Musili’s Journey Championing People and Planet » Capital News

June 7 – Growing up in Tseikuru, a remote village in Kitui County, just 30 kilometres from the expansive Mwingi National Reserve, Jimmy Musili experienced the forest not only as a wilderness but as a playground and source of sustenance.

Lions roared in the distance, bushbabies called at dusk, and foxes darted through the undergrowth. Musili and his cousins hunted squirrels and dik-dik, feasted on wild fruits, and quenched their thirst from cool forest springs.

This deep bond with nature would eventually inspire Musili’s path to becoming an environmental champion. He recently earned a Master’s degree in Environmental Management from Yale University in the United States—marking a major milestone in a journey rooted in the forests of rural Kenya.

“I grew up seeing the forest as part of life. It wasn’t something we considered special—it was just there,” he reflects. But changes crept in. “By the time I finished high school, things had shifted. The rains were failing, farms were no longer productive, the lions stopped roaring, and the thatching grass we once gathered easily was disappearing. Even dik-dik had become rare.”

A turning point came during a visit to Nairobi, where he watched footage of the late Prof. Wangari Maathai being assaulted for protesting forest destruction. It was his first encounter with the term “climate change”—and everything clicked: the missing rains, the vanishing wildlife, the dying grass.

Shifting away from early aspirations in architecture and engineering, Musili chose to study Wildlife Management at the University of Nairobi. Later, in 2015, he joined the Kitui County Government as a senior game warden, working to rehabilitate the Mwingi National Reserve—a crucial yet long-neglected ecosystem.

“The ecosystem was badly compromised. But restoration work is often underfunded in counties, and progress is painfully slow,” he laments.

Musili quickly grasped that communities living near protected areas like national parks often pay the highest price for conservation. “Tourists may marvel at the wildlife, but locals face crop destruction, injuries, and even death,” he says. “I’ve tracked lions for weeks, attended funerals of children killed by wildlife, and witnessed the economic devastation caused by unaddressed compensation claims.”

One case that stayed with him was a family that waited five years for compensation after losing a relative to a wildlife attack. “If human death takes that long, imagine how long crop loss takes. These people remain trapped in poverty, and over time, begin to resent the very wildlife the world wants to protect.”

Determined to make a broader impact, Musili pursued advanced studies in ecosystem management, people equity, and climate science—thanks in part to support from the Rotary Club of Athi River and his host club of Westport. At Yale, he deepened his understanding of the link between ecosystems, climate, and communities.

Today, Musili uses cutting-edge tools to model climate scenarios—analysing how rising temperatures and shifting rainfall patterns will affect land productivity, food systems, and wildlife habitats.

“In my modelling of elephant habitat, the data shows a sharp decline by 2060 if we continue with business as usual,” he notes.

Musili believes conservation must move beyond slogans and protectionism. It should centre local communities and their lived realities. “Wildlife doesn’t just exist for its own sake. It plays a role in soil health, carbon storage, air quality, and ultimately, food production,” he explains.

He cites the role of herbivores in grazing excess vegetation and recycling nutrients through waste, which stores carbon in the soil and enhances fertility. Disrupt this balance, he warns, and we risk cascading failures in food systems, water availability, and weather predictability.

“We need to stop seeing wildlife and humans as separate. We are all part of the same ecosystem. Conservation is about balance.”

From the shrinking forests of Tseikuru to the climate labs of Yale, Musili’s journey is a powerful testament to the impact one person can have when passion, education, and purpose align. His work now spans continents—but it remains anchored in the lessons of home, where children once played with dik-dik and gathered grass to thatch their roofs.