Living With Lions in Samburu with Shivani Bhalla, Ep.105

When you imagine lions, you probably picture big prides sprawled across open savannas.

But in northern Kenya’s Samburu landscape, lions live a very different life, often alone, slipping quietly through a patchwork of people, livestock, and shrinking wild spaces. It is a hard place to be a lion… and an even harder place to protect them.

For nearly two decades, Shivani Bhalla, founder of Ewaso Lions, has been working alongside Samburu communities to understand and safeguard this uniquely challenging population of lions. What started as her desire to learn why lions were disappearing has grown into a powerful example of coexistence - one where warriors, women, and even young herders play a central role.

In this episode, we talk about the realities of living with lions, the deep cultural knowledge that makes conservation possible, the heartbreaks and wins that shape Shivani’s days, and the unexpected visitor who reminded us - mid-conversation - what coexistence looks like in real time.

Highlights

• Why do Samburu’s lions live so differently from the ones we see in documentaries?
• What made young warriors shift from hunting lions to protecting them?
• How did a group of local women convince Shivani that they could restore habitat better than anyone else?
• Who was Nana, the lioness whose story continues to shape an entire landscape?

What YOU Can Do

• Spend time in nature. Reconnecting with the natural world, even in small, everyday ways, builds empathy and a desire to protect it.
• Help others access nature. Support programs that give children and communities the chance to experience wildlife positively.
• Speak up for local green spaces and wildlife. Your voice can influence how your community values and protects nature.
• Support community-led conservation. Funding essentials like salaries, fuel, medical care, emergency response, and habitat work helps organizations like Ewaso Lions stay effective.
• Champion efforts grounded in local leadership. Programs created by the community, like Warrior Watch and Mama Simbas, are the ones with real staying power.

Resources

• Ewaso Lions 
• Instagram 
• YouTube 
• Facebook  

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Transcript

Crystal: Hey friends, if you're here, I'm going to assume that you're interested in environmental stories, and in that case, I wanna recommend that you go check out the Healthy Seas podcast. I host that show for a fantastic marine conservation organization called Healthy Seas. The guests are all about making waves around the world to protect our oceans.

Go dive in and take a listen.

I am Crystal DiMiceli and welcome to the Forces for Nature Show. Do you find yourself overwhelmed with all the doom and gloom you hear of these days? Do you feel like you as just one [00:00:45] person, can't really make a difference? Forces for nature cuts through that negativity. In each episode, I interview someone who is working to make the world more sustainable and humane.

Join me in learning from them and get empowered to take action so that you you too can become a force for nature.

When you picture lions, you probably imagine big prides resting under acacia trees or hunting across the savanna.
 But in northern Kenya’s Samburu landscape, lions live a very different life—often alone, moving quietly through a patchwork of people, livestock, and shrinking wild spaces.

It’s a hard place to be a lion… and an even harder place to protect them.

Yet that’s exactly what Shivani Bhalla set out to do when she founded Ewaso Lions nearly twenty years ago.
What began as one woman’s determination to understand why lions were disappearing has grown into an incredibly inspiring example of coexistence —where warriors, women, and even children are helping lions and people share the same land. It’s not all rainbows and unicorns as I like to say, and we get into that reality. But Shivani walks her talk in terms of coexistence that gets proven during this conversation with a special visitor she receives as we’re chatting. This is a story about what it really takes to live alongside wildlife. 

[00:00:00] Crystal: Hi Shivani. Thank you so much for joining me on Forces for Nature. It's so great to have you. 

[00:00:05] Shivani: Hi Crystal. Thanks so much for inviting me. It's really, really nice to be here.

[00:00:11] Crystal: I'm so excited to talk to you today about Lions because they are one of my favorite animals. can you take us back to when you realized you wanted to protect Lions? 

[00:00:26] Shivani: I will take you back quite a long way. [00:00:30] I, I was eight years old and I was very lucky.

My parents used to take me on safari a lot around Kenya, and I remember seeing a lot of lions and a lot of cheetahs and. One sighting never, ever left my mind. It actually wasn't off a lion though. It was off a cheetah. And what got me really excited about that cheetah sighting was that I spotted it. I was the first one to see it, and I got so excited, and I just thought they were the most amazing animals.

 And [00:01:00] funnily enough that 8-year-old me was right here in Samburu, in Northern Kenya. I never forgot that moment. And so for me, it was very much a childhood passion and dream of mine to be out protecting Kenya's wildlife. I felt it was a real duty and responsibility of mine, but it still wasn't quite lions until many years later.

It was very much cheetahs as I was growing up, I was very, very obsessed with cheetahs. And when I moved to Sambo in 2002. I [00:01:30] actually had started my master's degree and I wanted it to be on cheetahs.

And I remember driving around for months and months and just not finding any. But what I was finding were lions. And it got me really interested because these are not the same kind of lions I saw when I was growing up as a child. And what I mean by that is when I was a child, I would always see big prides of lions.

You, you see documentaries of lions, you see anything about lions, you picture a pride. And as a child, I got to see that. But here in [00:02:00] Samburu, I wasn't seeing prides of lions. I was seeing solitary lions or very, very small groups of lions.

And that got me really interested. So I quickly switched my master's topic from cheetahs to lions and never really looked back because. Everything. I started learning about Samburu's Lions got me so excited, so interested, and I just knew that there was so much more to know about this population in Northern Kenya.

[00:02:28] Crystal: Why weren't they in [00:02:30] big Prides? Were there just not enough of them? 

[00:02:34] Shivani: I was, I realized very quickly that Lions in Northern Kenya, well, I mean lions all over, not just here, but Lions in Africa were in huge trouble. There's only about 20,000 lions left. They lost about 90% of their range.

