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Kenya: Human Activity Threatens the Mara
Nairobi - The killing of four people in the Maasai Mara outback has the hallmarks of a simmering bitter conflict between wildlife and humans over the control of key resources.

Administrators are worried that the skirmishes in Ole Nkuluo Location in Narok could be a foretaste of a battle conservationists and journalists, among them Raymond Bonner, forewarned two decades ago. They had cautioned that in the absence of direct benefits from wildlife, communities would replace game sanctuaries with crops.

In his epic "At the Hand of Man - Peril and Hope for Africa's Wildlife", Bonner predicted the demise of Kenya's key tourism machine in the event of a human-wildlife war.

Key corridor

According to elders, Titame ole Nampaso, Kesui ole Losikany, Leayio ole Tepato, and Molikanke ole Koonyi were killed by lions and elephants as they tried to repulse the beasts that had mauled their livestock and destroyed crops in a village 30 km from the Mara Reserve boundary. The area falls within the Ole Nkuluo dispersal area - a key corridor for the seasonal movement of animals.

"Residents are being killed each month," says Motoron Losikany, a former councillor who lost a member of his family to a rogue elephant. "Wildlife is making us poor. We cannot farm. We cannot move.

We've lost our livelihood."

The number killed in human-wildlife confrontations in the larger Mara ecosystem is unclear. But authorities say the figure could run into dozens this year alone.

"With people driving their livestock into the park, the conflict has become more intense now," says Michael ole Koikai, the Maasai Mara senior game warden.

Land and water

Humans and wildlife are scrambling for land and water, now a scarce resource following the destruction of Mau Forest - the region's key water tower. Water levels in Mara and Ewaso Ng'iro, the two rivers that serve the area, and whose source is Mau Forest, have gradually gone down.

"Recently I flew over the Mara. What I saw was bad; in ten years, there will be no vegetation here; it will be a desert," says Alfred Konyanya, the region's KWS senior warden.

Wheat, maize and bean plantations have replaced wildlife corridors in the larger Narok and Trans Mara, the two districts traversed by world-renown Mara Game Reserve.

According to conservationists, four in five wild animals live outside protected parks and reserves. They roam dispersal areas, occupied by humans and largely under cultivation. Initially, communities formed group ranches that disallowed land demarcation.

Why, then, would people sub-divide land and threaten a $1 billion (Sh62 billion) resource key to the economy?

"The communities who have ceded land to wildlife are not benefiting from the resource," says 54-year old Moses Ngoriompai, the chairperson of Osiligi, a community-based organisation crusading for greater benefits in 24 districts considered wildlife-range areas. It has filed 4,700 cases for compensation against the Government in just three years.

Leopard attack

Pastore ole Soido is waiting for Sh15,000 compensation for the loss of a hand in a leopard attack.

"When we target rogue elephants, authorities respond quickly using helicopters. Yet, when elephants kill us, they do not come to our rescue. Rather, they bring us coffins," Soido says.

Ngoriompai was jailed for seven months for killing an elephant in 1989. He says the animal invaded his home five times but KWS did not respond to his distress call.

Corruption in the local authorities has ensured that little of the tourism revenue trickles down to the peasants who have given up their land for the wildlife. One in five shillings made in Mara, a towering component of Kenya's tourism machine that attracts 400,000 visitors every year, should go to local communities.

Yet people in the Mara ecosystem remain poor - no roads, schools are far apart and the few health centres are run by humanitarian agencies.

Insurance

Until the late 1970s, the Government compensated for wildlife destruction of livestock, property and crops. The insurance package was withdrawn owing to collusion between unscrupulous farmers and corrupt state officials, the Government said. It now pays Sh200,000 for human deaths and Sh30,000 for injuries.

Daniel Injapit lost his 40 goats valued at Sh120,000 to lions in 2006. Since then, he has been visiting the KWS office to seek compensation "for the loss of his livelihood."

KWS passes the buck to the Government.

"(Compensation) is the responsibility of the Government. Our duty is to facilitate the preparation of the claims," says KWS's Konyanya.

The District Wildlife Compensation Committee chaired by the DC verifies claims and arranges for compensation.

Nevertheless, will payments bring the conflict to rest?

"If the Government can take the initiative to compensate for crops, livestock and property destroyed by wildlife, people's perception will change," says Konyanya, who recently trapped a leopard that had killed livestock and had it returned to the Mara Reserve.

Draft Bill

A draft Bill that recommends such compensation lapsed last year when Parliament was dissolved before debating it. Apart from compensation, it suggested that communities living next to reserves and parks should benefit directly.

In the Mara Game Reserve, the man in charge is worried.

"Initially these were open lands," Koikai says pointing in the direction of dispersal areas. "... People have moved too close to the park."

Thus, livestock has become easy prey for wild animals.

"Locals respond by spearing or poisoning wildlife that targets their cattle and sheep."

Magdalene Katei of ActionAid International Kenya says the conflict has had a far-reaching impact on development. Admission in nearby schools has fallen as children are afraid of roaming wildlife.

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