TUSK AWARD FOR CONSERVATION IN AFRICA FINALIST 2018
Dickson Kaelo
Kenya
Dickson Kaelo’s passion is working with communities and landowners to conserve and benefit from wildlife conservation.
He leads the Kenya Wildlife Conservancies Association (KWCA), a national umbrella body, dedicated to uniting the dynamic and diverse voices of wildlife conservancies in the country. KWCA’s mission is to work with landowners and communities to sustainably conserve and manage wildlife and their habitat outside formal protected areas for the benefit of the people of Kenya.
More than 100 conservancies are members of the organisation. Occupying a total of approximately 6.46 million hectares of wildlife conservation land across the country, through their membership the conservancies directly impact over 700,000 households
KWCA has produced a series of conservation tools to support conservancy growth and harmonise management of conservancies. Dickson’s leadership has encouraged and facilitated networking among conservancy stakeholders in the country to share insights and best practices. To this end, KWCA has launched a number of forums including the Conservancy Managers’ Conference and the National Rangers Meeting.
Caring about our environment and the wildlife is caring about our future generations, this we must guard selfishly as this is what God expects, it is our responsibility to our children.
Beyond KWCA, Dickson is a leader and mentor for Kenyan conservation, giving tirelessly of his time to the governance of other organisations and mentoring rising conservation leaders in Kenya. He is an Honorary Warden for the Kenya Wildlife Service and has co-authored various articles and book chapters on community natural resource management and has been a speaker in local and international conservation science conferences.
Inspired by Dickson’s story? Read another extraordinary story.
(L-R) Tusk Conservation Award Nominees Force Ngwira, Dickson Kaelo, Vincent Opyene, Julius Obwona and Pete Morkel attend the Tusk Conservation Awards 2018 in partnership with Investec Asset Management at Banqueting House on November 08, 2018 in London, England. (Photo by Stuart C. Wilson/Getty Images for Tusk Trust)