And here in Kenya, the last estimate was only about 2,500 lions, and I just felt it was such a small number. And at the time, no one really knew what the lion [00:03:00] population in Northern Kenya was. So. I started learning about it only to discover that this is a really hard area for lions. They struggle to survive.

There's not enough space for them, and the habitat's shrinking so quickly. And also most importantly, they really don't have enough food. There's not enough wild prey for lions. There's also a lot of people, there's a lot of livestock and lions are constantly finding small spaces just to hide in and [00:03:30] to feel safe in when they can come out at night hunt and go back in again and hide during the day.

We felt that the reason we had small groups of lions or solitary lions was because it was just all about survival. It's much easier to survive alone rather than surviving in a big pride. And most of our work is outside in community areas where there's a lot of people, a lot of livestock and lions.

What's amazing about Northern Kenya is that everyone [00:04:00] shares the same space, but for lions to be able to survive alongside people, , they were discovering it was best for them to be alone and just hiding in whatever small pockets they could find and whatever small prey they could find, they could survive of it.

Whereas a. Big pride of lions would really struggle to live off dic dics or warthogs. Whereas one lion living by itself actually can survive very well off dic dics and warthogs, which tend to be their main [00:04:30] prey. Warthogs tend to be their main prey. So for us it was just all about survival. The fact that they figured out the best way for them to survive is to be alone or in very small groups.

And this was fascinating. I was so interested in this back in the early days 'cause it was just not what I expected to see and it wasn't what I remember seeing as a child. And that got me interested and that got me learning much more about this Northern Kenya population. 

[00:04:57] Crystal: And when you founded EWaso [00:05:00] Lions, what was your original vision?

And and has that vision evolved as you've listened to the communities around you? 

[00:05:09] Shivani: Yeah, so I actually had no vision, crystal. I had no plan at all. I was utterly clueless. I, I came here with no idea of what I was gonna do, when I would do it, how I would do things. No vision, no plan. The thing that kept me here was why I was here.

And it was this sense of [00:05:30] duty and responsibility to understand northern Kenya's lion population because Kenya's lions are so important to us. They are on our coat of arms, they're on national animal. Yet here was a whole population in Northern Kenya that was unknown. And so that why is what kept me here.

The rest came together along the way when I was fortunate to meet our team right from the big, early days. Three amazing young men [00:06:00] from this community, Jereria, Jeremiah, and Francis. I met them in early 2008, and together the vision came clear together. We made the vision and it was a collective thing. And for me, that is what really made things work.

The fact that it wasn't me coming here saying, this is my vision. This is what we're gonna do and this is how we're gonna save all alliance. It wasn't that at all. It was me [00:06:30] coming here with this small team, figuring out what we were gonna do together to save Northern Kenya's lions and to really understand what are the threats and challenges they face, and how can we continue to see them in Northern Kenya.

 a lot of people used to ask me, well, did you come and teach people? Or did you come and help people? Or did you come and teach people how to coexist? It was nothing like that. Coexistence is not [00:07:00] new here in northern Kenya. Samura communities have coexisted with wildlife forever. It's generational. The challenges that the communities are finding it harder to coexist with wildlife because the threats and challenges are increasing.

There's new things coming along nowadays that were just not there many years ago. And so we felt our role as Ewaso Lions, right from the early days was how can we support the communities to continue to coexist? [00:07:30] What is that background support they need? And that's really how Ewaso Lions came together and how our mission came together, which is about promoting continued coexistence between people and wildlife.

[00:07:43] Crystal: I was actually under the impression that traditionally lions were hunted. And is that, am I incorrect in that or, or was it just only if they posed a problem? 

[00:07:56] Shivani: A long time ago, Samburu warriors would [00:08:00] show their strength and their power by killing lions, by tracking them, hunting them, and showing their strength that way.

That changed a long time ago. It eventually evolved to being warriors, going out to track lions, only if or when their livestock were killed. Now, this was understandable for the Samburu communities. Livestock is everything to them. It is their bank, it's their livelihood. It's who they are, it's how they survive.

And if one [00:08:30] person has just a couple of cows or camels and lions come along and kill them. Understandably, there's so much anger and resentment that the communities feel, and often they would go out and track and shoot the lions in retaliation. The way we addressed that was through a program called Warrior Watch, which was started by a young warrior himself, Jeneria.

So he started with, I know Jeneria Lions, you know Jeneria? Yeah. He's also a, a EWCLer. He's, and he, he was only 19 [00:09:00] years old when he started with EWaso Lions, but 

[00:09:02] Crystal: Oh, 

[00:09:02] Shivani: wow. At that young age, he was so wise and had so many ideas and he said to me, Shivani, if we wanna stop the killing of lions and protect lions and protect livestock, we've got to bring on board the young Warrior demographic.

And so it was Genea himself who came up with this program called Warrior Watch. He engaged his age group. To, instead of going out to Track Lion to kill them, instead he would take them out, work with them to [00:09:30] track them, to protect them. And the Warrior program. 

[00:09:32] Crystal: Can I, can I interrupt you for a second? Can you explain to the listener who might not be familiar with this, what is the warrior culture in Kenya that you're speaking of?

[00:09:44] Shivani: So, warriors are young men aged between 15 to 25 to 30, somewhere around then there. And these young men are generally in pastoralist societies. So they're very, they're, they're part of the Samburu [00:10:00] culture, their role in societies to protect livestock, protect villages, protect the community. So it's very much a security role, which is why when a lion comes along and kills your cow, the warriors are not very happy at all because it's their role and responsibility to keep livestock safe and alive.

And so we had to work with them to. Add on the narrative. And it's not just about keeping your livestock alive, but also Lions alive. And that's what the Warrior Watch program has been so [00:10:30] amazing at doing for all these years. 

[00:10:32] Crystal: Yeah. Like you were able to plug into,

[00:10:35] Shivani: just their traditional way of life we plugged into their 

[00:10:37] Crystal: Yeah.

