Privacy policy

Cookie policy

Terms

Whistleblowing

Milkywire logo

Our platform

Platform

/platform

Climate transformation fund

Forests and landscapes

Ocean and seas

Wildlife

Impact funds

Articles

Frequently asked questions

Internal carbon fee

Knowledge

Work with us

Contact us

Company

NavBar Instagram

Footer Linkedin

NavBar Facebook

NavBar youtube

Support the UN Sustainable Development Goals by donating directly to trusted grassroots organizations worldwide. See how your support makes a difference through updates directly from the people in the field. Every donation counts.

Milkywire – Donate now to protect our planet

Milkywire Social Image

Milkywire – Donate now to protect our planet 

Milkywire offers funds within nature, climate and biodiversity

Our funds

Pioneering projects designed to solve the climate crisis

Climate transformation

Support locally rooted organizations working to save oceans and seas

Oceans and seas

Help our impacters restore forests and landscapes

Join the fight for our wildlife and biodiversity, from bees to elephants

News & Articles

https://www.milkywire.com/articles

Contact

/contact

Impact Portal - Follow your impact and contributions

Corporate partner

Impacter tools - Submit reports and content

Impact partner or organization

Your dashboard - Administer your personal donations

Individual donor

Login

Digby teaches safe and sustainable beekeeping to prevent fires in the forests of Northern Kenya. Help Digby with a valuable donation of support.

Digby Douglas-Dufresne

Donate to Digby Dufresne - For Sustainable Beekeeping

SDG 13 Climate Action

SDG 15 Life on Land

## In short

Digby is a Sustainability Coordinator and Conservationist running a beekeeping program with more than 40 indigenous beekeepers, teaching them safe beekeeping methods and how to produce marketable products. 

**A family business**
I was born and raised in Kenya and grew to gain a love for wildlife. It’s definitely something that runs in my family as my aunt Helene is the founder of the Milgis Trust. Her passion for the area, the people, the nature and its wildlife is something I share and admire.

**Dangerous beekeeping**
Globally, bees are being wiped out by the widespread use of harmful pesticides. However, Northern Kenya is one of the last places on Earth where honey bees are thriving. At the same time, traditional beekeepers in the area go to extreme lengths to get honey, using old, outdated and unsafe methods. Wild hives are being destroyed when harvested, and open fires are used to smoke out the bees, annually causing devastating forest fires.

**Protecting nature**
The philosophy of our work is that you cannot work with conservation without attending to the basic needs of the people living in close proximity to the wildlife that you're protecting. 
We are working on several approaches and several levels to do this, and one way is through our beekeeping program. The project aims to train indigenous beekeepers to have the capacity to look after their own hives and produce marketable honey and other bee products. It’s proven to be a successful enterprise already. 

## Organization
The Trust is run from Elkanto hill, which is situated at the confluence of the Seiya and Barsaloi Lugga's. The entire trust relies heavily on radio communication facilities situated at the top of the hill. The radios are managed 24 hours by our radio operators who have the extremely important job of coordinating all on the ground operations. 

**Conservation**
Each community elects a scout who is in charge of the conservation in that area. They must also act as a liaison between the trust and the community. Collectively the scouts are responsible for: anti-poaching, mitigation between human-wildlife conflict, animal rescues, general health of Milgis ecosystem and community relations. 

**Education**
The Milgis Trust aims to provide a well-rounded education that promotes children to be ambassadors of the environment. Keystones in our education programme:
- We have built an eco-school at primary level, which is now independently run by the community.
- We have built and maintain four nursery schools and support many others.
- We have a mobile film unit (eco-screen), showing conservation concepts through visual media.
- Student sponsorship programme, supporting over 40 students through secondary and some to university and college education.
- Scouts visiting schools in their area to address students regarding conservation and sustainability.

**Sustainable land use**
Loss of habitat contributes immensely to decline in wildlife populations and biodiversity. By preventing wildfires, overgrazing and deforestation we aim to improve productivity and regeneration of habitat.

