The Conservation Enterprise Programme is designed to build, facilitate, co-ordinate and promote the development of nature based enterprises that are environmentally, socially and economically sustainable amongst rural and pastoralist communities in Laikipia County. Our historical emphasis has been on beekeeping, aloe products and some seed oils; but beekeeping has always been our primary activity.
Conservation Enterprise Programme
The programme creates opportunities for all community members, but particularly for women and the less advantaged. They have a strong role to play in nature based enterprise activities based on wild collections. We help these groups form and organize around beekeeping products, and then link these producer groups to the market, working with groups and the market to get better prices for raw and value-added products. The collective commercialization of the enterprises gives rise to community ownership, accountability and benefit sharing, which LF emphasizes.
Main activities:
- Extension services in support of beekeeping, to improve the quality and quantity of honey and hive health.
- Honey processing and sales.
- Market linkages that support conservation and sustainable/organic community enterprise.
- Producer group capacity building in good governance.
By creating a direct link between the conservation of natural resources and ethically based commercial enterprise, the Programme contributes to a vibrant, indigenous habitat. We aim to stabilize and reverse the trend of environmental degradation in the Laikipia County and its environs through enterprises that promote nature conservation.
Our Future? – The Programme aims to provide the platform to establish ethical partnerships with commercial entrepreneurs and assist with the tangible and viable development of individual and community owned small and medium rural businesses.