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Kenya: Poaching Stealthily Stealing Our Heritage
Nairobi - For close to a decade now, Kenya has been in the forefront in crusading against the push by a few countries seeking to have a worldwide ban on trade in ivory lifted. As a country, Kenya has had a chilling experience with poaching which justifies this trepidation.

In 1973, our elephant population stood at 135,000. The next decade saw wanton poaching almost wipe out the entire elephant population.

By the time an international ban on the trade in ivory was in place and the jumbos brought under the protection of the Convention Against Trade in Endangered Species, CITES, the elephant population had dropped to 15,000 in 1989.

Even more frightening was the fact that the rhino population was rescued from total annihilation in the nick of time.

From a population of 20,000 in 1973, only 100 rhinos were left by the time the slaughter in the country's game parks and reserves was brought to a halt. These few still had to be placed in special sanctuaries under round-the-clock security.

Now the nightmare of the past is rearing its ugly head again. Poaching has been quietly on the rise in parks and reserves. Forty-six elephants have been killed in the last six months alone.

Wildlife experts link the upswing in poaching to the annual CITES conference held in the Hague last year where certain countries were permitted to sell ivory stocks to Japan and China. This is what has fueled the current poaching.

Working with the statistics of the 1980s, a gloomy prospect emerges, one that should galvanise the government into action. If poaching is allowed to reach levels of the 1980s, it will take only five years to wipe out the entire elephant population.

This possibility has vast and serious implications. Wildlife is the critical cog that keeps the wheel of tourism turning. This, in turn, translates into a major source of revenue for the government.

Tourism employs thousands of people directly while others make indirect livings in areas where tourists are attracted by animals like elephants.

Elephants and indeed all wild animals are an important part of that circle of life called biodiversity that we can only break at our own peril.

All this calls for swift and decisive intervention from the government. Resources at the disposal of KWS -- the body vested with the responsibility of protecting wildlife -- will have to be boosted to cope with the new challenges brought on by increased poaching.

This will probably include more personnel with specialised training, better pay, upgraded equipment and use of the latest technology. And as it happened in the early 1990s, a scorched earth approach to combating poaching might be the way to go -- hitting the poachers where it hurts.

However, taking out the arrow-kitted poacher will be an exercise in futility if the rich profiteers are not tracked down and ruthlessly dealt with. Unfortunately, the penalties for illegal trade in ivory are too lenient to discourage a rich crook who normally has the right connections in the right places.

And, if the of the war against poaching is to be won, it has to be recognised that communities living next to national parks are the best guardians of wildlife. For this to happen, ways of making them benefit directly from wildlife need to be worked out.

Currently, tourism is an economy that is largely indifferent to the needs of local communities; all they have to show for wildlife is a dispensary here and a cattle dip there. The time for a shift from this tokenism is now.

To engage communities in the fight against poaching, they must benefit from wildlife in real terms.

http://allafrica.com/stories/200809010177.html
 

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