[00:10:38] Shivani: Traditional way of life. Their, traditional practices. There's no one better at being able to spot a lion or track a lion than the, Samburu Warrior because they've grown up doing that. 

 They know exactly how to find them. And it's about working with those. Skills and that amazing traditional knowledge they have to conserve lions. And that's exactly [00:11:00] what the Warrior Watch program under Jeneria's leadership has done.

[00:11:03] Crystal: And in fact, a recent peer reviewed evaluation found measurable community attitude and tolerance towards lions shift positively.

Due to this program, if you had to distill one or two design choices that made Warrior Watch work and perhaps one thing that you would change, what would they be? Perhaps this is something that others can learn [00:11:30] from. 

[00:11:30] Shivani: I think what made Warrior Watch work and what it what makes it continue to work is the fact that the program was designed by a warrior himself.

The fact that it was Jeneria as a 19-year-old warrior who came to me and said, this is what's gonna work to save livestock and save lions, he. Understood and understands exactly what it's like to lose livestock to lions. He understands the pain the community go through. He understands how best to protect [00:12:00] livestock.

He also understands that lion perspective. So he brought all that together to create the Warrior program. For me, that was the number one thing that has made the Warrior Watch program work in all these years. Going forward, things are changing. So we have a new generation of warriors. Jeneria is not a young warrior anymore.

He, he's a, he likes to call himself an old man, although he's far from an old man. But he transitioned to become an elder just over a year ago. [00:12:30] And he now handed over the Warrior program to a new generation of warriors who joined. And this is very, a very different group. They, we like to call them the TikTok group.

They are very, very different generation, age group. They're very much on their phones, they count on their phones a lot for everything. So we're in the process of adapting how the Warrior program can continue to be as effective with a [00:13:00] younger, more. Technical, if that's the right word, generation of warriors.

And so we're still figuring that one out 

[00:13:09] Crystal: That's so interesting. And I think, everyone everywhere is figuring out how to adjust to the new reality of today, especially now that we also have AI to contend with.

That's a whole other beast to figure out.

you know, [00:13:30] I'm, I'm curious do you know where Jen's affinity for lions came from? 

[00:13:36] Shivani: Yeah, so Jeneria story is a real fascinating one. He actually didn't really like Lions because Lions also killed his cows when he was growing up.

He never liked lions at all when he joined It was just a job. He was looking for a job and he wanted to support his family. He didn't have any experience in conservation. In fact, [00:14:00] the first day when I met him in March, 2008, I gave him a pair of binoculars, GPS camera, and a handheld radio to communicate with me.

And he didn't know what anything was. He thought I was crazy because I kept saying to him, let's go out and find lions. And he thought I was nuts. But for him, it was a job and he really wanted to support his dad and his whole family. And people who know, Jeneria won't believe this, but Jeneria barely spoke for the first two [00:14:30] years, between 2008 and 2010, he really didn't speak much.

He was very shy. , He was very quiet. He went about his work. Because it was just a job and then something changed in 2010, something totally changed. One is he came up with this idea for Warrior Watch and he ran with that program, which really for him was something that just made him grow so much as a leader.

But secondly, the thing that really changed for him was. I needed to go to a very, very difficult [00:15:00] place to look for lions, and it was hot and hard, and I knew it would be a challenging weekend. My assistant wasn't very well, so I, I looked around at our team, I said, does anyone else wanna come with me to this place?

And Jeneria jumped up from his chair, and I'd never seen him that excited. He said, take me, I wanna come with you. And I said, really? I've never seen you this excited. Or, and he said, yeah, I, I don't wanna be a scout anymore. I, I, for, so for two years I've just been collecting data and I barely even [00:15:30] see the lions.

I wanna come and look for lion with you in a car. that's what I'm really interested in. And I thought, wow, I, I didn't know this. And so he came out with me for that weekend . And that's when I think Jeneria completely transformed was that weekend. We spent three or four days in a very difficult area.

I almost gave up every single day. But the person that kept me going was him. He kept saying, no, no, no. Keep driving. Keep driving. You can't stop. You can't stop. Let's try around that bush. Let's try [00:16:00] under that tree. Let's drive another a hundred kilometers. And I was like, oh my God, this is, this is really exhausting.

And he says, well, keep going. We've gotta find these lions. And he just didn't give up. And we eventually found those lions and we never forgot that moment because it was so rewarding. Yeah. After spending days looking for them in very hot, high temperatures where I really did give up many times, he's the one who kept me going.

And when we came back to camp, I said to him, Jeneria, I've [00:16:30] seen a new you. Who are you? He said, this is what I wanna do. I wanna be driving and looking for lions. I wanna be with lions. I wanna understand them. I wanna see what they're really like. Because everything I know about lions is so negative, they keep killing my cows.

But let me actually see lions in a natural environment, doing what lions do, hunting wild prey, sleeping, playing, and that was it. And he, I mean, there's just no one who loves lions than him. [00:17:00] And he even says this often now, he says, lions are like his cows.

they mean everything to him. And the, what he's done to save lions over the past 15 years is nothing but extraordinary. He has stood between lions and elders who were walking towards lions with knives, and he stood before them and said, no, you can't kill these lions. He has done that numerous times.

If there's anything to do with lions, Jeneria will not give up. I mean, just this week alone, we've been trying to [00:17:30] colar some very important lions, and it was so hard. All of us were about to give up, but he didn't. He's truly amazing. Just the transformation over the last 15 years. What an amazing lion ambassador he is.

There really is no one like him. 

[00:17:44] Crystal: So that makes me think about, I mean, your. Love for wildlife came from being exposed to it as a child, and his love for lions came from being exposed to them and seeing them. [00:18:00] is that how your, you have the, the Lion Camp it's called Right? For for Students?

Yeah. Is that how that came to be? 

