Location:
The reserve is approximately 33 km South of Mombasa, in Kwale district of Coast Province.

The Place:
Shimba Hills National Reserve, just 74 square miles in size, is an ecosystem unlike any other in Kenya. It is a mix of coastal rainforest, thick woodlands and lush, open grasslands, making it one of Kenya’s foremost reserves for plant biodiversity. With over half of the 159 rare plants in the country, the reserve is home to several exceptionally rare and astonishingly beautiful species of cycad and orchid. Thanks to this botanical richness, the reserve is also a nationally treasured site for birds and butterflies. The myriad of wild
animals found in the reserve include: leopards, Masai giraffes, zebras, antelopes, ostriches, lions, warthogs, monkeys and rare Sable antelopes,

for whom Shimba Hills is the only home in East Africa. The reserve’s most famous inhabitants, though, are its elephants, who pass freely between Shimba Hills and the stunning Mwaluganje elephant sanctuary. The sanctuary, which is characterized by rolling hills, steep ridges, cliffs and winding water shades, is home to over 150 elephants.

Climate:
The climate is hot and moist but is cooler than the coast, with strong sea breezes and frequent mist and cloud in the early morning. Annual rainfall is 855mm-1682mm, with the mean annual temperatures around 24.2ºC.

The project: The main goal of the project is to promote integrated ecosystem management and conservation work between the KWS and the local community. Volunteers will thus divide their time between conducting elephant research in Shimba Hills with the top KWS scientist in the area, Dr. Moses Litoro, and working with the local community who run the adjacent elephant sanctuary as an eco-tourism attraction.

An unprecedented success in Kenya, this venture has become a model of how to reconcile land use between conflicting elephant and human populations and how to create a peaceful and mutually beneficial coexistence for them. Volunteers on this project will have the chance to track elephants, participate in community outreach, plant saplings in a community-run tree nursery and even work in a new elephant dung papermaking facility!