Mwaluganje Elephant Sanctuary (MES) is a community-owned elephant park, a conservation area for elephants and Encephalartos cycads in Kwale District of the Coast Province of Kenya. It is located 45 km southwest of Mombasa and is adjacent to the Shimba Hills National Reserve. The sanctuary was formed in the early 1990s as a cooperative project between the people of the surrounding Mwaluganje community, United States Agency for International Development, and the Born Free Foundation and the Eden Wildlife Trust.
MES is an example of ecotourism, as well as community-based-conservation efforts, both of which are very recent trends in conservation management. In this community-based program, the local people have leased their privately-owned property to a community based trust.
The trust manages the sanctuary for the conservation and preservation of the elephants. In addition it is a valuable source of revenue for the local people, re through monies generated by eco-tourism and gate entrance fees. The area is off the Shimba Hills escarpment in Kwale District and is on the to the migratory route leading to Tsavo East National Reserve.
Famous quotes containing the words elephant and/or sanctuary:
“Even the elephant carries but a small trunk on his journeys. The perfection of traveling is to travel without baggage.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“There is immunity in reading, immunity in formal society, in office routine, in the company of old friends and in the giving of officious help to strangers, but there is no sanctuary in one bed from the memory of another. The past with its anguish will break through every defence-line of custom and habit; we must sleep and therefore we must dream.”
—Cyril Connolly (1903–1974)