**Veterinary Programme**
The entire existence of the Samburu people revolves around their domestic animals. They face great challenges in this arid environment – our vet programme aims to improve quality of animal health through: rabies vaccination, de-worming and chemspay inoculations in dogs, treatment of sick or injured wildlife and livestock and adaptation to suitable livestock models.

**Water**
If a community proves to be environmentally responsible, and welcomes local flora and fauna, then it is considered for a water project.
 
In 13 different locations throughout the district we produce approximately 43 million litres of clean water. This strategy aims to relieve human wildlife conflict at watering holes.
 
We also have a dam unit. Pan-dams are built and harvest rainwater for livestock and wildlife. To date we have built 43 of them.

**Healthcare**
Access to healthcare has been very limited in the area, and so we help out where we can. Our main focus areas are: family planning, facilitate eye missions dealing with cataracts and trachoma and emergency medivacs and treatment.

## My organization
The Milgis Trust was founded in 2004 in order to protect the wildlife, habitat and pastoral people’s way of life, in this stunning and very remote part of northern Kenya. Our mandate is to pave the way for a fully restored ecosystem, shared by people and wildlife alike. Poaching, deforestation and degradation of land are the main challenges facing flora and fauna in the area. We believe that wildlife and pastoral people can live peacefully together without borders, as they have done for so long. 

The majority of wildlife in the world exists behind fences – it is our priority to ensure that this does not happen. Experience has taught us that the most effective way to conserve is by dealing directly with the communities. The incentive for communities to conserve materializes in the form of education, health, water, security and veterinary projects implemented by the trust. These projects are mostly a direct result of ecotourism and thereby, gives the wildlife a very high value in the eyes of the communities. However, you cannot implement infrastructure without considering demographics and sustainable capacities of an area. We use several strategies to ensure that our community projects promote sustainable development. 

We have about 100 people working with the Milgis Trust, 50 full time and 50 part time. They are all crucial in our work and if we had the means we would expand the team even further. The Milgis scouts form the core structure of all of our operations and are the backbone of our organization. In true Samburu fashion, big decisions are rarely carried out without the blessing of all of the scouts. They are not only responsible for conservation, but also act as liaisons for all of our projects being carried out in their respective communities. In addition to our team of scouts, we have also got Lkiramats (informants), who are based in the same communities as the scouts. They are part time employees of the trust and are responsible for bringing in information that help us in our work. They also help the scouts to mobilize communities, address issues and act as liaisons between the community and the trust. 

In short

Digby is a Sustainability Coordinator and Conservationist running a beekeeping program with more than 40 indigenous beekeepers, teaching them safe beekeeping methods and how to produce marketable products.

A family business
I was born and raised in Kenya and grew to gain a love for wildlife. It’s definitely something that runs in my family as my aunt Helene is the founder of the Milgis Trust. Her passion for the area, the people, the nature and its wildlife is something I share and admire.

Dangerous beekeeping
Globally, bees are being wiped out by the widespread use of harmful pesticides. However, Northern Kenya is one of the last places on Earth where honey bees are thriving. At the same time, traditional beekeepers in the area go to extreme lengths to get honey, using old, outdated and unsafe methods. Wild hives are being destroyed when harvested, and open fires are used to smoke out the bees, annually causing devastating forest fires.

Protecting nature
The philosophy of our work is that you cannot work with conservation without attending to the basic needs of the people living in close proximity to the wildlife that you're protecting.
We are working on several approaches and several levels to do this, and one way is through our beekeeping program. The project aims to train indigenous beekeepers to have the capacity to look after their own hives and produce marketable honey and other bee products. It’s proven to be a successful enterprise already.

Organization
The Trust is run from Elkanto hill, which is situated at the confluence of the Seiya and Barsaloi Lugga's. The entire trust relies heavily on radio communication facilities situated at the top of the hill. The radios are managed 24 hours by our radio operators who have the extremely important job of coordinating all on the ground operations.