[00:18:08] Shivani: It is. So we have a Lion Kids Camp program and it focuses not so much on students as much as young livestock herders, and I'll tell you why in a second. The idea for Lion Kids Camp actually came from just these positive experiences that I've had as a child growing up.

Jeneria started having in his mid twenties. [00:18:30] We wanted to give children from rural Kenya positive experiences with wildlife, because the reality is most Kenyan children have such negative attitudes and and experiences towards wildlife because they'll only see elephants chasing someone. They'll see a leopard killing a sheep, they'll see a lion killing a camel.

None of these experiences are positive. They never get to see lions or other wildlife in their natural environment just doing what they do. And so that's why we started the Lion Kids [00:19:00] Camp program, was to bring on board, not a next generation of conservationists, but a new generation. These young livestock herds are out every single day with their goats and sheep and donkeys, and cows and camels, and they're the ones who bump into wildlife every single day.

And. Through the Lion Kids Camp program now they get to spend five days with us and learn about all the positive things there are to wildlife, and they get to see wildlife in a [00:19:30] positive way. We have this amazing bus, and it's a Safari bus for 25 kids and we take, we pack them all in and we take them into Samburu National Reserve, and they get to see what people from all around the world come to see.

Elephants walking in the river, lions either sleeping under a tree or hunting Impala. They get to see. Dick Dicks doing what Dick Dicks do. They get to really experience animals in a positive way, and we have seen huge [00:20:00] transformations in those children almost from day one. They arrive very shy and scared and quiet and a little bit suspicious, and they leave not wanting to go.

Some of them have actually changed their name to come back to Lion Kids Camps because we try and have different children, but they said, no, we're coming back. We'll change our name. We've hired a lot of them now because the program's been running for 12 years now. So a lot of the, the lion kids who started when they were 10 years old are now in their early twenties.

And some [00:20:30] of them have now been recruited in our programs. Some of them are in university studying about conservation. It's been an amazing journey watching them grow into this conservation role or just get into it straight away and so many of the young herders just get into it immediately. So it's a really exciting program.

We've had over 1,500 children go through it and next year we're excited 'cause we're hoping to have reunion camps. We're gonna bring 500 [00:21:00] children back for reunions to see where they are and really en enforce the conservation career aspect of things and also just increase our network So that's happening in 2026 and we're really excited about it.

[00:21:14] Crystal: Oh, that's so great. And it, it's making me think that here in the US I mean, we are also, so many people are afraid of nature and afraid of wildlife. And I've seen, grown adults freak [00:21:30] out over a small little harmless bug. And we need that kind of exposure too. And, and without it, it's kind of hard to then expect people to wanna protect nature if, if they don't have an affinity for it.

[00:21:45] Shivani: Absolutely. It's all about seeing animals and wildlife or whatever it may be, a bug or a beetle or a anything. it's all about seeing them in a positive way and being exposed to it, actually [00:22:00] getting out into nature. And I think more and more over the last 10, 20 years, everyone is, it, it's, everyone's just living such busy lives.

There's so much more computer time and meetings and phones. We forget about connecting to nature. And I think of my childhood. I grew up in the mud. I mean, I used to play outside And I feel like that just doesn't happen anymore.

And I feel That reconnection to nature is so, so [00:22:30] important. It, it's so important for our wellbeing. It's so important for everything. And I think when you do connect to nature is when it makes sense and you wanna do as much as you can then to protect it in whatever way possible.

I think a lot of people think you've gotta do something very, very big or give up your life or job or whatever to suddenly become a conservationist. I think everyone can be a conservationist in their roles, in whatever role or job they have. They can play a conservation role in [00:23:00] whatever free time they have.

So I think there's so many. Angles and approaches and ways that people can be conservationists, even if it's not your career, it can be part of your life. And I think the first step in doing that is by reconnecting to nature, going into parks and walking or driving or cycling or whatever the case may be.

I think just reconnecting is so important. 

[00:23:24] Crystal: I love that. I fully agree with that. And I often try to, I [00:23:30] often talk about how you can do green work, green work, quote unquote in in any job you have. 

[00:23:36] Shivani: I think one thing I just wanna add on that, and this connects back to kids camp 

[00:23:41] Crystal: mm-hmm. 

[00:23:41] Shivani: And, and I guess around the world as well.

You know, it's easy for me to say, reconnect to nature, go into a park and see wildlife. But the reality is many people don't have access to that. They don't have the means. And I think this is where the people who do have means and access and resources need to be doing everything [00:24:00] they can to bring on board others who don't.

And that's what Kids Camp is all about. Children living right here outside Samburu National Reserve have never been inside. People from all over the world are coming to Samburu National Reserve to see our elephants and lions and leopards, but the people who are living right here. Don't have the way to, the access or the means to get in.

And so that's something we provided Lion Kids camp through our bus, and I think wherever we are in the world, we need to be really [00:24:30] just helping and supporting people who don't have access and means to connect to nature in whatever way is available I think that's something really key.

[00:24:38] Crystal: Really important. And, and I've heard that in other places. I've, I've been to Africa a couple of times and I, I've heard the same thing. the parks that I had visited, tourists from all over the world are seeing them. But very few of the locals have. So it's very important.

 Ewaso Lions does this [00:25:00] beautiful job of, of working with the Warriors and the children of the area, and you also have this program called Mama Simba's that works with women in the area. Can you tell me more about that program and like how it came to be, what it does? 

[00:25:19] Shivani: Sure. So we'd been working with Warriors for about three years, and we were a really small team back in 2010 to 2013.

We were such a tiny team [00:25:30] with very little support funding. Our budget was tiny. We were just getting by and I remember every time Jeneria and I would be out and we'd drive back into camp, There were always two women waiting to see us and they'd be sitting behind my tent and they would say, Shivani and Jeneria, we've come to see you, and we've been waiting for five hours, but you guys were out, but we insisted we are gonna wait to talk to you and.

