December 10, 2009 | Read Time: 2 minutes
Once a week, in a remote part of southern Kenya, a few Maasai tribesmen take a break from their work in the bush to fire up a solar-powered laptop and start blogging.
The men are known as the “Lion Guardians.”
For the past two years they have been chronicling their attempts to save Kenya’s dwindling lion population from hunters — and using their blog to raise money for those efforts.
The men broke with tribal tradition by refusing to participate in a lion-killing ritual that often ushers in adulthood. Now they spend their days tracking lions, helping to keep cattle safe, and encouraging people who have lost cattle not to kill the cats in retaliation.
So far, they have saved 50 lions and raised more than $24,000.
Telling Stories
The Lion Guardians’ blog is the most successful of about 80 that are supported by WildlifeDirect, a nonprofit group started in 2004 to raise awareness for local conservation efforts in Africa.
The charity does that primarily by identifying local conservationists on the continent and teaching them to tell their stories on blogs. In two years, the blogs have raised more than $1-million.
Paula Kahumbu, the group’s executive director, says that many bloggers are uncomfortable asking for money at first. WildlifeDirect assists by running, alongside the text on each blog, a list of specific ways that donors can help. Fifty dollars pays a conservationist’s monthly salary, $150 buys a digital camera, and $100 rents a classroom.
Most of the projects her charity supports are not registered in the United States, so it collects the money and gives it to the local groups.
WildlifeDirect is looking for other ways to raise money for the projects, such as running advertising from companies that want to reach the blogs’ Africa-savvy readers. Ms. Kahumbu has also started publicizing the blogs on Facebook and Twitter, and is encouraging the conservationists to create their own Facebook profiles. The charity’s operating costs are supported largely by foundations.
The blogs’ readership has grown to 90,000, and readers’ gifts average $46. But the blogs’ popularity hasn’t been enough to overcome the recession. Giving has dropped between 50 and 70 percent.
Recruiting new bloggers has also become more difficult as the economic situation has squeezed local conservationists for time. “There’s really a sense of hopelessness,” says Ms. Kahumbu. “We’ve seen conservation organizations completely blink out.”
