ANIMAL PEOPLE is the leading independent newspaper providing original investigative coverage of animal protection worldwide. Founded in 1992, ANIMAL PEOPLE has no alignment or affiliation with any other entity.

 

This site built and maintained by: GREANVILLE ASSOCIATESand CRESCENT COMMUNICATIONS •Rev. 12.1.05 Copyright ANIMAL PEOPLE, INC. 1992--2006

 

 

 

 

 
   

 
powered by FreeFind

ESSENTIAL DESTINATIONS

MONTH: November 2006

Report from the National Symposium on Kenyan Wildlife

 

by Chris Mercer, www.cannedlion.com ° In September 2006 I was invited by the Steering Committee of the National Symposium on Kenyan Wildlife, appointed by the Kenyan government, to attend the symposium and present the case against hunting. Hunting has been banned in Kenya since 1977, and dealing in wildlife trophies since 1978.

Attended by about 160 people, the Symposium was held as an indirect result of a campaign lavishly funded by Safari Club International in 2004, which involved flying Kenyan conservationists and officials to elite hunting farms in South Africa and Zimbabwe in order to persuade the Kenyan government to resume trophy hunting. No expense was spared. Industry experts regaled the Kenyan representatives with statistics purporting to show how much money Kenya could make out of trophy hunting, as opposed to ecotourism.

A bill to legalise hunting was secretively prepared and rushed through the Kenyan legislature without debate. Before President Mwai Kibaki could sign the bill into law, however, Youth for Conservation and other grassroots animal welfare groups and wildlife organisations began an unprecedented joint campaign against it. Twenty- two animal welfare organisations arranged for petitions signed by thousands of Kenyans to be presented at 100 separate demonstrations throughout Kenya. At the same time, hundreds of demonstrators delivered a petition against the bill to the President's house in Nairobi.

Unlike in South Africa, there is no hunting culture in Kenya, and the majority of Kenyans are opposed to hunting. Under great pressure, Kibaki referred the hunting issue to a national public participation process, to continue until April 2008. The National Symposium that I attended was the first step in the process ordered by the President to test Kenyan public opinion--but the conference was sponsored by the U.S. Agency for International Development, which has long used U.S. tax money to promote hunting through programs such as CAMPFIRE in Zimbabwe.

To avoid my participation being blocked by pro-hunting interests, I was introduced as an expert on "Community Involvement and Benefits of Wildlife."

The Symposium was a great success. It was jam packed for both days by everyone who was anyone in wildlife conservation, except former Kenya Wildlife Service chief Richard Leakey and his successor David Western, whose paper was read by one of his assistants. The presentations were delivered mainly by Kenyan scientists, academics and wildlife experts. The current Kenya Wildlife Service director was in attendance.

I was treated at all times as an honored guest, and was introduced to all the senior officials. Unlike in South Africa, where animal welfarists are deliberately excluded from participating in wildlife and environmental policy-making, I felt as if I were a member of the Symposium family, rather than a foreigner.

Youth for Conservation cofounder Josphat Ngonyo, more recently founder of the African Network for Animal Welfare, kept me informed at all time. I also connected with Rob Carr-Hartley, son-in law of Daphne Sheldrick, founder of the famous elephant orphanages operated by the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust at Nairobi National Park and Tsavo National Park. Now that Sheldrick is 75, Rob and Sheldrick's daughter Gillian Woodley manage the orphanages.

The picture that emerged at the Conference was not happy. The situation for wildlife in Kenya is critical. Refugees from strife-torn Somalia and Sudan have added to the impact of the Kenyan birth rate, now among the highest in the world. The Kenyan population rose from five million in 1946 to 30 million in 2006. This has resulted in massive human encroachment into the land surrounding the national parks, and in turn causes human/animal conflict and wildlife snaring for bushmeat on an unimaginable scale. The Kenyan wildlife population has cumulatively declined by more than 40% in the past few years. Some species, such as buffalo, have declined by 90% or more. Roan antelope are down to 900, from an estimated 20,000 at peak. Rob Carr-Hartley believes that within two years Tsavo West National Park may be denuded of wildlife. Poaching is completely out of control. Deforestation in all six watershed areas of Kenya is causing the rivers to dry up. Even the Mara is expected to run dry sooner or later.

I was given 20 minutes to speak. There were gasps of shock from the audience as my first videos showed a poor lioness being shot out of a tree with an arrow and a wounded lion charging a hail of bullets from a mob of hunters. When I followed this by explaining the colonial aspects of hunting, and showing how hunting perpetuates colonialism, many delegates cheered. I moved on to statistics published by Africa Geographic, showing how poorly revenue from hunting benefits a nation, compared to ecotourism. After my presentation, I was given a further ten minutes to take questions from a forest of hands, and then we broke for tea. I was at once besieged and surrounded by delegates. Most were congratulatory, but a few were visibly angry. One woman scientist demanded to know where I got my statistics. Apparently she had given a report to the government which relied upon the figures given to her by the hunting industry. She was therefore highly embarrassed, pointing out that if my figures were correct she had in effect given the Kenyan government a false report. The pro-hunting types were visibly glum and shell-shocked, but the animal welfare brigade was delighted.

The only time I felt I was back in South Africa was when Lord Andrew Eniskellin, an elderly land owner, gave a monotonous reading of his belief that his estate could not survive without the income from hunting, and that Kenyans should not be swayed by "interfering foreigners who are not stakeholders, and who appeal to sentiment."

Otherwise, the depth of the anti-hunting culture in Kenya was brought home to me most vividly in a touching presentation by rural community representative Dr. Darius Mombo. After recounting the horrifying damage suffered by his community from wild animals straying out of Tsavo, including 47 human deaths, mainly caused by elephants, and crop destruction of unthinkable proportions (about 80% of some crops were lost), as well the as social upheaval caused by, for example, children being too tired to attend school because of all-night vigils to keep wild animals out of crops, Mombo might have been expected to endorse the calls for hunting. Instead he announced that his whole community was against any form of hunting, including for problem animal control, because "It makes the animals angry with us." All his community wanted was a fair system of compensation for losses. Afterwards I shook his hand and told him that he had restored my faith in human nature.