In a nutshell, they did this for weeks and weeks and weeks coming to see [00:26:00] us. And what they were asking for was to be involved. They said, well, they te they actually told me off many times, which I really appreciated. They said, Shivani Yeah. Told me off, got angry with me. 

[00:26:12] Crystal: Okay. 

[00:26:13] Shivani: They would tell you that angry with me.

They said, Shivani, why are you only working with warriors? Why are you only working with men? You are a woman and you're only working with men. And they had a really good point, okay. And I said to them, I said to the two women, I said, I, I know [00:26:30] this. I, I totally agree with you and how would you like to be involved?

And they said, well, wildlife belonged to us anyway. Culturally, wildlife belonged to the Samburu women. Mm-hmm. So we want to be involved in lion conservation because one, it belongs to us. And secondly. We can do a better job than the Warriors. And third, you're a woman, so we need to work. And I thought, 

[00:26:53] Crystal: well, how, how are, how does wildlife belong to them in their culture?

Sorry to interrupt 

you. 

[00:26:58] Shivani: They have a story. Yeah. They have a [00:27:00] story that, they have a belief that many, many years ago, wildlife was taken away from them in various different ways. giraffes walked away, which represent camels. zebras walked away, which represent donkeys, and it was moved away from them and they needed to come back because it's the women who take care of wildlife.

It's, it's a strong belief of their, and so they kept telling me this. They kept reminding me of this, and, and I spoke to Jeneria. I said, let's ask the women to start their own program and we'll provide them [00:27:30] whatever support they need if we can, but let them go for it. And so we chatted to the two ladies.

Mintelli and Parisaroy, and we said, go for it. Start your program. They decided to name a Mama Simba, which means mother of Lions. And again, here's a great example of where it was the community starting their program and knowing what is best for them and their wildlife. It wasn't me coming saying, okay, let's bring on board all the women and this is exactly what they're gonna do.

It wasn't that at all. [00:28:00] It was these two amazing women together with. They brought onboard other women. Now we have 21 Mama Simbas, and it's the Mama Simbas that came up with the vision for the program, which is very much about recovering lion habitat. I dunno if you can hear me. There's a bird screeching on my 

[00:28:19] Crystal: side.

[00:28:20] Shivani: Yes, 

[00:28:20] Crystal: yes. I love it. What, what kind of bird is it? 

[00:28:23] Shivani: I think it's a sunbird, but I can't see it. it, I'm sure it'll pop up in a second and I'll let you know. 

[00:28:28] Crystal: Good. 

[00:28:29] Shivani: but yeah, so [00:28:30] the mamas said the vision for our program is going to be habitat recovery. Oh no, it's not a Sunbird, it's a Robin chat. 

[00:28:38] Crystal: Oh, I have to look up the picture.

[00:28:45] Shivani: Sometimes they make a lot of noise and luckily it's just one. So I'm not too worried. But if there's a bunch of them making a racket, then there's a snake around and I always get up and check. But this is just one. So I think it's fine. 

[00:28:57] Crystal: If you have to get up and check for a [00:29:00] snake, don't worry about it.

Please go check for a snake. 

[00:29:04] Shivani: Well, I've been, because we had a bit of rain in the last few weeks and all the snakes have come out, so Yes, I'm very, I constantly checking. Oh, there's the sunbird. Okay, so the Sunbirds have joined. Let's see if they start a racket. If they do, I will have to pause for a minute.

[00:29:18] Crystal: Yeah. This interview's getting even more interesting. 

[00:29:23] Shivani: No, they're all quiet. Oh, it's gone or it's okay. No snakes. I think it's fine. 

[00:29:28] Crystal: Okay. 

[00:29:28] Shivani: so yes, the Mama sims [00:29:30] were all about recovering lion habitat and they've been working on this for many years now. They do this through a number of ways. They one deal with an invasive species that we have here, which is a huge problem.

It's in the US you call it mesquite. It's known as Prosopis Juli Flora. Here we call it methangue, and it's an invasive species that's displacing the indigenous trees that are very, very important for carnivores to hide in. And also communities use them for [00:30:00] medicinal purposes. And this invasive tree is taking over and it's a huge problem.

The mama Simbas are busy uprooting as many of them as they can. Just in the last six months, they've uprooted over a thousand. And then the mama Simbas now are also replacing those in invasive trees with the indigenous trees that they're growing.

So they're starting a tree nursery with the indigenous trees, and they will replace every single in invasive one that they removed. So that's a [00:30:30] big part of what they do. A second thing they're really involved in is working on recovering grass in very degraded areas. So they have, at the moment, two huge grass enclosures.

It comes to about just between 10 and 11 acres. And they're digging these amazing semi-circular buns which then trap water. They then plant grass seed on the, and it just promotes grass growing. And that is. [00:31:00] Amazing to see how quickly I, I was there yesterday with the Mama Simbas and you can already see grass growing from just a little bit of rain last week.

 the world 

[00:31:08] Crystal: is the secret in the, the semicircle. I've, I've seen a video of this. Yeah. The semicircle is what's really.

[00:31:15] Shivani: Yeah, it's a semi-circular, like hole. Mm-hmm. It's moon shaped. It's flat in the middle, and then it's sort of, ridged on the rim, and that's what allows the water to be trapped. And it's so effective. The water fills up [00:31:30] quickly, grass grows. Then the women are able to harvest the grass seeds and plant them in other places.

And there's a number of partners working on this in the area. And collectively you can really see grass come back. So it's really exciting to see how quick that that works and how important it is to bring back grass, because with grass you'll have more wild prey and hopefully less conflict , between lions and people, because the lions will hopefully be targeting the wild prey in those grassy areas.

