Video

Adapting to the situation: Elephants in the tree nursery

This sounds like the title of a children’s book, but it has actually been a significant problem for our Kenya team. Our Ol Mariko nursery in Kenya is located on the path of an “elephant highway”, and elephants have tended to tromp through our planting beds, flattening the seedlings. Our first step was to put a fence around the nursery. However, we came to learn that elephants like to eat cement, and they would pull out the fence posts to eat the cement securing the posts. So our team took a number of additional steps to deter the elephants, including digging trenches, soaking the fence posts in motor oil, and hanging dried tobacco leaves. Watch this short video below to see how Kenya reforestation team shifts their techniques to adapt to the situation, as challenges arise.

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