Friends of Nairobi National Park (FoNNaP) is a membership-based, Kenyan non-profit society that has, since the mid-1990s, played a distinctive role in Nairobi National Park conservation: mobilising citizens to generate wildlife data, remove pollution, strengthen coexistence in dispersal areas, build conservation awareness, and defend the park through civic and legal advocacy.
This guide explains FoNNaP’s origins, mandate, programmes, partnerships, and why it matters in the governance and ecology of Nairobi National Park.
FoNNaP at a glance
- Founded: 1995
- Legal status: Registered membership society in Kenya (Societies Act)
- Core identity: A citizen-led conservation partner that works alongside Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) and other stakeholders to protect Nairobi National Park and its broader ecosystem.
- Mission (FoNNaP): Assisting and inspiring current and future generations to keep Nairobi National Park alive through engagement with KWS, government bodies, members, partners, and neighbouring communities.
- Vision (FoNNaP): Position Nairobi National Park as “the world’s greatest city wildlife park.”
Who founded FoNNaP (Friends of Nairobi National Park)?
FoNNaP was founded in 1995 as a membership society to support the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) in conserving Nairobi National Park (NNP) and its wider ecosystem, especially the Athi–Kapiti Plains dispersal area and migration routes south of the park.
FoNNaP’s official “Founding Members” list includes:
- Dr. David Western
- Rosalie Osborne
- Simone Ole Makallah
- James Cavanaugh
- John K. Atchley
- Dr. Imre Loefler
What motivated the founders?
FoNNaP’s founding logic is very clear in its own “Our Story” framing:
- NNP cannot survive as an isolated island. The park depends on open dispersal areas and seasonal movement routes in the Athi–Kapiti Plains (Kitengela/Isinya/Kipeto/Kapiti ranches).
- Urban expansion was accelerating, increasing pressure on wildlife survival and on the “open ecosystem” model (movement in/out of the park). FoNNaP explicitly positions itself as instrumental in keeping sections of those routes open.
- The broader “Save NNP” posture (opposing damaging infrastructure and development inside/through the park) fits the same founding motivation: defend ecological function + defend space as Nairobi grows.
In short: keep Nairobi National Park alive by protecting ecological connectivity and resisting encroachment-driven fragmentation—through citizen action, policy influence, and practical coexistence work with communities.
Founders: who they were (and why that matters)
Dr. David Western
- A long-standing Kenyan conservation scientist known for Amboseli ecosystem research since the 1960s and for advancing conservation models based on people–wildlife coexistence.
- His presence among FoNNaP founders signals that FoNNaP was never meant to be a “social club”—it was anchored in serious ecosystem thinking: dispersal areas, corridors, land-use change, and policy.
Dr. Imre Loefler
- Remembered in East African conservation circles as a surgeon and major environmental advocate, and formerly chair of the East African Wild Life Society (EAWLS) board (the Imre Loefler environmental talks are named in his honour).
- Led/anchored civic environmental protection beyond parks (e.g., documented leadership around protecting Ngong Road Forest from land subdivision).
- His profile fits FoNNaP’s DNA: public-interest conservation, activism, and policy-facing work—not just tourism support.
Rosalie Osborne
- Appears in formal conservation networks as linked to conservation education / training in East Africa (e.g., listed in an IUCN regional education/training context).
- Also shows up in academic conservation planning literature as a participant/actor in Kenya’s conservation education landscape.
- Her inclusion among founders aligns with FoNNaP’s long-running emphasis on public engagement and education as conservation infrastructure.
John K. Atchley
- Appears in formal regional/international conservation governance records connected to Nairobi-based environmental diplomacy (e.g., listed through an IUCN regional context as a U.S. Embassy counsellor in Nairobi).
- This suggests FoNNaP’s early coalition included people able to navigate institutions, policy processes, and international conservation networks—useful for a park sitting in the path of national infrastructure decisions.
Simone Ole Makallah
- Documented as a senior KWS professional (e.g., described as a former warden and Assistant Director of KWS in a Mara Triangle update).
- His presence as a founding member fits FoNNaP’s stated model: work closely with KWS and support management capacity, not operate as an outside critic only.
James Cavanaugh
- Listed by FoNNaP as a founding member.
- Public biographical material tying this individual to Nairobi conservation is not consistently available in open sources I could verify quickly; for a pillar page, it’s safest to attribute only what FoNNaP itself states unless you have a primary document/newsletter profile to cite
Why FoNNaP exists: the Nairobi National Park reality (park + city + dispersal areas)
Nairobi National Park is not only a “park problem.” Its ecological integrity depends heavily on the Athi–Kapiti/Kitengela dispersal landscape, where wildlife historically moved seasonally and where land-use change has intensified pressures on connectivity and migratory species.