[00:31:58] Crystal: Oh, wow. [00:32:00] Nice. So your organization is doing a lot of this. I don't know how to natural work. I could say. Um, I,I, I don't know how to describe it necessarily, but what I wanna say is, in contrast, you are also doing a lot of technological work using technology such as GPS collars and smart monitoring, et cetera, to be able to track the lion movements and the conflicts that might be occurring.

How are you [00:32:30] bridging technology with traditional knowledge? 

[00:32:34] Shivani: We use technology in a couple of ways, and one of the main ways we use it in lion conservation is by attaching GPS collars on lions.

And we don't do this for research. We do this purely to save lions and save livestock. When a collar is put on a lion, we're able to track it in real time. We're able to then see when it's approaching community areas, we can alert [00:33:00] livestock owners to the presence of lions so they can keep the livestock away or at least move to a different area and keep a better eye on them.

So it's really important for us to know this, especially in community areas where it's really hard to see lions. The these are not habituated lions where you can just see them sleeping on the side of the road in the daytime. These are lions that only come out at night and are very, very hard to see. So by colaring them, we're able to provide that.

[00:33:30] Communication, quick communication to communities about livestock presence. We're also able to identify critical corridors so we're able to know which are the key areas lions are moving in, and really then work with communities or with parks or with any management responsible for the area to keep those corridors open.

If lions are able to move from one safe place to another, conflict will be reduced. And as long as they, they often, they'll move fast, they'll go through a [00:34:00] corridor quickly, get to another safe place, and then they'll settle down. But keeping those corridors open is really, really important. We colared a male lion.

Just over a month ago, it's amazing how he, so he goes in and out of the park pretty much every night. his movements are huge, and he's taking the same road. He just seems to go up the road, out of the park, spends a couple of days causing havoc outside, and then comes back in again quickly. Same down the road, [00:34:30] straight to the river.

It's been amazing just in the last month to see how he goes up and down like that. And because we know when he's going out of the park and he seems to follow the same route. Just in the past month, we've been able to alert the communities living outside the park 11 times of his presence so they could keep an eye on the livestock.

So just imagine the number of conflict incidents that are being reduced and or are not happening at all because of the, the effectiveness of having a [00:35:00] lion with a collar. So it's saving lions, it's saving livestock. And when you tie this in with traditional knowledge of warriors who are just the most amazing trackers, or Samburu elders who just know this landscape so well, and you bring both of this together.

you're basically finding so many, this is allowing lion conservation to be. The most effective it can be it's collars, alerting communities to where lions are, and then it's communities bringing their [00:35:30] livestock together and taking them in different places, but also knowing where the lions are and tracking them, making sure they move away from those areas and the lions are safe and the livestock are safe.

So it's just about bringing the two together. And I think through the Warrior program, through Jeneria, started a brand new camel husbandry program this year. Through that conflict is so vastly reduced and that's our goal. We don't wanna see so much conflict. 

[00:35:55] Crystal: you're obviously being successful because your lion numbers are remaining [00:36:00] steady or even increasing when in other parts of the world they're actually decreasing. So this coexistence that you're promoting is working, but have you ever had a moment where you did wonder if coexistence was truly possible?

[00:36:19] Shivani: Many times, many moments. I think there's so a few times when you feel it's just getting harder and harder, and [00:36:30] I don't know if I've ever had a moment where I think it's gonna stop. I don't think I've ever thought, oh, it's done where, or it's never gonna continue. But there's definitely lots of moments where I feel.

It just keeps getting harder and harder for communities to continue to live alongside lions. They need so much courage to do that. And it's also getting so much harder for lions to live alongside people. They need so much courage to keep doing that. And with new threats, with new challenges, that coexistence is [00:37:00] strained.

And that's what we, we now are at the stage in the project, we can work with our communities to address any new threats that come along. For example, these invasive species, for example, development, there's a lot of new development coming into Northern Kenya, and we wanna make sure that people's needs, livestock needs, wildlife needs are all taken into account as development comes in.

Disease is another thing we're very much aware about. So there's, there's new things that come and we're constantly having to [00:37:30] adapt, be flexible, and see what we can do so coexistence can continue and those threats reduce. One after another. And, and that's our goal. And we see that as just the ways how coexistence can continue.

But it's really hard. I, I think there are days when I, I look at my phone and our WhatsApp group on, on Lions just keeps, there's about a hundred messages a day about just how much conflict has happened that day in different areas and how [00:38:00] upset the community are and how our team is running all over the place trying to save the lions and talk to the livestock herders.

And it's, those days I just think, oh my gosh, if this continues, how, how do we just, how do we keep going? How does the team keep going? It's exhausting, it's discouraging. It's hard, it's very sad and tough sometimes. And losing a lion is the hardest thing for us. And losing a livestock,you know, losing livestock for the communities, the [00:38:30] hardest thing for them.

And so. it's not easy. This is a very, very, what's the word? It's, It's not an easy career. 

 And at the same time, it's a career and something none of us would change ever. and I see it in some of our team as well.

This is much more than a job or career. It's, it's our way of life and it's what keeps us going no matter how hard or challenging it may be. It is pretty amazing to then see [00:39:00] Cubs born to see a new corridor that we've seen through the collar to see healthier dogs because we vaccinate them against diseases.

Just yesterday I was driving, through the community area to camp and I kept noticing how dogs are looking so much healthier, and I just had a big smile on my face. And you see the mama sims just digging away at those buns and you see Jeneria giving up for a whole week trying to collar a lion. And it's those moments that keep us going so it's easy [00:39:30] to forget all the hard days when you've got some such amazing things happening all around us.

[00:39:36] Crystal: Yeah, I I appreciate that reality check though. Because it's not all glory and, and rainbows and fun stuff. It's, it is really difficult. Wildlife conservation is heartbreaking work, and, and yet everyone that I've spoken with and everyone that I know who work in wildlife [00:40:00] conservation, it's their heart.

they do it because they have to in their heart. And, um, I, I understand that 

[00:40:08] Shivani: Yeah, I was, it's funny, I was talking to someone yesterday about how heartbreaking it is. I mean, you just mentioned it. You lose a lion and you never recover. We lost a lion two years ago, and I, some of us just have never recovered from her loss because of what she taught us.

