The WildiZe Africa Conservation Team

Evanson Kariuki, Field Programme Coordinator: Kenya

Evans was born and raised in Othaya, Nyeri district in central Kenya in the land between the Aberdare ranges and Mount Kenya. He attended Moi University, Eldoret where he graduated with a bachelor's degree in Government and Public Administration in 1997 and was among a group of students who started the Moi University Wildlife Club. After university, Evans teamed up with other alums of the Moi University Wildlife Club to form Youth for Conservation an indigenous conservation NGO which is active to date.

Evans has volunteered with many conservation organizations and interacted with many inspirational personalities as a conservationist. Early in his career, Evans was inspired by the work of Daphne Sheldrick of the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust where he volunteered to give public lectures to tourists and to school groups. Evans then started working fulltime for the Anne Kent Taylor Fund in 2001 as a programs officer leading community based conservation projects in the Mara ecosystem.

In 2008, Evans was nominated to attend the USFWS MENTOR fellowship program, a funded cooperative agreement from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS), the College of African Wildlife Management (CAWM) Mweka, Tanzania, and the Africa Biodiversity Collaborative Group (ABCG). This program was a unique academic and field-based professional development training program that engaged conservation practitioners and College faculty to collaboratively train a multidisciplinary team of working professionals while building a new training curriculum. The 2008-2009 MENTOR program invested in capacity building, training, and career development of eight promising conservation leaders from Kenya, Southern Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda to apply a team approach to address the illegal bushmeat trade in the region. Through this program, Evans earned a post graduate diploma in Wildlife management from the College of African Wildlife Management

Recently, Evans has been implementing grassroots solutions to the bushmeat crisis through the Bushmeat free Eastern Africa Network (BEAN) working with the department of Mammalogy of the National Museums of Kenya. The solutions are aimed at building the capacity of law enforcement stakeholders Magistrates, prosecutors, protected area authorities and community scouts as well as building the capacity of key community groups to adopt alternative livelihood initiatives that reduce pressure from bushmeat utilization. BEAN is an interdisciplinary and multi-institutional network consisting of stakeholders who work collaboratively to raise awareness, focus attention, share information, analyze, evaluate and report on trends, and leverage resources to build local partnerships to implement grassroots solutions that directly address bushmeat exploitation.

Currently, Evans is enrolled for a MA in environmental planning and management at the University of Nairobi, aiming to acquire knowledge and skills in order to understand and manage the highly complex, dynamic and often non-linear interactions between ecosystems, economic sectors and societies. Kenya has a natural resource based economy, and a significant population of this country relies on the health of the environment to survive. Evans believes that we are obligated to protect the environment so that it can continue sustaining our basic needs, our livelihoods and the national economy
For his own conservation contribution Evans has received a service excellence award from the AK Taylor Fund in recognition of outstanding service, bravery, leadership, team spirit and dedication to the people and animals of Maasai Mara. The scout groups in the Mara ecosystem owe much of their success to the solid ground work Evans laid as the team leader. Evans has also been involved in de-snaring campaigns helping retrieve over 10,000 snares set to capture wildlife and in community outreach programs focusing on these items.

Evans aims to continue encouraging young people to take environmental conservation seriously by adopting lifestyles that are environmentally friendly such as avoiding pollution, and wasteful habits. He will be glad when young people realise the need to secure their future by protecting the environment today. To Evans, conservation is both a career and a hobby. The greatest gains he boasts of are the attainment of his conservation goals, including educating and positively changing the attitudes of thousands of people on the environment, thereby significantly contributing to the preservation of the natural habitats.

Evans recently joined Wildize Foundation and is looking forward to working hard to help the Foundation realise its objectives in Africa, bringing his 11 years work experience in wildlife conservation and community development to Wildlize. As a field programme coordinator at Wildize Foundation, Evanson is taking the lead in the development of an organizational strategic plan, appraising Wildize field programs in Kenya and making follow ups with key stone communities on priority projects and working with other stakeholders to address bushmeat challenges in Kenya.

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