Conservation
Each community elects a scout who is in charge of the conservation in that area. They must also act as a liaison between the trust and the community. Collectively the scouts are responsible for: anti-poaching, mitigation between human-wildlife conflict, animal rescues, general health of Milgis ecosystem and community relations.

Education
The Milgis Trust aims to provide a well-rounded education that promotes children to be ambassadors of the environment. Keystones in our education programme:
We have built an eco-school at primary level, which is now independently run by the community.
We have built and maintain four nursery schools and support many others.
We have a mobile film unit (eco-screen), showing conservation concepts through visual media.
Student sponsorship programme, supporting over 40 students through secondary and some to university and college education.
Scouts visiting schools in their area to address students regarding conservation and sustainability.

Sustainable land use
Loss of habitat contributes immensely to decline in wildlife populations and biodiversity. By preventing wildfires, overgrazing and deforestation we aim to improve productivity and regeneration of habitat.

Veterinary Programme
The entire existence of the Samburu people revolves around their domestic animals. They face great challenges in this arid environment – our vet programme aims to improve quality of animal health through: rabies vaccination, de-worming and chemspay inoculations in dogs, treatment of sick or injured wildlife and livestock and adaptation to suitable livestock models.

Water
If a community proves to be environmentally responsible, and welcomes local flora and fauna, then it is considered for a water project.

In 13 different locations throughout the district we produce approximately 43 million litres of clean water. This strategy aims to relieve human wildlife conflict at watering holes.

We also have a dam unit. Pan-dams are built and harvest rainwater for livestock and wildlife. To date we have built 43 of them.

Healthcare
Access to healthcare has been very limited in the area, and so we help out where we can. Our main focus areas are: family planning, facilitate eye missions dealing with cataracts and trachoma and emergency medivacs and treatment.

My organization
The Milgis Trust was founded in 2004 in order to protect the wildlife, habitat and pastoral people’s way of life, in this stunning and very remote part of northern Kenya. Our mandate is to pave the way for a fully restored ecosystem, shared by people and wildlife alike. Poaching, deforestation and degradation of land are the main challenges facing flora and fauna in the area. We believe that wildlife and pastoral people can live peacefully together without borders, as they have done for so long.

The majority of wildlife in the world exists behind fences – it is our priority to ensure that this does not happen. Experience has taught us that the most effective way to conserve is by dealing directly with the communities. The incentive for communities to conserve materializes in the form of education, health, water, security and veterinary projects implemented by the trust. These projects are mostly a direct result of ecotourism and thereby, gives the wildlife a very high value in the eyes of the communities. However, you cannot implement infrastructure without considering demographics and sustainable capacities of an area. We use several strategies to ensure that our community projects promote sustainable development.

We have about 100 people working with the Milgis Trust, 50 full time and 50 part time. They are all crucial in our work and if we had the means we would expand the team even further. The Milgis scouts form the core structure of all of our operations and are the backbone of our organization. In true Samburu fashion, big decisions are rarely carried out without the blessing of all of the scouts. They are not only responsible for conservation, but also act as liaisons for all of our projects being carried out in their respective communities. In addition to our team of scouts, we have also got Lkiramats (informants), who are based in the same communities as the scouts. They are part time employees of the trust and are responsible for bringing in information that help us in our work. They also help the scouts to mobilize communities, address issues and act as liaisons between the community and the trust.

Northern Kenya is one of the last places where the globally important honey bee is thriving. However, outdated beekeeping methods are causing forest fires. Digby teaches safe and sustainable beekeeping to prevent fires.

Sustainability Coordinator

Northern Kenya is one of the last places where the globally important honey bee is thriving, however, outdated beekeeping methods are causing forest fires. Digby teaches safe and sustainable beekeeping to prevent fires.

Donate now for sustainable beekeeping

This is Digby

With your help

Why care