Elerai Camp is located in a quiet, unspoilt, unique setting on a 5000 acre private conservation area 10km’s south east of Amboseli National Park on the foot of Africa’s largest mountain, Mt Kilimanjaro. Our land is leased from the local Elerai Maasai community and together we help protect this land from poachers, charcoal burners and encroachment from agriculture and development.
The Elerai conservation area sits in an AWF (African Wildlife Foundation) identified critical wildlife corridor named the Kitenden Corridor which links the Kilimanjaro Forest Reserve in Tanzania to Amboseli National Park and beyond. These areas include a rich variety of ecosystems from the semi-arid savanna to wetlands and is home to a diverse collection of flora and fauna.
AWF believes that “loss and fragmentation of habitat is the single largest treat to most African wildilfe”.
Like wildlife everywhere, the wildlife of Africa needs vast open landscapes to live, move, propagate. Isolated islands of protected land will not suffice to ensure that wildlife survives and thrives. Successful conservation efforts look beyond human borders to balance the needs of wildlife and people at the landscape level.
One of the great problems facing wildlife in Africa is the increasing isolation of viable wildlife habitat. As the human population grows and converts land into agriculture, National Park’s and Reserves are becoming more and more like isolated islands. One of AWF’s priorities is to maintain and restore landscape connectivity.
The Elerai Camp Community and Wildlife Trust was started by Elerai Camp Lodge and it’s parent company Southern Cross Safaris in association with the local Elerai Maasai council and community.
Through the Trust and with the help of kind donations and continued support by AWF we hope to increase the conservation area through additional lease agreements so that the Maasai can be a part of long term wildlife protection efforts.