Academic work documenting the ecosystem underscores this challenge: long-term declines—especially of migrants like wildebeest—are strongly associated with land-use change and habitat fragmentation south of the park.
FoNNaP positions itself explicitly in this space: not just “inside-the-fence” conservation, but also community-facing, corridor- and dispersal-aware conservation.
FoNNaP’s role in formal park governance and planning
FoNNaP is not an informal interest group operating on the margins; it is repeatedly visible in formal KWS planning and stakeholder processes:
- KWS public participation (2020): KWS states that its Nairobi National Park Masterplan Taskforce collaborated with stakeholders including FoNNaP.
- Nairobi National Park Management Plan (2020–2030): In the plan’s acknowledgements, KWS lists FoNNaP among organisations that reviewed the draft and provided feedback incorporated into the final plan.
This matters because Nairobi National Park is a high-pressure urban-edge protected area where decisions about visitor experience, infrastructure, pollution control, dispersal areas, and community partnerships must be negotiated through structured planning.
What FoNNaP actually does: programmes and thematic work
FoNNaP’s portfolio is best understood as five complementary “conservation levers”—data, habitat quality, coexistence, public constituency, and policy defence.
1) Citizen science game counts and park clean-ups (bi-monthly)
FoNNaP runs a bi-monthly citizen science game count and clean-up activity in partnership with KWS. Members are paired and assigned blocks to count wildlife, while clean-ups remove plastics and solid waste that can harm biodiversity.
Why this is conservation-significant
- Wildlife counting builds trend evidence over time, supporting monitoring and research agendas (especially valuable in a park where perceptions of wildlife decline and visitor experience are recurring concerns).
- Clean-ups address an urban-edge driver of harm: solid waste pollution moving into river lines and habitats after rains and runoff events.
2) Human–wildlife conflict mitigation through “Lion Lights”
FoNNaP supports installation of LED predator-deterrent systems (“Lion Lights”) around livestock enclosures in dispersal areas to reduce night-time predation and retaliatory killing risk.
Why this is credible as an intervention
- Evidence syntheses and field studies have found flashing LED deterrent lights can reduce livestock losses to predators (the core mechanism FoNNaP describes: lights simulate human activity and deter predators).
- KWS itself publicly supports predator-deterrent lights as part of collaborative community conservation, reflecting institutional alignment with the approach.
3) Conservation education and student/public engagement
FoNNaP runs an education programme focused on awareness of Nairobi National Park and the need for wildlife conservation, including school exposure visits, educational field trips, and wildlife talks (plus partnered activities like “bicycles for wildlife”).
This is not “soft” work in an urban park. It builds a durable constituency—people who understand why the park matters, what threatens it, and what responsible visitation looks like.
4) Save Nairobi National Park Campaign: civic, legal, and planning advocacy
FoNNaP spearheads the volunteer-led SaveNNP Campaign, created during periods when government projects were planned or implemented inside the park.
FoNNaP documents past and ongoing engagements including:
- Legal action concerning the Southern Bypass alignment through the park
- Advocacy and actions around Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) impacts and alignment through Nairobi National Park
- Ongoing monitoring and reporting of threats such as pollution
- Working with KWS and partners to align the management plan toward biodiversity protection and sustainable tourism
In practice, this situates FoNNaP as part of the ecosystem of actors that engage Nairobi NP through law, public participation, and accountability mechanisms, which is a recurring governance theme for high-value protected areas near major infrastructure. (For broader context on stakeholder expectations around transparency and inclusive participation in NNP planning, see multi-stakeholder deliberation records.)
5) Research and knowledge production (building a research wing)
FoNNaP states it is establishing a research wing through collaborations with learning institutions and research/publishing partners, building on datasets such as wildlife trends derived from its game count activities.
This complements the broader academic and institutional emphasis on evidence-based management for Nairobi NP and its dispersal system.
Partnerships: how FoNNaP fits into the wider conservation network
FoNNaP’s work is not isolated. Its role is defined by partnerships—especially with KWS—and by its participation in multi-stakeholder planning processes.
Key partnership signals include:
- KWS explicitly naming FoNNaP as a collaborating stakeholder in the NNP Masterplan/management plan engagement space.
- FoNNaP’s own programme design, which repeatedly depends on KWS cooperation: in-park game counts and clean-ups, and alignment of conservation priorities.
Membership and participation: how FoNNaP is structured for engagement
FoNNaP is membership-driven by design: many of its signature activities (notably the bi-monthly game counts and clean-ups) are described as member-participation programmes.
