04/07/2025
It has been an amazing and proud moment for the Nashulai Maasai Conservancy to win an award from The Rights and Resources Initiative ( RRI ) here in Kathmandu, Nepal.
Nashulai was selected alongside its other winners as the only African organization to be feted out of 190 applicants from around the globe. The other two winners were from Indonesia and Brazil.
Nashulai Conservancy embodies the values of Indigenous people and communities in our region and globally; therefore, this award brings pride to Indigenous people everywhere!
Nashulai means “we coexist,” a place where communities, livestock, and wildlife live harmoniously for mutual benefit.
We pay Indigenous care costs to our conservancy members for co-management and regeneration of the commons, such as removing fences and opening up wildlife corridors.
The community benefits from sustainable tourism, women—and youth-led livelihood diversification projects, girls' education, and our stories cafe, where the elders transfer Indigenous ways of knowing to the youth.
We also established the Nashulai Institute, which trains a new generation of Maasai leaders on climate change and sustainability!
We stand for an independent voice as a conservancy representing the Maasai population, in contrast to outsider-owned, tourism-conservation models and lobbying driven by economic and tourist interests. Indigenous communities initiated, co-designed, and stewarded our unique governance model.
Nashulai is recognised by world-leading organisations such as the UNDP and others, having won the UNDP/ EQUATOR PRIZE in 2020. Our unique model has been a proof of concept and possibility in fostering biodiversity regeneration while alleviating poverty.
This award by RRI is a welcome opportunity that adds more arrows to our quiver as we push back against an extractive tourism industry and other developers who use immense capital resources to displace our indigenous community from their land, with a threat of turning them into conservation refugees.
Our strategic vision and commitment are to scale up our indigenous-led conservation model across Kenya and work with other indigenous communities worldwide.
We accept it not as individuals, but as the voice of a people who have come together to reclaim our future—to live in harmony with nature, with each other, and with the legacy of our ancestors.
This recognition from the Rights & Resources Institute is more than a trophy on a shelf—it is a powerful affirmation of our belief that communities, when empowered and trusted, hold the key to conserving our planet’s most precious resources.
Nashulai was born from a dream: a dream that we, the Maasai people, could protect our wildlife, preserve our culture, and reverse poverty on our land through a model that values coexistence over competition.
Our relationship to our lands is sacred because it is infused and informed by our knowledge of the inheritance we have been given by our ancestors, by the knowledge and wisdom traditions that they developed from their life on this land, by our gratitude for the land and the life that our creator created.
We conserve wildlife, not by fencing it away, but by re-weaving the ancient relationships between people, animals, and the land. We preserve culture, not by looking backwards, but by honoring and adapting our traditions to serve today’s needs. And we reverse poverty, not through dependency, but through dignity—by ensuring that our people benefit directly from the stewardship of their natural heritage.
When the COVID-19 crisis struck, this very model carried us through. Tourism stopped. The world shut down. But we didn’t wait. Nashulai became a lifeline: distributing food, delivering health education, reviving indigenous medicinal knowledge, and helping families grow food through small gardens. Our elders guided us. Our youth led the way. And our women—our mothers, our sisters—held the community together with strength and grace.
This award is not just a recognition of what Nashulai has done—it is a call to action for what more we can all do.
We believe indigenous and local communities are not just beneficiaries of conservation—they are its rightful leaders. We can regenerate ecosystems and lives by rooting conservation in cultural identity and economic justice.
We dedicate this award to our country, Kenya, and the African continent, as well as to all the guardians of the other indigenous people and local communities!
We also dedicate the award to the warriors, mothers, and children of Nashulai. And to every community fighting to reclaim its land, voice, and future, this is for you.
Let us keep walking this path of sacred responsibility. Let us prove we can conserve, preserve, and uplift—not as separate missions, but as one powerful movement.
As we say in Nashulai, "Conserve wildlife, preserve culture, and reverse poverty."
Nashulai Maasai Conservancy is supported by Oldarpoi camp and other donors and friends on its sustainability pathway.
Thank you—Ashe Oleng.
