Equipping New KWS Rangers with Essential Training Supplies and Transport

Rangers are critical for conserving wildlife across Kenya’s national parks, serving as the frontline defense against poaching, habitat destruction, and human-wildlife conflict.

All rangers in Kenya train at and graduate from Manyani, the ranger training school of Kenya Wildlife Services, roughly 300 km southeast of Nairobi. In recent years, financial constraints have limited ranger recruitment and training. In order to help prepare 2024’s graduating class of rangers for success, Sheldrick Wildlife Trust—which has been working alongside KWS on the front lines of conservation for more than two decades—recognized a deficit in key training equipment and vehicles. They turned to Chantecaille Conservation Foundation for support. CCF moved swiftly to purchase:

 Impact Overview:

• 20 Land Cruiser vehicles with custom modifications (from the UAE, Japan and Gibraltar)

• 1 Isuzu Transport Truck

• 50 4-man tents

• 200 bed rolls

• 200 chairs

• 50 folding tables 

Tents and equipment cost: USD $131,431

Total expenditure on vehicles: USD $1,505,756

Total: USD $1,637,187

Such support means that the KWS’s new recruits can further enhance their capabilities as versatile, bush-ready rangers. Equipped with their new skills and knowledge, these rangers will also be valuable assets to our conservation work in the Tsavo Conservation Area, Kenya's largest protected ecosystem, in the Great Amboseli region—helping the KWS, SWT and other NGOs tackle poaching, snaring, population monitoring, human-wildlife conflict, and serving as an important investment in the future of Kenya’s wildlife and wild spaces.