Moses Lorewa is Head of Data Collection as part of the 85 Wildlife Works rangers that patrol our Kasigau Corridor REDD+ project in southeastern Kenya.
He is the eldest child in a pastoral family of seven children, from central Kenya. Upon finishing school in 2004, Moses worked in construction for a few years to make ends meet but knew this wasn’t his calling. He first came to the Tsavo ecosystem in 2007 to work as a scout for Southern Cross Eco Safaris who ran Gala Rock Camp, an old lodge within the Wildlife Works project area. Although Moses didn’t have any experience of working in the bush, he had grown up surrounded by livestock so he had the mind for working with animals.
Meet Moses!
Through his job at Gala, Moses gained extensive knowledge of the land and wildlife within the Wildlife Works project area, and even worked alongside some of our rangers, as he used to be part of the anti-poaching patrolling team. A few years later, in 2010, Wildlife Works was expanding our ranger team – Moses jumped at the opportunity.
Today, Moses is Head of Data Collection for the ranger team. Within each of our seven ranger camps across the project area, one ranger is responsible for collecting data every day on the wildlife, the land and any incidents within their designated zone. It is Moses job to collect and collate all the data at the end of every month and pass along the information to the Wildlife Works Biodiversity Team. This data includes information such as elephants, lions or birds seen, poaching snares found, or incidences of deforestation for charcoal production.
Here is Moses on the job, helping out at a community event
Moses says one of his favorite parts of his job is working together with the community, although this is also one of the most challenging aspects. He says that getting to the level of understanding about the importance of animals and trees and how to benefit from them takes a long time. An essential element of being a Wildlife Works ranger is to create awareness within local communities, but not create animosity. Moses comments that, “it’s challenging to create awareness and also sympathize about why people need to poach or produce charcoal. These people might be my neighbors and could go behind my back.”
It is thanks to the hard work of our rangers like Moses that Wildlife Works is able to protect the forests and wildlife of our project area.
Moses was one of the rangers present on the fateful date that our team was attacked by armed poachers. When we sat down to speak with him about his role at Wildlife Works, Moses recounted his memory of the incident which he had actually just written about in his personal diary.
Nearly five years ago, poachers opened fire on our unarmed conservation rangers who were patrolling Rucking Wildlife Sanctuary killing one and critically injuring another.
Moses recalls, “it was a time when poaching was really high, and Somalis were killing lots of elephants here. My team was out in the bush and we came across two footprints in the dirt, and tracked them from morning till 4 pm. We were really tired so stopped to take a break.”
Moses said things happened very quickly. “We heard gunshots. I found myself on the ground. Are we shot, I thought? I was really confused.” The Wildlife Works ranger team had tracked the poachers so well that they’d come across them very unexpectedly and they’d opened fire.
Luckily, our team had Kenya Wildlife Service rangers with them at the time – they are armed and authorised to shoot in situations like this – who fired at the poachers to scare them away.
Two of our men were shot that day; Moses was the third man in line, so feels like he was saved. He said this experience, very early on in his time at Wildlife Works, made him emotionally invested in his job here. “Working with armed poachers needs a lot of courage.”
Since this incident, Wildlife Works has reviewed and revised how our rangers track poachers, ensuring that the safety of our men and women is put first. It it due to their heroic commitment that we are able to keep the wildlife safe from the threats of poaching.
Read more about this incident here.
