As part of our social impact, we pledge to help and support local Kenyan women living in remote areas, gain skill and employment to help support their families.
Last week our expert beaders, Eunice and Mary, travelled to Samburu in northern Kenya to a women's beading group to outsource the beading of our leather belts to these women.
When we outsource our beading to women's groups like this, we aim to not only provide employment, but we also aim to up-skill and empower younger women wanting to go into beading. With training and support we help ensure that these women produce beaded items that meet international quality standards.
When Eunice and Mary travelled to Samburu they were shocked by the level of drought in this area. Samburu hasn't had sufficient rain for over a year now, meaning that people living in this area have had to either move to greener pasture or have had to seek additional employment to be able to afford more expensive commodities, such as food and clothing.
Eunice and Mary oversaw the beading of over 30 Samburu women and produced over 100 belts in one week. Not only do we provide the raw material and beads but we also provide a fair price per beaded item made.
Therefore by buying our beaded items you are not only supporting lion conservation through our lion friendly story, but you are also supporting local Kenyan women who have beaded our items.
To shop our beaded items click here for dog collars and here for beaded belts.
We also offer the service to bead your own dog collar or belt here.
Thank you for any support you can give us!
]]>Urban Ranch was founded in 2021 to create a unique range of high quality leather items, with the aim of reforming the leather supply industry in Kenya by using cow hides sourced from wildlife conservancies where cattle and wildlife are allowed to coexist in harmony.
Until now it has been thought that cattle and wildlife are unable to utilise the same area of land due to wildlife, such as lions, predating on cattle. This has often led to human-wildlife conflict, resulting in wildlife being eradicated from areas where they roamed freely. Consequently this has led to a 40% decline in Kenya’s lion population in the last 20 years!
However, change is here with Urban Ranch’s products!
Before any of our products are even made we are supporting wildlife conservation in Kenya by buying most of our leather from these conservancies that allow cattle and wildlife to co-exist and that area actively helping conserve some of Earth’s most endangered species!
Not only does Urban Ranch use premium Kenyan leather sourced from wildlife conservancies, we also have all our products carefully hand made in Kenya by Kenyans.
Many of our leather items also have beautiful bead work on them, sewn by Kenyan ladies from community groups that live in rural parts of Kenya. We send them our products to bead, and using their brilliant skill and high quality beads, they add an extra sparkle to many of the products. By providing employment to these rural communities we are helping empower Kenyans and alleviate poverty in many rural areas of Kenya to people who otherwise would have little opportunity of employment.
This positive social aspect combined with our commitment to only sourcing leather from wildlife conservancies makes Urban Ranch the leading sustainably leather manufacturer in Kenya, both in environmental and social responsibility.
That is not the end of the story though! Once our leather products are sold we donate 5% of each sale to Lion Landscapes - a charity working to conserve Kenya’s future lion populations. Our donations go towards helping ensure the lion populations of Kenya continue to have enough secure habitat within which to exist.
Our products are available to be bought worldwide (www.urbanranch.co.uk) and in Kenya through our online stores (www.urbranranchkenya.com) or in our flagship store in Nanyuki, Kenya (next to Dormans coffee shop). By purchasing our products you are not only helping conserve current areas of wildlife habitat and securing a future for lions in Kenya and you are also providing employment opportunities for many rural Kenyan communities.
]]>What does this mean?
With every product sold from our leather collection we donate 5% percentage of the sale to Lion Landscapes, a charity working to ensure the future of lions in Africa through ecological monitoring and educating people about the threats wild lions are facing.
Our donation from each sale go towards helping fund the 'Lion Friendly Livestock' programme, which aims to alleviate human-wildlife conflict created by many pastoralists grazing their cattle near wildlife areas. Seventy five percent of Kenya’s wildlife exists on rangeland shared with pastoral people, who traditionally prioritise livestock quantity over quality. This results in rangeland degradation and unsustainable agricultural practices threaten biodiversity, amplify poverty by reducing returns on investment, and can increase climate change vulnerability.
Lion Friendly Livestock is a certification that incentivises ‘conservation-friendly’ livestock farming practices by linking them to increased livestock value for commercial and traditional pastoralists. Women’s cooperatives are key partners, improving equity in a traditionally-male enterprise. Lion Friendly Livestock
strengthens pastoral livelihoods and enables communities to more sustainably manage their rangeland for people, livestock and biodiversity.
Pastoralists roam into wildlife areas in search of fresh pasture, often resulting in human-wildlife conflict in which many lions are often killed.
Overall the Lion Friendly Livestock programme aims to increase the value of coexisting with wildlife for commercial and traditional pastoral people by developing strong brand recognition and market share for livestock products raised on biodiverse rangelands that include the largest carnivore species, i.e. lion, and enable sustainable and predator-friendly practices throughout the landscape through the effective and equitable sharing of expertise, tools and benefits.
Thank you for any support you can give us and Lion Landscapes in supporting this great programme!
Our studio (where all our amazing products are hand-made) is located 5 hours north of Nairobi, and acts as a hub for craftsmen from all over Kenya to come and practice and develop their skills. We support the empowerment of Kenyan craftsmen and help facilitate them to get their products into international markets by providing the necessary equipment and infrastructure to do so.
We also work with women-lead beading groups who live too far away from our Studio to commute to us on a daily basis. We ensure that their incredible skills are not over-looked but instead made accessible to markets by travelling to them regularly and working with them to create the beautiful beaded items you see on our website and in our shop.
Many skilled Kenyans live near the wildlife areas from where we source our leather from. We therefore are not only supporting wildlife conservation through The Lion Friendly Story, but we are also supporting people and their families living near these areas. We are therefore helping create a circular economy within the rural communities of Kenya.
How to support our movement
By buying our products you are not only supporting conservation initiatives in Kenya but you are also supporting hundreds of people and their families who's lives depend on the sale of their crafts.
Thank you for your support!
]]>Out of 1500 applicants we were one of the 300 selected for the award!
The Green Product Award acknowledges products and services from established companies or start-ups for their excellence in sustainability, design and innovation. The Award has been making 'best practice' examples accessible to a broad public on an international level from a pool of 1500 submission entries yearly since 2013.
Lion Friendly Leather has entered the official Pre-Selection of the Green Product Award 2022 in the category Fashion.
“With the Lion Friendly Story the team of Conservation Services Limited created something special, what really earns the name Green Product, that's for sure” - Nils Bader, Award Initiator.
Let's find out on December 13th, who the Nominees are. Stay tuned and check our achievement so far on the Green Product Award website:
Persecution of lions, coupled with the loss of habitat due to Africa's rapid human population growth has resulted in a 45% decline in Africa's lion population in the last 20 years!
But change is afoot...
In the past decade many wildlife conservancies in East Africa have adopted a system that permits wildlife and cattle to coexist on the same land, at the same time.
In this system no lions are killed to make way for cattle!
At Urban Ranch we ensure that we buy most of our cow hides from conservancies that operate the wildlife-livestock integration system described above. By doing this we directly support the protection of Africa's lion population before any products are even made!
And lastly we donate 5% of sales from the Lion Friendly Leather Collection to Lion Landscapes - an organisation working to ensure a future for lions in Africa!
So, STOP buying leather products from Africa that have contributed to the decline in Africa's lion population and start buying LION FRIENDLY products!
]]>