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I received a batch of photographs from Sammy Bakari last night, showing some of the new rugs being made at the Friends of Kinangop Plateau-run Njabini Woolshop. The woolshop (as regular readers hopefully know by now) is an integral part of a community-based project that 10,000 Birds supports that is trying to halt the conversion [...]

Sammy Bakari mailed me recently with new photographs of the products being made at the Friends of Kingangop Plateau-managed Njabini Woolshop. Njabini is, as regular readers may know, a community-based weaving and dyeing woolshop which employs and trains local people and uses locally sourced wool thereby providing local farmers an incentive to keep sheep rather [...]

I’m happy to say that our involvement with the Friends of Kinangop Plateau (FoKP), the Kinangop Grasslands, and the Endangered Sharpe’s Longclaw is continual and ongoing (for those new readers who know nothing about this particular involvement have a quick look at the ‘gateway page’ we’ve created for to get the full story). Much of [...]

In June 2008 I was fortunate to photograph an endangered Kenyan endemic, the beautiful Sharpe’s Longclaw Macronyx sharpei, a pipit-like species confined entirely to the rapidly disappearing tussock grasslands of the Kinangop Plateau, an hour’s drive from the Kenyan capital, Nairobi. I had absolutely no idea then quite how involved I was about to get [...]

Our Sharpe’s Longclaw project and our support for the Friends of Kinangop Plateau - and in particular the inspirational Dominic Kimani - has been quietly ticking along over the summer, and there’s some more good news to report.
 
Firstly, the brochure that I first ‘pitched’ to FoKP some months ago has finally made its way through [...]

As regular readers (and hopefully some irregular readers as well) will know, 10,000 Birds is supporting conservation of the Endangered Sharpe’s Longclaw in Kenya’s Kinangop Highlands. And ’supporting’ is the key word here: as we’ve said many times before we’re not scientists or researchers and are not remotely qualified to be doing work ‘on the [...]

Back in June 2008 when I first posted about the Endangered Sharpe’s Longclaw - which is endemic to the grasslands of the Kinangop Plateau near Nairobi - I had no idea at all just what the year would bring in terms of our (10,000 Birds) developing relationship with the local community and especially with a [...]

Back in June 2008 when I first posted about the Endangered Sharpe’s Longclaw - which is endemic to the grasslands of the Kinangop Plateau near Nairobi - I had no idea at all just what the year would bring in terms of our (10,000 Birds) developing relationship with the local community and especially with a [...]

I may well be the only person who ‘gets’ the referral to the old Squeeze hit song ‘Labelled with Love’, but it seems an apt way to spread the news that the labels we and Luca Borghesio (the Italian researcher who we’re most closely working with) designed to attach to the woollen products made by [...]

As part of The Small African Fellowship for Conservation that 10,000 Birds readers generously helped provide him, Dominic Kimani provides reports every three months on the work he is doing on Kenya’s Kinangop Plateau to help conserve the Endangered Sharpe’s Longclaw. These reports got to the National Museums of Kenya which oversee his work and [...]

The progress being made by the wool-spinners at the inspirational Njabini Woolshop, a community-led conservation initiative run by the Friends of Kinangop Plateau (Kenya) and supported by a coalition of groups and individuals including - of course - 10,000 Birds, carries on apace.

Samuel Bakari, one of the people most heavily involved with the woolshop (and [...]

It’s a happy situation to be in I suppose, but all three of us here at 10,000 Birds are really struggling to keep up with all the posts we want to write (darn those day-jobs which pay the bills, eh). Mike and Corey have just spent a fantastic week in Guatemala and Honduras respectively and [...]

Yesterday I wrote what was intended to be a short post about a visit I made last month to the Mugumoini Primary School in Kinangop with Dominic Kimani and James Wainaina. Typically I became more enthused the more I reminisced, and finally ran right out of time before I’d been able to post a series [...]

In a post a few days ago I tried to explain in more detail the direction our Sharpe’s Longclaw/Kinangop Grasslands campaign was heading, and highlight what the impact was of posting photos of communities that wouldn’t under everyday circumstances see themselves on the internet. I put online photographs of the members of the monitoring team [...]

It’s taken me quite a while to organise my thoughts after last week’s return visit to Nairobi and the Kinangop grasslands with Dominic Kamau Kimani (recipient of our Small African Fellowship for Conservation funding for the work he does protecting the globally Endangered Sharpe’s Longclaw Macronyx sharpei).

The day was packed, the flights either side [...]

The bloggers of the 10,000 Birds team are or have been on their travels this week, and as I’m first back - from another amazing day in Nairobi with Dominic and the Friends of Kinangop Plateau - and Mike and Corey don’t have internet access (though Mike has somehow managed to get connected long enough [...]

Native Kinangop Grasslands…

….lost to potato cultivation

 
The Kinangop Plateau, home to the endemic Sharpe’s Longclaw and numerous other endemic forms of fauna and flora, is rapidly being converted from native tussock-grass dominated grasslands to sub-divided agricultural plots where - in particular - potatoes and cabbages are grown.

Prior to the early 1960s most of the land on [...]

The monitoring team identifying the birds they are seeing using an excellent but extremely large ‘Birds of Kenya and Northern Tanzania’ Helm Guide.
 

From left to right: Dominic Kimani, James Waweru, Jack and Joakim Kiiru, James Wainaina, Kiboi Muthee and Njoroge Githuki.
 

Son and proud father, Jack and Joakim Kiiru
 

James Waweru
 

Kiboi Muthee
 

Njoroge Githuki

 
All photos copyright Charlie Moores [...]

A Three Month Report on Environmental Education in Kinangop.
October –December 2008.
By
Dominic Kimani.
Zoology Department, Ornithology Department, National Museums of Kenya.
 
Charlie’s Visit to Kinangop.

The month of October 2008 was jubilation as Charlie Moores visited Kinangop, to officially launch the School outreach Project. Charlie started by visiting our Head office in Nairobi National Museums. He was received by [...]

“That season” is fast approaching again - you know, the one with the pine trees and the reindeer, the jolly chap with the beard (no, not your dipso uncle Harold, the other chap) - and 10,000 Birds is getting in the mood by asking you to give AND to receive…and help us take the next [...]