We made an agreement with a group of farmers living just outside the Park boundaries off Kanjoo Gate.

The scheme is that we provide them with seeds of vegetables or fruit that they will not produce for local consumption but are very much used at our lodge. We supervise quantities, rotation, and quality and we go and collect the crop every week paying an agreed price.

On a small scale this is community based conservation in action. They directly benefit from us being here (and we are here because of wildlife) and we avoid having to buy and transport produce from Nairobi. The shamba that they've put aside for us is quite nice in an interesting rural area at the Nyambeni foothill. We can bring guests to visit the site on request.

With the Tharaka people living at the southern boundary of the Park we have a few different exchanges:

• We buy from them handcrafts to be sold in our shop;
• We bring interested guests to their dancing performance for a fee which goes to them directly;
• We finance the building of a local school through clients' donations and with direct funds coming from us.