If you’re writing this as a pillar page for NairobiPark.org, it’s useful to frame membership as “choose your lane”:
- Field participation lane: join game counts, clean-ups, education events
- Coexistence lane: support conflict mitigation tools like Lion Lights
- Civic lane: participate in awareness, monitoring, reporting, and planning/advocacy initiatives
Why FoNNaP matters: the organisation’s “theory of impact” in Nairobi NP
FoNNaP’s importance is best understood through what it uniquely enables in a capital-city park:
- Citizen capacity for recurring conservation work (not one-off volunteering) through routine counts and clean-ups.
- Conservation beyond the fence through conflict mitigation in dispersal landscapes—the exact area where fragmentation pressures are documented to undermine wildlife populations.
- A public constituency that can defend the park in political and planning arenas, where major infrastructure and development pressures frequently arise.
- Stakeholder legitimacy in formal processes, evidenced by FoNNaP’s inclusion in KWS planning engagements and management plan feedback.
How to engage FoNNaP effectively (practical steps for your readers)
If your goal is to guide tourists and Nairobi residents into meaningful action, these steps map directly onto FoNNaP’s programme logic:
- Join FoNNaP and commit to a cadence: one bi-monthly activity (game count/clean-up) is a powerful “minimum viable conservation routine.”
- Choose one applied project to fund or champion: Lion Lights are a concrete, measurable coexistence investment, aligned with broader evidence on predator deterrent lighting.
- If you’re a school or company: support education exposure visits and structured conservation learning engagements; FoNNaP explicitly runs programming in this lane.
- If you care about policy threats: engage through SaveNNP-style monitoring, reporting, and public participation—because in Nairobi NP, conservation is partly a planning and governance contest.
Key FoNNaP achievements and milestones in conserving the NNP ecosystem
1995: Establishment as a structured conservation partner to KWS
- Founded explicitly to assist KWS and protect NNP + its wider ecosystem, with a strong emphasis on dispersal areas and keeping the ecosystem “open.”
Since inception: Citizen science game counts + clean-ups (institutionalised public participation)
- FoNNaP runs regular citizen science game counts and park clean-ups in partnership with KWS (their own materials describe this as a core activity).
2002–2008: Implementing a flagship corridor/dispersal-area conservation finance mechanism (WCL/PES)
- Academic documentation describes a Wildlife Conservation Lease (Payment for Ecosystem Services) pilot (2002–2008) funded by the World Bank/GEF and implemented by FoNNaP, paying landowners to keep land open (anti-fencing/subdivision) to maintain dispersal areas and migration corridors essential to NNP’s viability.
- This is one of the most consequential “ecosystem-scale” interventions tied to NNP because it targets the real limiting factor: space outside the fence line.
Long-running: Human–wildlife conflict mitigation in the dispersal areas (coexistence tooling)
- FoNNaP supports installation of LED predator deterrent systems (“lion lights”) in the Athi–Kapiti dispersal area to reduce night-time livestock predation—explicitly framed as lowering conflict and retaliation risk.
2010s–present: Save Nairobi National Park Campaign (advocacy + legal action + development scrutiny)
- FoNNaP’s “Save NNP” campaign is described as volunteer-led, created in response to development projects planned/implemented inside the park.
- Documented actions include legal action around a proposed bypass alignment and sustained advocacy around major infrastructure decisions (including court-related processes).
2012: Publishing an NNP natural history guide (knowledge-building as conservation)
- Bibliographic records show FoNNaP as publisher of “Nairobi National Park: the FoNNaP natural history guide” (2012)—a tangible milestone in building public understanding of NNP biodiversity and value.
Education + public mobilisation as a conservation strategy
- FoNNaP runs conservation awareness programming (school exposure visits, talks, field trips and related activities) as part of keeping NNP relevant to Kenyans—not only tourists.
- External narrative accounts of FoNNaP-linked initiatives also emphasise the urgency of widening Kenyan participation in NNP conservation as threats intensified.
Frequently asked questions
Is FoNNaP a government agency?
No. FoNNaP describes itself as a non-profit membership society registered in Kenya, working in partnership with KWS and other stakeholders.
Is FoNNaP focused only on Nairobi National Park “inside the fence”?
No. FoNNaP explicitly references the broader ecosystem south of the park (Athi–Kapiti/Kitengela/Isinya/Kipeto/Kapiti ranches) and frames part of its mission around sustaining dispersal routes and coexistence.
What makes FoNNaP different from “general wildlife NGOs”?
FoNNaP’s signature is place-based civic conservation: repeatable citizen science in the park, on-the-ground pollution removal, coexistence tools in dispersal areas, and consistent engagement in planning/advocacy related to Nairobi NP.