I thought I would tell you a bit more about the news story that has been on the internet and in a lot of the newspapers worldwide recently. The story is about the crisis in lion numbers, especially around Amboseli National Park, near where the Lion Guardians program is located.
It explains that big cats are declining at an alarming rate and may even be extinct in the region within a few years. There may be less than a hundred lions in the area. The main cause of their drastic decline is that the lions have been hunted by the Maasai because of the conflict between the lions and their cattle.
The story talks about the Lion Guardians program and how we employ Maasai murrans, who used to hunt lions themselves, but are now helping to conserve them. The Guardians track collared lions, and warn herders if they are grazing their livestock in an area close to where a lion has been spotted.
They also help herders make their bomas stronger so that predators find it harder to get in, and help them to find lost livestock, as well as educating their communities about how important it is to have carvnivores around. One of their main and most important tasks is to persuade their contemporaries not to hunt lions.
The National Geographic has started a new fund to raise money for big cats, which we hope will help conserve lions in the area. But the Lion Guardians also need your donations to allow us to continue with our important work with the local community.
Dear Antony,
I’d like to extend an invitation/FYI to you to & your friends/co-lion-guardians to participate this coming Wednesday at 7 pm, your time, in an international prayer called Wave 1. I donâ??t know what your spiritual practice is, and it doesn’t matter at all — the idea is to create a wave of intentional healing that will vibrate around the planet, focusing on bringing peace and sustainability to all living beings. I am beginning to believe more and more, perhaps out of desperation, in the healing power of group intention, especially when it is at the global level (for more information on this event see Wave 1: http://www.actonwisdom.com/wave1/.
Please let me know if you are interested in participating in this event. Our group in Tucson, Arizona, will be chanting songs and mantras from various traditions all over the world. If you are interested in taking a moment to pray or meditate or dance or eat delicious food or anything you like for happiness and peace to all, and even better, if you do so with friends, please please do so, and please tell all your friends about it, especially your fellow workers at Wildlife Direct. If you are interested in doing something, please let me know and we will put you on our world map!
Thanks so much! Let me know if you have any questions or comments.
Whatever you decide, I will be holding the heroes of WD, including the lion guardians (and the lions you guard) in my heart.
Peace,
Nancy
P.S. I enthusiastically invite anyone having read the previous message to join us, 7 p.m. your time, Wednesday June 18, in a prayer for peace, love and light to all beings.
thanks for all your update! thank god for the national geo which has been doing a lot of good work for wildlife as well for people. Let’s hope the much needed money will come to the lionguardians and to the mara too.
i thought there was no lion left at the amboseli national park due to the hunting of lions. and i know the nairobi national park where there were over forty lions; but now barely ten or twelve. problems are all the same and that is due to conflict with livestock. i have to feel so sorry for the lions at the nairobi national park there because that park is surrounded by people and their livestock. therefore the ancient migrantion of prey animals now no more. if i were a meat eater and i saw no prey that i could kill to eat, i would have to kill what i see. and that would be goat or cattle.
i sure wish all governments and our officials take more care and foresight on all policies making and planning on all human development. thus people will be taken care of so that they will have a place to call home without intruding onto the wild.
Dear Nancy,
Thanks very much for your invitation and definitely we will join you for prayer and meditation. I have three friends at camp right now and we are going to have special meal and sing.
Sorry i had been out in the field and I could not reply in time. I think it has been a coincidence that i got some meat and we will roast our Maasai way for special occasions.
We very much appreciate the essence of prayer, especially from the experience we had here in Kenya a few months ago (the violence), that almost teared kenya apart.
Dear Antony,
I receive your reply w/ tears of joy and gratitude. It’s several hours from 7 pm here as I write this but I imagine the wave of prayer coming from your part of the globe. Kenya is very much in my heart. Peace for all in Africa.
Blessings, Nancy
p.s. I’m deeply sorry to hear about the lion being speared.