How Elizabeth Gitari began the journey to being the powerhouse environmental and conservation lawyer she is today was pure coincidence. Arriving at the melting pot that is the University of Nairobi in 2006 was overwhelming for a young Elizabeth who grew up at the foothills of Mt. Kenya. So much so that she underperformed in her first year of law school. Still, Elizabeth was absolutely certain that she wanted to become a lawyer and teach law. Thinking back to her motivation to pursue law, she recalled wanting to follow in the footsteps of the fulfilled teachers she grew up around. Her vision? To become a corporate lawyer and university lecturer.
After digging deep and powering through her second year, the time came to choose electives for her third year. However, by a perfect twist of fate, the electives she intended to choose were unavailable and she was left with environmental law and natural resource-related courses.
Elizabeth grappled intently with re-taking a semester to study the courses she wanted to. In the end, she decided to go ahead and take the courses available. And it was a good thing she did! When Elizabeth walked into the environmental law class, it was love at first sight. The lecturer had no shortage of experience in the field. As such, she painted an intricate picture of environmentalism on a global scale. Elizabeth graduated in 2010 with the clarity that environmental law was her chosen path.
Having made up her mind, the first task was to look for internships in the environmental law sector. Few law firms dealt exclusively with environmental law at the time. Even so, it dawned on Elizabeth that she could work for NGOs. An internship at the National Museums of Kenya in 2007 led to a position at African Wildlife Foundation (AWF).
The disadvantages of communities that owned land in wildlife habitats stood out to Elizabeth while working at AWF. She came face to face with the devastating effects of human-wildlife conflict. The people that left their land open for wildlife conservation would almost always deal with crop destruction by wild animals and even the loss of life. Access to timely compensation from the government for these losses was almost nonexistent. If it ever came, it was too little too late.
As a result of these issues, Elizabeth recognised the role of law as a tool to benefit communities. She committed herself to a newfound passion of helping communities realise the value of their land and effectively balancing human and wildlife interests. This catalysed the fire that still fuels her work to date. She uses law as a tool to achieve sustainable natural resource conservation while securing community livelihoods.
Wildlife Direct brought Elizabeth onboard in 2014 to set up a legal department and focus on wildlife prosecutions. Her work involved watching brief in prosecutions of key masterminds behind illegal wildlife trade. The prosecution of Feisal Ali Mohamed was her biggest case. The accused had been found in possession of a shocking 200 million shillings worth of ivory intended for overseas export.
But the work of protecting wildlife was far from done. Elizabeth embarked on the process of advocating for the complete overhaul of the 1978 Wildlife Act. The law needed to reflect the fact that illegal wildlife trade had grown into large operations of organised crime. Despite this proliferation, the consequences were minimal at best. Additionally, conservancies had to be brought under the law to remedy the ambiguity about how they should be formed. Thanks to the new Act, conservancies now operate in tandem with one another rather than as individual entities with no regard for other conservancies. The impact of this change showed Elizabeth that she was not only great at formulating policy but that her work had far-reaching implications for wildlife conservation.
Lessons learned from the modified Wildlife Act remain a part of Elizabeth’s work to date. As a Managing Partner at OGO-Law, her continued aims to reimagine the law around wildlife and ensure its protection have only gained momentum. Championing public participation and the management of human land use to ensure that wild lands remain wild is key to her work. With communities in mind, she hopes to see benefits stream directly to people who leave land open for wildlife. As wildlife is one of the largest contributors to Kenya’s gross national domestic product, Elizabeth works towards a future where investment in it will be as meaningful as it is for other booming sectors.
We thank this green hero for investing her legal skills to push communities to the very centre of the conversation on wildlife. Her contributions have highlighted that real change is within reach – even if it means changing the law sometimes.
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