SAVING ELEPHANTS WITH BEES
Together, we are Wild Survivors.
Protecting a future for elephants and people.
Join the planet’s powerful mini-fauna, the honeybees, to help protect our largest land mammal, the African elephant.
Wild Survivors goes directly to the source of the most pressing issues affecting elephants, people and habitats.
We deliver sustainable initiatives that place community welfare at the heart of wildlife conservation.
“Like many of you, I am completely captivated by elephants. When I learnt that conflict with people was fast becoming their greatest threat, I knew we needed to act.
I founded Wild Survivors in 2016, to partner with local communities on nature-based methods such as beehive fences - that remove conflict, promotes sustainable livelihoods and helps communities and elephants thrive in a balanced environment.
All our projects are donor funded - we couldn’t achieve this without you, thank you!”
- Francesca Mahoney, Founder & Executive Director, Wild Survivors
OUR IMPACT TO DATE
70%
Decrease in elephant crop raiding with our community beehive fences
387%
Increase in farmer profits from protected farmland
691
Clashes prevented between elephants and people
210%
Profit made by the Women’s Beekeeping Enterprise per honey harvest
Wild News
Planet Wild’s Mission with Wild Survivors
Watch as Phillip from the team faces his fear of bees while uncovering how our community-led projects are protecting the elephants and habitats in the Ngorongoro ecosystem. Planet Wild are a member-driven global community who care deeply about protecting the planet and our Endangered species.
What would happen if we lost all the elephants?
Elephants are ecosystem engineers. They disperse tree seeds, dig for water during droughts, maintain forests, and clear pathways for wildlife.
When landscapes lose elephants, ecosystems are at risk of collapse.
Land is a precious commodity, with people and wildlife competing over limited space.
As a result, human-elephant conflict is now rapidly on the rise. Conflict occurs when elephants enter farmland that borders their natural habitat. Crops are destroyed, livelihoods are lost, and farmers are often forced to retaliate. There are fatalities on both sides, and with hundreds of thousands of elephants already lost to ivory poaching, every elephant we can save counts.
THE GOOD NEWS
This destructive cycle of human-elephant conflict can be reversed.
And the solutions already exist. Your support goes directly to communities on the frontline of conflict. They are addressing the challenges of living with elephants by installing beehive fences, introducing conservation agriculture and protecting wildlife corridors.
EXPLORE OUR HUMAN-ELEPHANT COEXISTENCE PROJECTS
01 / BEEHIVE FENCES,
TANZANIA
Community-managed beehive fences: Protecting elephants, farmland and forest habitat.
02 / ELEPHANT CORRIDOR PROTECTION, TANZANIA
Monitoring corridor biodiversity and introducing solutions for protecting these essential elephant connectivity routes.
03 / WOMEN & BEES ENTERPRISE, TANZANIA
Our newest programme in partnership with The Elephant Crisis Fund. Empowering women and protecting wildlife habitat.
04 / BUZZBOX WILDILFE TECH, KENYA
Wild Survivors technology deployed in Kenya. A simple and efficient tech solution, keeping both people and wildlife safe.
“For many years I had to fill my tractor with diesel every night, ready to drive away elephants, especially when crops were maturing. From 2021, when the beehive fence reached my farm, I stopped driving my tractor at night. I now only hear the elephants making noise in the forest, which is a huge relief to me and my family. Now there are only a few naughty bush bucks that enter my farm, which do not cause any harm.” Zacharia said, as he smiled.
- Farmer Zacharia, Fireline Forest Beehive Fence, Upper Kitete Village
NGORONGORO CRATER
Our projects border the historic volcanic crater spanning four million years of human evolution now home to Africa’s densest mammalian population and Maasai pastoralist communities
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The breathtaking Ngorongoro Crater is a giant bowl of biodiversity and a UNESCO World heritage site. The Crater and wider Ngorongoro Conservation area support thousands of wildlife and people - being the only protected area in Tanzania where wild animals and people live together in wild habitat.
Ngorongoro originates from the onomatopoeic Maasai word that describes the sound of the cowbell (ngoro ngoro) that rings as it jostles around the necks of their cattle. The area is steeped in historic significance, where scientists have uncovered prehistoric fossilised evidence of human evolution stretching back four million years. The discoveries were made at Olduvai gorge, a 14m deep ravine, one of the most significant paleoanthropological sites in the world.
The Crater formed after one of eight volcanoes (reaching higher than Mt Kilimanjaro) imploded around two million years ago, making this volcanic caldera the largest in the world.
Its rich biodiversity encompasses savannahs, salt lakes, woodlands, and highland plains, and connects the famous Serengeti and Maasai Mara to the west, with the Great Rift Valley to the east, with millions of wildebeest migrating across its plains annually.
Wildlife corridors are essential to the survival of all migratory species, including our largest land mammal, the African elephant. They travel for hundreds of kilometres in search of fresh water and food sources during the changing seasons. The volcanic salt lakes, such as Lake Magadi on the Crater floor, provide essential nutrients and minerals to elephants that help with bone growth and hormone development - particularly important for young elephants.
The habitat also supports the Maasai pastoralist tribes that have stewarded this land for thousands of years, once hunter-gatherers, they live in balance with nature, and hold unique knowledge of the environment.
Encircling the Crater rim is the Highlands Forest, a key buffer area for wildlife, that connects to one of the last remaining elephant corridors in Northern Tanzania. The preservation of the corridor is a major focus for our community projects. Learn more here:
“Beekeeping is both enriching and empowering to women in the village.
We are now confident about raising our own income and becoming experts in this practice, allowing us to help many others to benefit from the bees and their honey.”
- NARI Women Beekeepers, Upper Kitete Village
JOIN
THE HIVE
The Hive is home to Wild Survivors’ global community of passionate supporters who care deeply about the elephants, wildlife, forests and people that share this Earth.
Join The Hive by donating any monthly amount. Your support will fund beehive fences, our Bee Guardian field teams, essential elephant monitoring and Women Beekeepers leading the way. Receive behind the scenes project footage, elephant stories and messages from our team to bring you even closer to the wildlife and people you are helping to protect.
WILD SURVIVORS COEXISTENCE STRATEGY
Achieving a healthy coexistence between elephants and people requires two key ingredients: Awareness and Action.
Local communities hold unique knowledge of the land and benefit directly from restoring wild habitat. Awareness of new techniques for living with elephants, and the support needed to action these, places environmental conservation back into local hands. The community projects fall within four core themes that connect the dots to create our Coexistence Strategy.
1 / ELEPHANTS
Monitoring elephant behaviour and movement ecology to shape habitat protection initiatives and the recovery of elephant migratory corridors.
2 / FORESTS
Rewilding buffer zones, and protecting elephant corridors and ecosystem biodiversity with forest-friendly livelihoods and local employment in conservation roles.
3 / COMMUNITIES
Empowering local communities who live alongside wildlife with the skills, education and training in sustainable livelihoods that promote coexistence, boost income and improve wellbeing.
4 / BEES
Achieving meaningful coexistence with bees and beehive fences; preventing elephant crop-raiding, boosting pollination, and providing a conservation income for women’s groups and farmers. Our wildlife tech, BuzzBox is inspired by the elephant’s fear of buzzing bees.
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