When the School Gates Close

Planting a tree is, in many ways, the easy part. The harder work begins the following morning.

For schools across the Greater Amboseli ecosystem, some of the most promising environmental projects are won or lost during the long weeks when the school gates are closed and the people who ordinarily tend them are no longer there.

It was for this reason that we chose to mark Mazingira Day 2026 a little differently.

Rather than beginning with yet another planting exercise, we began with a more difficult question:

How do we keep what has already been planted alive?

On 10 October, we brought together teachers and environmental club patrons to examine what happens to school tree nurseries, kitchen gardens, greenhouses and other environmental projects when schools close for the holidays.

The conversation was deliberately practical. Schools in Amboseli are attempting to grow and restore within a landscape shaped by erratic rainfall, exhausted soils, habitat loss, changing land use and persistent competition for water. During the holidays, these challenges become more pronounced. Livestock may enter school compounds, Wildlife can damage gardens, fencing and water infrastructure, Water supplies can run dry, Monitoring often slows or stops altogether and a project that flourished throughout the school term can, quite literally, disappear before the students return.

Three schools brought those realities vividly into focus.

At Lemong’o Comprehensive School, students learn through a greenhouse, vegetable farming and tree propagation. The vegetables supplement school meals while giving learners practical agricultural skills. Yet keeping the project alive requires a constant negotiation with the surrounding environment. Elephants have broken through fencing and damaged crops and infrastructure, including the greenhouse’s 10,000-litre water tank. High temperatures, strong winds, pests, limited labor and water scarcity create further pressure.

The school’s response is instructive. Rather than treating environmental projects as the responsibility of teachers alone, it is looking outward to parents, young people and community volunteers who can participate in holiday care rosters. Rainwater harvesting and drip irrigation are being considered as ways of easing pressure on limited water supplies, while mulching can help retain soil moisture. Students themselves are also being encouraged to take greater responsibility for what they have helped to create.

At Amboseli Primary and Junior School, the story is equally striking.

The school has transformed its tree cover from approximately 18 trees to more than 1,500. Its nursery has held around 1,000 seedlings, many raised in potting tubes made from reused milk packets. Students have also taken seedlings home, extending the work beyond the school compound and into neighbouring households.

The landscape, however, has been unforgiving.

At one point, elephants destroyed approximately 730 seedlings. None survived.

It is a sobering reminder that school greening in Amboseli cannot be approached as though schools exist apart from the wider ecosystem. Some are situated within landscapes used by both wildlife and livestock. The trees being nurtured in school compounds are growing in the same spaces through which animals move in search of food, water and passage.

The solution must therefore be practical, adaptive and responsive to all those who share the landscape.

The school is exploring an “adopt a tree” approach, in which individual learners become responsible for between one and five trees. This is being considered alongside holiday care schedules, better survival records, the use of drought-tolerant species and stronger protection from browsing animals.

At Rombo Boys Primary and Junior School, the absence of a perimeter fence presents another version of the same challenge. Livestock and wildlife can enter the compound freely. Yet the school has built significant tree cover and has distributed seedlings to neighboring homesteads, accompanied by guidance on how families can care for them.

Its holiday plan depends largely on people: watchmen, environmental club members, the school administration and a committed patron who checks the project regularly.

Across all three schools, one lesson emerged with remarkable consistency:

Trees survive when responsibility survives the holiday.

That insight became the foundation for the co-development of our Holiday Conservation Toolkit.

The toolkit moves school greening away from the assumption that planting is the final act and towards a more meaningful measure of success: survival.

Before schools close, trees should be counted and photographed. Seedlings should be mulched. Small water basins should be dug around them. Water reserves should be secured. Fences and barriers should be checked. Fire breaks and drainage should be considered.

During the holidays, responsibility must continue.

Rotating groups of students, teachers, parents and community members can take responsibility for watering, weeding, repairing damaged structures and reporting emerging problems. When school resumes, the trees can be counted again and survival rates calculated.

What died?

What survived?

And why?

Those questions transform a school garden from a seasonal activity into a living system of learning.

They also change the meaning of school conservation.

The number of seedlings planted may tell us how much activity took place but survival rates tell us whether restoration is actually working.

Our ambition is not simply to fill school compounds with trees for a season. It is to help schools grow living landscapes that mature alongside the children who planted them.

When a school becomes a center of environmental knowledge within its community, children cease to be merely recipients of conservation education and become practitioners of it.

The webinar also made clear that there is no perfect formula.

Water scarcity and damage from livestock and wildlife remain among the greatest threats to school environmental projects. Schools without fencing face particularly difficult conditions, especially those situated within areas frequently used by wildlife. Teachers raised important questions about how to protect trees from elephants when ordinary fencing is inadequate and electric fencing remains prohibitively expensive.

A number of solutions are being explored, including drought-tolerant and less palatable tree species, individual seedling protection, chilli-based deterrents and better planning around rainfall.

Yet perhaps the most important outcome of this Mazingira Day was not a single technical solution.

It was the opportunity to learn from the environmental stewards already doing this work every day and leaning on their experience to co create a toolkit that will bring greater continuity, accountability and shared responsibility around school greening projects. The intention is to help ensure that what is planted during the school term has a far better chance of thriving long after the gates have closed because the true measure of restoration is not how many seedlings touch the soil on planting day but rather, how many are still standing years later.

Download the Conservation Resources