Help us to raise money on the Mount Kenya Three Peaks climb to support the six men and nine Ethiopian horses are based at Kisima Farm, Timau on the edge of Mount Kenya forest. We need support to pay salaries, rations and maintenance costs for the stables and living accommodations.

Rangers put their lives on the line to protect wildlife and biodiversity.

The Horse Patrol Team (HPT) protect the wildlife, forest and people in the northern region of Mount Kenya National Park and Reserve, Central Kenya. Set up in 2012, the team works to prevent the destruction of wildlife habitat along with direct elephant targeting for poaching. It is the only community mounted ranger team in Kenya.

Since the team were set up, the number of illegal incidents (logging, human shelters, grazing, snaring) rose and peaked in 2014 which has now started to reduce. Between 2014 and 2015, the number of illegal activities including logging, grazing, human shelters and injured animals fell by over 50 per cent (168 to 81 incidents).

Human shelters discovered reduced from 20 to 5 (three-quarters) with a reduction of injured animals seen by 67 per cent. Increasing number of wildlife are also noted with a doubling of wildlife sightings such as elephants, bushbuck and zebra over the time period (530 to 1185 sightings).

The HPT protect habitats, collect data, monitor and deter human-elephant conflict and implement mitigation measures.

Loss of secure habitat, decreasing rangelands and increasing human-elephant conflict (HEC) are all issues that threaten the long term survival of the species. Kenya has only three per cent forest cover remaining but may harbor up to 23 percent of the country’s total elephant populations (Vanleeuwe, 2016). Elephants, along with other wildlife, continues to disperse and migrate out of the mountain area with the only one safe passageway that links the landscapes of Mount Kenya.