World Elephant Day: Supporting Human-Elephant Coexistence at Mugie

On World Elephant Day, we celebrate the elephants that pass through and call the Mugie landscape home, as well as the communities working to make coexistence possible.

Kenya is home to an estimated 41,952 elephants, according to the 2025 National Wildlife Census, up from 36,280 recorded in 2021. This increase is an encouraging sign of successful conservation efforts. However, elephants continue to face significant threats, including habitat loss and fragmentation, human-elephant conflict, climate change and poaching.

At Mugie Conservancy, Conservation Coordinator Dominic Mutali highlights the importance of working with neighbouring communities to promote peaceful coexistence between people and elephants. Through community education and awareness, residents learn about elephant behaviour and practical ways to protect their farms while keeping elephants safe.

Mugie also works with communities through the Human-Elephant Coexistence Toolbox, developed by Save the Elephants. The initiative helps communities understand elephant behaviour, learn practical deterrent methods and identify ways to reduce conflict while protecting their livelihoods.

“Education is an important part of coexistence,” says Mutali. By helping communities understand elephants and equipping them with practical tools, Mugie is working to reduce conflict and create a future where people and elephants can safely share the landscape.

Mugie also acts as an important wildlife corridor linking the Rift Valley, northern Kenya and the Mount Kenya landscape. These corridors play a vital role by allowing elephants to move between habitats in search of food, water and space. Protecting these routes is therefore essential to maintaining healthy elephant populations while reducing pressure on communities and wildlife.

Elephants are important to our ecosystems and to the health of our landscapes. As they move across the land, they help spread seeds, create paths and open up vegetation, making space for other plants and animals to thrive.

Elephants also help shape the places where they live. Their movement can create access points to water and pathways that are used by other wildlife. In this way, protecting elephants also helps protect many other species that share the same environment.

For communities, healthy elephant populations are part of a healthy natural landscape. By finding ways for people and elephants to safely share the same space, we can protect wildlife while also supporting the livelihoods and well-being of local communities.

Ultimately, protecting elephants is not only about conserving a species; it is also about supporting the communities that share the landscape with them. Every elephant plays a role in keeping nature connected and healthy. Protecting them today means protecting the ecosystems and communities that will benefit from them for generations to come.

This World Elephant Day, we celebrate the people, communities and partnerships working to ensure that elephants and people can coexist and thrive together.

Happy World Elephant Day!

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