The Mount Elgon Foundation raises awareness and funds to supports the Elephant Project (MEEP), which was was launched in May 2017 to ensure the survival of Mount Elgon’s elephants by finding ways to mitigate human-elephant conflict and, ultimately, is seeking UNESCO World Heritage Site status for the whole transboundary catchment area of Mount Elgon, spanning both the Kenyan and Ugandan sides of the mountain.

The MEEP team includes four full-time locally recruited scouts trained in modern “CyberTracker and SMART (Spatial Monitoring and Reporting Tool)” data collection technology. They are doing detailed mapping work to gather information on the caves, the routes used by the elephants, the sites of human-elephant conflict, the areas of deforestation and the local community (many of whom have lived around the elephants for generations). This will inform land-use recommendations with the aim of alleviating human-elephant conflict.

In April 2022, we were offered real tangible help for the scouts. Two Cardiff based companies generously agreed to provide boots and wet weather clothing for them. We needed to get measurements; this took a couple of weeks. Our donors set to work, and the items were soon ready to ship. After lots of wrangling over the logistics of shipping 40Kg of kit 4,000 miles to Mount Elgon, the scouts were delighted to receive the new wet weather kit kindly donated by the two South Wales companies. We would like to acknowledge the significant help and generosity provided by these two supporters of the Mount Elgon Foundation: The clothing was kindly donated by Jottnar Limited - Mountain Clothing & Technical Outdoor Wear | Jöttnar UK (jottnar.com) – an online company specialising in outdoor clothing.

The Boots and Logistic Solutions were kindly donated to us by BCB International Limited - https://www.bcbin.com – a company who has spent the last 160 years developing life-saving equipment for use worldwide.

Project management and technical support are provided by a team of experienced wildlife conservation professionals. MEEP already benefits the local community and aims to do so more in the future by seeking to preserve the environment, reduce human-elephant conflict, employ local people in an area where there are few employment opportunities and create further alternative livelihoods in an environmentally compatible way.

MEEP is a project of the East African Wild Life Society, working in collaboration with key partners on the ground – the National Museums of Kenya, Kenya Wildlife Service and Kenya Forest Service. The project’s other key partners are its funding partners and MEEP thanks them for their generous support.