In 2009, Edward Norton ran the New York Marathon to back a Kenya conservation trust; its work now directly protects 283,000 acres of Maasai land

In 2009, Edward Norton ran the New York Marathon to back a Kenya conservation trust; its work now directly protects 283,000 acres of Maasai land. What began as a highly visible fundraising effort has become part of a much larger story about community-led conservation, wildlife protection and the relationship between people and the landscapes they depend upon. Norton, an actor with a long-standing interest in environmental conservation, joined three Maasai runners and a wider team of participants for the ING New York City Marathon on November 1, 2009.

The campaign was designed not simply to put a celebrity face on conservation, but to raise awareness and financial support for the Maasai Wilderness Conservation Trust (MWCT), a Kenya-based organization focused on biodiversity, community development, education and health. Contemporary reporting described the marathon as an effort to connect an iconic global sporting event with the protection of East African ecosystems.

Norton’s connection with MWCT


Norton’s connection with MWCT had developed years before the marathon. According to the organization, he first encountered the Trust after traveling to Kenya to climb Mount Kilimanjaro and became deeply interested in its approach to conservation. By 2006, he was officially supporting the organization, and in 2007 he became president of its U.S. board. The Trust’s 2023 historical record identifies the 2009 New York City Marathon as a major milestone in its development.

Contemporary reports from AECOM and Garmin said Norton led a group of 30 runners, including three Maasai warriors, in an effort combining corporate sponsorship, grassroots fundraising and public awareness. The campaign demonstrated how conservation could be communicated beyond traditional environmental circles, bringing the challenges facing Maasai lands and wildlife into one of the world’s most recognizable cities.

The fundraising campaign also highlighted a fundamental principle that remains central to MWCT: protecting wildlife works best when conservation creates meaningful benefits for the communities living alongside that wildlife. The Trust describes its mission as conservation that directly benefits local Maasai communities, with programs spanning wildlife security, habitat protection, education, health, livelihoods and sustainable economic opportunities.

Rather than treating wilderness and community development as separate goals, its model connects them. Conservation can provide employment, support land management and create incentives for protecting natural resources, while healthy ecosystems can sustain wildlife, tourism and other sources of local economic value. This community-based approach is particularly important in landscapes where livestock, farming, wildlife and conservation priorities frequently overlap.

MWCT’s 2022 Impact Report

The scale of the work is visible in MWCT’s 2022 Impact Report. The report records 283,000 acres protected during the year, alongside 2,553 anti-poaching patrols and 194 rangers involved in patrol operations across the wider area. It also identifies 37,450 acres of high-value conservancies covering forest, grassland and critical wildlife corridors. Fifty-three rangers were assigned to protect those conservancies, with activities focused on preventing grazing and poaching while maintaining law enforcement capacity. Rangers collectively covered more than 30,000 kilometers on foot in the Kuku Group Ranch area. These numbers illustrate that conservation is not an abstract concept: it requires people in the field, regular patrols, monitoring systems, community relationships and sustained resources to keep vulnerable landscapes functioning.

Wildlife protection, however, is rarely straightforward. The 2022 report describes a year marked by severe drought, increased poaching pressure and technical difficulties with monitoring data. It also documents incidents involving elephants, giraffes, lions, zebras and other wildlife, illustrating the complicated human-wildlife relationships that conservation teams must manage. In one highlighted case, an elephant killed a local farmer after the farmer attempted to drive several elephants away from crops. MWCT and the Kenya Wildlife Service responded by securing the scene and helping prevent retaliation against the animals. Such incidents show why conservation requires more than simply protecting animals from poachers. It also involves reducing conflict, supporting communities and creating practical systems through which people and wildlife can coexist in shared landscapes.

Chyulu Hills REDD+ Carbon Project

The Trust’s work extends beyond ranger patrols and anti-poaching operations. Its 2022 report describes the Chyulu Hills REDD+ Carbon Project, which received certification for 3.1 million new verified carbon credits that year. During the severe drought, the project office also helped deliver a food program supporting 59 schools and approximately 24,000 students. These initiatives demonstrate how environmental protection can intersect with climate finance, education and community resilience. The underlying idea is that conservation becomes more durable when local people can see tangible benefits from maintaining forests, grasslands and wildlife habitats. For the Maasai communities whose livelihoods are closely connected to the land, safeguarding ecosystems can therefore become part of a broader strategy for sustaining families and future generations.

Edward Norton’s 2009 marathon is consequently best understood as one milestone within a much longer conservation journey rather than as an isolated celebrity charity event. The MWCT’s own history records the establishment of conservancies in 2010, the launch of the Chyulu Hills REDD+ Carbon Project in 2011 and subsequent expansion of conservation, land-management and wildlife-protection initiatives. Norton continued his association with the organization, including a 2022 visit to MWCT and engagement with the Chyulu Hills Carbon Project board. The progression from a fundraising marathon in New York to large-scale conservation programs in Kenya illustrates how public attention can become part of a sustained institutional effort when it is connected to local leadership, field operations and long-term environmental planning.

More than a decade after Norton and the Maasai runners took to New York’s streets, the story offers a powerful reminder that conservation success is measured over years rather than in a single event. The 283,000 acres reported as protected in 2022 represent a landscape where rangers patrol, wildlife is monitored, conflicts are addressed and communities participate in managing natural resources. MWCT’s broader mission continues to link biodiversity protection with Maasai livelihoods and sustainable economic opportunities.

The significance of the 2009 marathon, therefore, lies not only in the miles covered by its runners or the funds raised at the time, but in the wider conversation it helped create. It showed that a race through New York could draw attention to a conservation challenge thousands of miles away—and that protecting Africa’s extraordinary wildlife can be inseparable from empowering the communities who call its wilderness home.