheep farming is profitable, farmers will not convert pastureland into cropland thereby retaining the natural habitat for Sharpe’s Longclaw. The project also empower local youth to take part in the Conservation of Biodiversity.

 

The project will build on the success of the previous project and is expanding the outreach to more farmers who own and control pastureland which are important habitat for Sharpe's Longclaw and other highland grassland biodiversity. Through our work with the local farmers, we have seen that empowering local farmers is a very useful tool in changing the attitude of farmers towards biodiversity conservation.

Having identified poor quality of sheep, we are working with an additional 5 farmers, who control over 300 acres of grassland, to improve the sheep breed in their farms. High quality rums are bought from qualified and registered sheep breeders and distributed to identified farmers. Farmers are identified based on a set of criteria that underlines a balance between stocking and size of land thus taking care of any eventual overgrazing. The farmers whose farms has high number of Sharpe's Longclaw and other grassland birds are given the first priority. This, as have been shown in past, encourage the farmers to continue rearing sheep as opposed to the current trend of change of the traditional sheep farming to crop. Thus retaining grasslands that serve as pasture for sheep grazing and suitable habitat for the highland grassland biodiversity. The project also building the capacity of the local youths in wool value-adding and linking the wool products to market for the long term sustainability of the project and the grassland conservation agenda, thus creating employment for the local youth and allowing them to participate in the conservation of biodiversity as well.

MBZF Grant 172517373 - located in Kenya, Africa