She was an amazing lion, as called Nana, and [00:40:30] she gave us most of her legacies. A tremendous, in fact, one of the lions we collared a few days ago was her daughter, and it's. you, you, you'll be, I started off chatting with you, telling you about solitary lions, but there's been a big change now in the last couple of years.

We now have prides, prides have come together. We don't have solitary lions anymore. We have five prides of lions. They've come together in totally different places. It's as if they all somehow communicated to each other to say, we're safe now, let's get together. [00:41:00] And it's, it's amazing to see prides of lions and Nana's legacy is our biggest pride.

It's a pride of 10 now, and when the males are with them, it's 12 lions and I can't get over it because after seeing solitary lions for so many years now, we see this pride of 12 and oh my gosh. It just gives us goosebumps 

But losing her was absolutely heartbreaking. It was. Yeah, it, we Jeneria and I had known her for 14 years. She's definitely lived an amazing life [00:41:30] here, but it was still not easy to, to see her leave her, her landscape and 

[00:41:35] Crystal: Well, she hunted or did she die naturally? 

[00:41:40] Shivani: She got something we didn't know could happen.

She, Nana got cancer. Oh. And she developed a growth at her mouth, which stopped her from hunting successfully and feeding. She was really struggling to eat because the growth around her mouth was getting bigger and bigger and bigger. And she had three young cubs at [00:42:00] the, at the time who were too young to fend for themselves.

We called in the Kenya Wildlife Service and they did something amazing. They darted her under a tree. Her cub sat at the site just watching and hiding in the bushes, and they surgically removed the growth, and it was, I've never seen anything like it. They sewed her up. They gave her a lot of antibiotics and.

We didn't really know, you know, what was gonna happen. We didn't know any of this, but what [00:42:30] that surgery did was something amazing. It gave Nana an extra six months, and those six months gave her Cubs time to grow up and fend for themselves. And in April, 2023, her Cubs left her and they were able to, hunt by themselves.

And unfortunately, in May, her cancer came back and it was May 1st we saw her and it was probably a week after her cubs had left her, and she lost her body [00:43:00] conditions so quickly. The cancer spread all around her body. And w it, uh, we, it was so hard to see that it was the hardest thing for us 

[00:43:11] Crystal: starting to cry right now.

[00:43:14] Shivani: I, I've told this story so many times and I cry every single time. Oh 

[00:43:18] Crystal: my 

[00:43:19] Shivani: goodness. Anyway, Nana was humanely euthanized and we were so grateful to the Kenya Wildlife Service for what they did for her. And her cubs are alive and they [00:43:30] have grand cubs, and we were able to collar, uh, Nariah her daughter two, two days ago.

So yeah, she, she lived an amazing life, but oof what a, what a tough time. 2023. This was in May. 

[00:43:43] Crystal: Wow, man. Oh, what a beautiful story. It got me all teared up there. Me too.

Despite all of the, the threats and the [00:44:00] challenges that you still face on a daily basis, you still have had many successes. What are one or two practices that you think. Are exportable, like can be, are lessons learned that you think others can apply to where they're working in their wildlife work?

[00:44:21] Shivani: I will answer this in a little bit of a, a little bit of a long explanation. A couple of years ago we wanted to [00:44:30] see exactly that are our experiences in northern Kenya, just specific to Northern Kenya, has what's worked here. Only going to work in northern Kenya and we really wanted to explore that further.

So over the last two and a half years, we've been developing a model or a framework in community-led conservation. And in this framework we have been building in our experiences from the last 15 years together with [00:45:00] experiences from conservationists from around the world. So we are bringing in their perspectives, their knowledge, their thoughts about what works and what doesn't.

In community led conservation because what we were very quick to be aware of was community led conservation. What it is to us could be very different to what it is to someone in southern Kenya. Could be very different to someone in India. Set very different to someone in Argentina. So we had an amazing workshop here a year ago, and [00:45:30] exactly a year ago, my gosh, it was November, middle of November last year, we had conservationists from around the world come here and spend a week with us sharing their experiences on this and together with their feedback, their thoughts, our experiences.

We've also evaluated Mama Simba Warrior Watch. We're putting. All this together, together with case studies from around the world to roll out and develop this framework by middle to end of next year. 

 It's been a lot of work with some of our [00:46:00] amazing partners, and 

 It's gonna be open source. We're gonna have a very interactive website where, you know, people can learn and share and not reinvent the wheel, not duplicate resources. It'll all be there in one place and fantastic. And hopefully it can help many people around the world.

[00:46:15] Crystal: Oh, wonderful. Oh, we'll definitely keep a lookout for that and promote it as much as, as we can. 

[00:46:22] Shivani: Great. 

[00:46:23] Crystal: So, Shivani, 

 for listeners who may never step foot in Kenya, what lessons can they [00:46:30] apply to support coexistence with the wildlife where they live? 

[00:46:34] Shivani: I think coexistence can happen in anyone's backyard or anyone's if they don't have a backyard, even a park that might be in the area where they might walk their dogs or something.

I feel like there's so much out there in nature and if we can just reconnect with nature in whatever way, whether it's birds and swirls and anything that. Could be negatively impacted by something that might be happening in the [00:47:00] environment. It might be development, it might be trees being cut or whatever.

I think everyone has a role to play and everyone has a voice in this. Everyone absolutely has a voice to ensure that wherever they live, wherever they work, their voice is heard, to ensure that nature continues in those areas. And when I say nature continues, I mean you don't want development to completely remove what you have grown up with.

