Each year, amateur and professional athletes from around the world, form a spectacular alliance with wild animals at the Lewa Marathon in a rare race.

The race, described as one of the world’s most challenging, tests runners’ stamina, as they run through dirt roads over an undulating route through the Lewa Wildlife Conservancy.

“The Safaricom Lewa Marathon raises a lot of money for Lewa, which not only benefits the conservancy but also other neighbouring areas,” Mike Watson, Lewa Wildlife Conservancy CEO, told The EastAfrican.

The twin elements of fun and conservation have proved to be a major attraction, something achieved through the involvement of corporate and other organisations.

The participation of high profile personalities including athletes such as Catherine Ndereba and Henry Wanyoike has also boosted the profile of the event in its 12 years of existence.

Telecommunications giant Safaricom and Tusk Trust which organises the Safaricom Lewa Marathon, says the event has raised Ksh243.7 million ($2.8 million) so far, to fund conservation projects, community development, education and health care in northern Kenya.

But this year’s event which took place on June 30, highlighted a new status of Lewa Wildlife Conservancy, which starts a redefining period after purchasing its core landholding of 32,000 acres.

“Lewa is now owned, managed and governed as a wholly Kenyan entity, securing it in perpetuity,” Lewa Wildlife Conservancy board of directors chairman Francis Ole Kaparo writes in the conservancy’s 2011 annual report. A board of trustees will manage the land.

Lewa Milele campaign

With the conclusion of the Lewa Milele campaign, a partnership between Lewa and the Nature Conservancy in what was Kenya’s most successful private-sector wildlife conservancy, there is an ongoing process, which in a few months’ time is expected to offer further independence from the inspirational family of David Craig, which helped to found the conservancy.

The family agreed to sell the land at below the market rate, Mr Watson said, describing it as an “exciting moment for Lewa’s staff and supporters.”

The Craig/Douglas family first came to Lewa Downs in 1922. They managed the land as a cattle ranch until the 1980s when the the black rhino became increasingly endangered in Africa.

In 1983 an inspired English woman named Anna Merz persuaded the Craig family to convert part of the cattle ranch into the Ngare Sergoi Rhino Sanctuary, with her support and funding.

Although there were no rhinos living in the property at the time, they introduced one rhino and soon increased the number to 15 rhinos after expanding the size of the sanctuary to 10,000 acres.

In 1995, the Lewa Wildlife Conservancy was established as a not-for-profit organisation that combines the protection of wildlife, community development and sustainable tourism.

The name Lewa comes from the Maasai word lowa which means plains and appears in some old 1912 maps of the region.

Situated on 62,000 acres of land, its mix of acacia forest, open grasslands, rich wetlands and rolling grassy hills, with Mount Kenya National Park to the south of Lewa and Samburu, Shaba and Buffalo Springs national reserves to its north, Lewa is strategically placed to be a catalyst for conservation.

“I am here to assist in fundraising so as to continue with this conservation efforts,” Mike Mutua, who was preparing for the marathon, told us as he took a break from his practice.

In this year’s event, over 4,000 spectators and 1,200 runners ran for the cause in the gruelling marathon.

Runners passed through teeming African bush with game alongside some of the finest long distance runners in the world.

“This is why we go to Lewa. It gives us an opportunity that seems outside the world,” said Lilian Omondi, who was participating in her third Lewa Marathon this year.

The marathon was started in 2000 by Tusk Trust charity chief executive Charlie Mayhew. Starting with only 180 runners, it has attracted thousands of runners and supporters from all over the world and it is now not only the most anticipated marathon in Kenya but also a top social event like a Kenyan Henley.

In a region where economic avenues have otherwise been scarce and as Africa’s ever-expanding human population comes into conflict with wildlife, the true success of Lewa is creating an innovative model for conservation in Kenya and beyond.

Improved security

The conservancy improves security, stability and economic opportunity to the locals. It has been involved in offering sustainable livestock management techniques for the pastoralist communities, micro-enterprises, water conservation, funding education and offering health services through three clinics and a lab, which it operates.

Lewa is internationally recognised as one of the most successful safe havens for some of the world’s most critically endangered species — the black rhino and Grevy’s zebra.

Its proposal to the World Heritage Committee seeking to extend the boundaries of Mount Kenya World Heritage Site to include Lewa, is under consideration.

Lewa has the largest single population of Grevy’s zebras in the world. They are approximately 378 in total.

Lewa’s rhino population has recorded positive annual growth rates since 2002 and now represents 11 per cent and 14 per cent of Kenya’s black and white rhino respectively.

Already, Lewa has reached its ecological capacity to hold black rhinos.

“Once you have a black rhino in a territory you won’t have another one in that area. They fight to death to protect their territory,” says Lewa’s chief security officer, John Pameri.

Black rhinos in Kenya are also diminishing due to poaching and lack of suitable and secure habitats for expansion since most of the established and enclosed sanctuaries have attained their ecological carrying capacity.

Likewise, the haphazard poaching of elephants is a threat to their survival.

According to a MIKE (Monitoring Illegal Killing of Elephant) survey, poaching in Kenya has reached a horrifying high, only comparable to the 1970s when African elephants became almost extinct.

