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THE HISTORY

During the not so distant past, huge herds of elephants roamed far and wide throughout Kwale District, in the Coastal Province of Kenya. However, the insatiable greed for ivory and elephant hair, which is prevalent still today, virtually annihilated this population in the 1980s. A small number of elephants found refuge from poachers in the forests of Shimba Hills and Mwaluganje Hill, and it is only in recent times that these elephants have been able to recover and re-occupy former areas of their range. history Sadly, this population growth has caused high incidences of human-elephant conflict in the region as elephants and people attempt to cohabitate the land. From around 1986, incidences of conflict causing injury and death to people and elephants were increasing, and it became apparent that a solution to this pressing problem needed to be found.