My birthday is on August 18th and I've sniffed out that some friends might be looking to get me a present so I'm gonna nip that in the bud right now.

I don't want anything. Well, that's not strictly true but I don't want any THINGS. Like stuff. Don't need it. Have too much.

Here's what would make me really happy about marking another year (and a few gray hairs):

Support for this fantastic organization: the Maasai Wilderness Conservation Trust.

This is an effort I've worked very hard to support for many years and that inspires me...so nothing would make me happier than having friends join me on my birthday in backing our work.

MWCT helps preserve the Maasai people of Kenya’s ecosystem and create sustainable benefits to help preserve this community and surrounding areas. More specifically, the money we raise will be used to help lion populations recover, secure land conservancies, and provide employment, education and medical services to the Maasai community.

I can see why people would say, “Why work on something so far from home in such an exotic and remote place?” or “What do the Maasai people have to do with our lives and our challenges?”

My answer is that every day we learn more about how interconnected the natural systems on the planet are and we have to do something to confront what’s happening to the forests and oceans and ecosystems in far away places so that they don’t have a larger impact on everybody everywhere. The world increasingly relies on many traditional communities like the Maasai to protect the ecological treasures that exist within the land that they own. Figuring out how people in developing countries can thrive and grow without destroying some of the world's most important natural resources is going to be one of the great challenges of the 21st Century.

Anything you can give is tremendous and means more to me than I can put in words. Or if you want to join the Team and send it around and raise a little yourself...amazing too. Best present I can imagine.

Thanks so much

Edward