Last year, 139 of the 264 carcasses found in the Laikipia-Samburu ecosystem were confirmed to be victims of poaching, a significant loss for the approximately 7,500 elephants in that ecosystem.

In one night in January this year, well-organised gangs in Lekurruki and Leparua areas ambushed a combined force of Kenya Wildlife Service and their security team and managed to kill one security officer.

Endangered animals

Sensing danger, the elephants quickly crossed through the northern elephant gap into Lewa. The next morning a fresh carcass of an elephant with missing tusks was found just outside Lewa.

Private and community lands, that hold rhinos, have now been forced to increase their budgets so at to care for the animals.

One of the most affected was Mugie Rhino Sanctuary where three rhinos were poached last year. The rhino haven had to translocate all the 25 black and one white rhino to Ol Jogi Conservancy in Laikipia and the newly-created KWS Rhino Sanctuary on the shores of Lake Victoria Ruma National Park, 10km east of Lake Victoria in western Kenya, which last held black rhinos in the 1950s.

There are also plans to reintroduce black rhinos in the Borana Conservancy, located to the west of Lewa.

Protecting rhinos has been one of Lewa’s most expensive commitments.

“We have a team of monitors which keeps watch on the rhinos. They are reinforced by a team of police reservists, numbering 30, who are armed and use vehicles and at times aerial support,” Mr Pameri offers.

Lewa has installed infrared cameras on the elephant corridor underpass linking Lewa to Mount Kenya, inaugurated in 2010 so as to monitor the movement of un-collared elephants.

Save the Elephants provided the technical expertise to collar 20 elephants in the Mt Kenya, Lewa and Samburu ecosystems.

These elephants migrate using the elephant underpass which is estimated to have provided an avenue for close to 300 elephants.
The elephant corridor reopened an historical route for elephants moving between Mount Kenya and other conservation areas, which include the Ngare Ndare Forest Reserve, Lewa Wildlife Conservancy and Borana Ranch, passing beneath the Nanyuki - Meru Highway.

These efforts are not only bearing fruits in regard to the protection of endangered species and protection of other wild animals but are also contributing to the attraction of rich and prominent visitors.

In one evening, we took a ride as the sun dropped towards the rolling yellow hills, passing through a herd of Grevy’s Zebra and a group of rare reticulated giraffe browsing on acacia trees, one them ran across the road blocking us for a few minutes.

Visitors who come here for conservation tourism see more than this. There is something about Lewa that seems a magnet for naturalists, soldiers, monarchs and some of the world’s billionaires.

Before their marriage, Prince William and Kate Middleton chose the remote Il Ngwesi Masai eco-lodge located in the north west of Lewa at the foot of the Mukogodo Hills, frequently cited as the best eco-lodge in Africa, as one of their October hideaways.

At Lewa you may meet former British army chief General Sir Mike Jackson, the naturalist and filmmaker Simon King or Russian billionaire Roman Abromovich.

“We guarantee confidentiality for our visitors. This privacy appeals to some of the world’s most famous people from Hollywood stars, monarchs to billionaires."

The cheapest accommodation goes for $650 a day plus a mandatory $90 charged every day as conservation fees.

Lewa is a controlled high-end tourism system; you only access it using vehicles of only a certain colour. Meals are served when you want them and in each month a lodge cannot exceed a certain number of beds occupancies.

Lewa Conservancy has five lodges whose profits are ploughed back to the community. They are Wilderness Trails, Lewa House, Lewa Safari Camp, Kifaru House and Sirikoi Lodge.

Unique approach

Lewa’s approach to tourism is unique; they practise conservation tourism, which basically means that conservation of species and their habitat takes precedence, and the tourism practises on the Conservancy are engineered to ensure minimal interference with wildlife.

There are only a few people who live within Lewa conservancy and along its borders. They include the Ngare Ndare community that lives in a fenced area, senior staff and the Craig, Allan Root, Anna Merz who has a house but does not live there, former Safaricom CEO Michael Joseph and conservationist Susannah Rouse.

Within a short time, you can come across 70 mammal species including the sitatunga, the big five (lion, leopards, elephant, rhino and African buffalo), cheetahs, aardvark, hartebeest, hippo, hyena, colobus monkey, wild dog and plain zebra.

There are also various species of bats, primates and antelopes. You can also watch more than 350 species of bird including the Somali Ostrich, the Kori Bustard and the breathtaking Lilac Breasted Roller.

Although Lewa has played a crucial role in Kenya’s conservation efforts and through its efforts wild animals have been introduced to other regions where their populations had disappeared, it still faces a number of challenges. One of them is the renewed increase in poaching some animals.

Until 2009, Lewa had no recorded cases of poaching since it was formed in 1995.

“In 2009 poachers shot two rhinos in Ngare Ndare area. They came again in 2010 and this year but we have managed to arrest some of them,” Mr Pameri explains.

This year, Lewa mourned the death of possibly the most famous family of cheetahs in the world. Known as the “ three brothers,” the illustrious 13-year reign of the cheetahs immortalised in documentaries, written articles and photographs, ended on April 30 when a surveillance officer found the carcass of the last surviving cheetah.