Save Our Heritage: Kenyans get creative with a Campaign to Stop Elephant Poaching

I have always had this lingering feeling that I was destined to work in an ad agency. It started when I discovered Mad Men and became a lifetime fan of Mr Don Draper. Note: Don Draper is played by Jon Hamm who happens to have a massive shlonk and an accompanying dislike for garments that try to hold his massive equipment in place. Check out this tumblr blog if your think I am lying. Why I know this, only God knows.

Great, now that we are done with that irrelevant piece of information, let us proceed. I happen to be part of a Facebook group of Kenyan Creatives, even though I am Ugandan and a wannabe creative, and they recently had a campaign dubbed “Save Our Heritage KE” to help curb the rampant illegal trading of Ivory in the country. It seems to have been started to provide back up to the Kenyan Government campaign ‘Hands off Our Elephants’  which aims to eradicate poaching in the country. The Kenyan government campaign that also includes Kenya Wildlife Service, Kenya Airways and Wildlife Direct companies is determined to preserve the country’s heritage.

[follow id=”SOHeritageKE” size=”large” ]

Kenyan Cabinet Secretary for Environment,Water and Natural Resources Judy Wakhungu said a new Wildlife Bill which recommends stiffer penalties for poachers will be presented to parliament. Statistics show 270 elephants were killed in 2011, 384 in 2012. Kenya,Uganda and Tanzania are main sources of ivory while Philippine,Vietnam and Malaysia are main transit areas. China and Thailand have been identified as major ivory consumers.

The creativity I saw in there has dented my ad agency ambitions with a heavy blow of self doubt. I am not sure I can come with anything nearly as good as what these guys came up with. The  Creatives, God bless their souls, came up with posters that send a deep message on the consequences of poaching ahead of the World Elephant Day 2013. There is also a webpage for who ever wants to contribute to the cause and a show was also organised in Nairobi to showcase the different posters. I laud the Creatives for their efforts and I for one would love to see more campaigns being handled like this; have fun and stir your creative juices while contributing to a cause. Whoever said a picture is worth a thousand words knew what they where talking about.

My plan originally was to chose my favourite 10 posters and post them here but the choosing became a problem so I have decided to post as many as I can. Click on any of the images to enlarge. I would also suggest you head to the pledge page and donate some money because like one of the posters put it so eloquently, actions speak better than ads.

Before we begin marvelling at the posters, I will drop some quick facts I picked from the pledge page here. Maybe they will encourage some hesitant folks to head there and empty their pockets for the sake of the elephants.

• At the turn of the 20th Century, there were a few million elephants in Africa. Today, there are an estimated 600000.
• In Tanzania, Poachers kill about 10000 elephants per year.
• Elephants in Kenya may Vanish in the coming 10 Years.
• I have no figures for Uganda but I am sure things are pretty bad here as well. I wonder what the Ugandan government is doing about it.