Mara Elephant Project

For over a decade Mara Elephant Project (MEP) has been protecting elephants and their habitats across the Greater Mara Ecosystem (GME). The GME, an extension of the vast Serengeti ecosystem, is Kenyas most important wildlife area and tourism asset. The Mara-Serengeti Ecosystem is one of the last major wildlife refuges on Earth. Most famous for its annual migration of nearly two million wildebeest and zebra, the ecosystem is also home to an estimated 40% of Africas large mammals. Historically, people and wildlife peacefully co-existed when space for both did not overlap; however, as the human footprint has expanded, so has livestock and farming, pushing wild animals into smaller spaces. Elephants are a keystone species to this ecosystem and when poaching emerged as the number one threat in 2012 (96 elephants that year alone were killed for their ivory) MEP took action to successfully combat this global threat. Today, the drastic expansion of the human footprint in the region is causi...