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Jones – An extraordinary man
We met Jones whilst filming the Kenya sequence for Our Changing Planet series two. He is clever and funny and kind; above all, he is relentlessly positive in the face of overwhelming pressure.
The man himself, Jones
Jones farms a small number of acres on the edge of Tsavo National Park. This farm used to be productive and supported him and his family but an increasingly erratic climate and four seasons of consecutive drought has left it a dirt patch where little can survive.
This is how Jones’ farm looked in 2019 when the last real rains fell
This is what it looked like when we were filming in 2022
When we were there the ground was dust and the once green fields were barren.
Elephants in the national park are also struggling
Elephants have started to raid the surrounding villages for food and water.
Elephants and people are desperately competing for the same scarce resources
The result is carnage. People shoot and spear the elephants and elephants trample and kill people.
Jones told us how elephants come in the night and peel the roof off the house and take whatever is inside
Families with their children are cowering inside – they have nowhere to hide and nowhere to run to. What the elephants take is everything the families have to survive. There is no back up, no safety net.
Jones is working with an organisation called Save the Elephants – that is just as interested in protecting people as it is in saving elephants – to discover practical ways of living with his five- tonne neighbours, and it is working.
Jones is an extraordinary man. We hope you think so too.
Not only has Jones developed non-lethal ways off keeping elephants off his land but by watching the elephants he has discovered a way to keep his cows alive. It’s ingenious.
Jones is an extraordinary man. We hope you think so too.