Trees and soil and squirrels and birds. It's [00:47:30] so important to who we are as humans and to our wellbeing. Oh, oh, sorry. Hang on. Oh, snake. 

[00:47:36] Crystal: Oh, there is a snake. Okay. 

[00:47:40] Shivani: Oh my gosh. 

[00:47:41] Crystal: Okay. You do what you gotta do. 

[00:47:43] Shivani: Oh, it's gone. I just, I knew it. There had to be something going on, but the birds went quiet. I think they abandoned me.

[00:47:50] Crystal: Oh no. 

[00:47:53] Shivani: Hang on a second. 

[00:47:53] Crystal: You need to have words with the birds. 

[00:47:55] Shivani: Oh my gosh, Amanda. Mm-hmm.[00:48:00] 

Oh my gosh. It's been sitting in this tree in front of me this whole time. 

[00:48:12] Crystal: Is it venomous? 

[00:48:14] Shivani: No, no, no. Oh God, no. No, no. Oh, it's, it's a friendly snake. Well, I say friendly, but it's a snake that kind of lives around my house. It still makes me jump. Okay. But because my two dogs are here, I, I'm always, I'm always checking to make sure it is not a venomous snake.[00:48:30] 

[00:48:30] Crystal: Right. 

[00:48:30] Shivani: but this one, no, this one's fine. He, in fact, tried to squeeze in through my window the other day. Oh. But no, he's fine. He's a, he's a sands snake. He's not bad, but he still does make me jump and he's been sitting on the street the whole time 

[00:48:44] Crystal: he's been listening to the podcast. 

[00:48:47] Shivani: Oh my gosh.

okay. yes. I think the question about is exactly this. Keep the snakes in your backyard or the parks or whatever. We need everything. And [00:49:00] I think everyone has a role and everyone has a voice to. to protect wildlife. 

 And then for those that are, online or able to be. To be able to travel to other countries There's so many amazing local efforts around the world when it comes to people, communities, working to protect their lands.

They all need support. We all need support. Conservation is not cheap. And I think something a lot of people think is, oh, but it's, [00:49:30] maybe it's a hobby or it's not a serious job. It doesn't require proper pay. It absolutely requires proper pay. Yeah, it does. People need salaries. People need insurances. People need exactly what someone in the business world needs.

There's no difference. Yet salaries is sometimes the hardest thing to fundraise for. We all really struggle to say, we need funds for salaries, we need funds for the.

Most essential things in conservation, like food and fuel and [00:50:00] salaries and health insurances, and we need to rush community members to hospital and those are the essentials. They're not extras. They're the absolute essentials. They're the backbone of what keeps conservation going. Mm-hmm. Yet it's the hardest to raise funds for.

 everyone's got high budgets. Ours is now $1.8 million a year. We started off with $3,000 for one year. And now it's 1.8 million and it takes a lot of time and effort to fundraise for that.

And if people are able to, that [00:50:30] sort of support goes a long way. It allows us to get on with the work on the ground. 

[00:50:35] Crystal: Yes, absolutely. And one last question as we approach the 20th anniversary of the Emerging Wildlife Conservation Leaders Program that you were also a part of, what has EWCL meant to you?

[00:50:51] Shivani: EWCL was pretty amazing in terms of its timing because I was in the EWCL group in 2007, and [00:51:00] that's, that's the same year Ewaso Lion started. and it gave me that confidence and courage to get on with it because I think in conservation you can really feel quite alone that you're the only one out there.

In my case, I had to take a huge risk. I left a well paying job to start Ewaso Lions with pretty much nothing. I had a few savings. I had a laptop, I had a little camera. That was it. And so it was a big risk and I felt scared. I felt very alone. I didn't have a clue what I was doing, [00:51:30] but at EWCL I got to meet other like-minded people who were in either in the same boat as me or who were ready to help me.

 And to have such incredible mentorship from the board members of EWCL, from Jeff and Nina, 

 And then over the years, just to continue to have EWCL support, Nina is on our Vision Council. She comes out every year. She's part of so much of what we do. Paul , Nilanga, everyone's been part of us in one way or the other. And [00:52:00] it's just been amazing to be on the Ewaso Lions journey at the same time as the EWCL Journey.

So yeah, really exciting. And I'm, I can't wait to be with everyone in a few weeks time. Really excited. 

[00:52:13] Crystal: Me too. Shivani. The work that you're doing to protect lions and support your community is incredible. Thank you for all that you do. You're making a difference. 

[00:52:25] Shivani: Thanks so much, crystal, for having me and for all the great questions.

It's been really fun chatting with you [00:52:30] today. I really appreciate it.

Talking with Shivani is such a powerful reminder that coexistence is not an abstract idea — it is daily, gritty, deeply human work.
 It looks like warriors using ancient skills in new ways.
 It looks like women pulling invasive trees out of the ground one by one.
 It looks like kids who have only ever known wildlife as a threat getting to see lions simply being lions for the first time.

And it looks like Shivani, sitting on her porch in Samburu, calmly pausing our interview to make sure the snake beside her wasn’t venomous.
 If that is not walking your talk about coexistence, I don’t know what is.

What stays with me most is how she described courage — not just the courage of lions navigating a landscape full of people, but the courage of people choosing, again and again, to make space for wildlife even when it costs them something.

If you want to support Ewaso Lions’ work — or stay updated about the community-led conservation framework that EWaso Lions and others are putting together - — I’ve linked to their website in the show notes. Reach out to them.

Thanks for listening, and for caring about the wild, wherever you live.

Don't forget to go to forces for nature.com and sign up to receive emailed show notes, action tips, and a free checklist to help you start taking practical actions today. [00:34:30] Do you know someone else who would enjoy this episode? I would be so grateful if you would share it with them. Hit me up on Instagram and Facebook at Becoming Forces for Nature, and let me know what actions you have been taking.

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