We work to conserve unique wildlife and critical habitats and promote sustainable livelihoods through environmental education and capacity building working with rural communities in East Africa.
Our guiding value is the autonomy of indigenous communities; our awareness that each community is unique and must find its own solutions to the problem of sustainability. Amara’s role is to provide information, alternatives, and opportunities in an atmosphere of openness, honesty, and cooperation among stakeholders based on trust and creativity.
Amara believes in the power of information. A healthy environment benefits humans and wildlife equally, and for one to thrive the other need not suffer.
Our Community Aims
- To enhance community welfare through the exploration and implementation of sustainable livelihoods.
- To enhance community effectiveness through a greater awareness of opportunities, a widened knowledge base and greater inter-community communication.
- To find solutions to human-wildlife conflict
- To encourage cooperation between local communities and governmental, non-governmental and private conservation stakeholders.
Our Environmental Aims
- To protect wildlife habitat from human encroachment
- To promote environmentally responsible land and resource use
- To help eradicate illegal bushmeat hunting and poaching of large animals
- To prevent the loss of migration corridors and dispersal areas
Methodology
With each of our two mobile teams, Amara brings the films of the African Environmental Film Foundation to local communities. Films are seen by audiences ranging from 300 to 1,000, and are both preceded and followed by informative, interactive discussions. Additionally, Amara arranges and sponsors larger, multi-community meetings to address broader community issues.
Our Achievements
Amara has brought environmental education to hundreds of communities in environmentally sensitive areas surrounding Kenya’s major national parks, both through film showings and broader community meetings on topics ranging from bushmeat and ivory poaching to ecotourism and sustainable livelihoods. We work to assist the people to obtain more sustainable livelihoods and alleviate poverty and human wildlife conflict.
Amara has brought local communities together with the Kenya Wildlife Service, the Community Wildlife Service, the Kenya Health Department, local and international NGOs and eco-sensitive private enterprise. These contacts have established, and in some cases renewed trust among these critical stakeholders, leading to more open communication and greater empowerment for all involved.
Amara was the catalyst for the creation of Mbulia Group Ranch, a newly formed twelve thousand acre community-owned wildlife conservancy on the border of the Tsavo National Parks in critical dry season elephant habitat.
About Lori Bergemann
