Kenya must do whatever it takes to protect wildlife

A campaigning Jubilee Coalition promised to increase the number of tourists visiting Kenya annually to three million, up from the current one million.

That is as it should be. Tourism is Kenya’s second biggest foreign exchange earner after agriculture and an increase in the number of tourists would increase foreign earnings and help create many jobs.

Look at it this way: in 2011 tourism fetched Kenya Sh98 billion and the following year it fetched Sh95 billion. Now, if the efforts of the government and all stakeholders involved helped triple the number of tourists visiting Kenya, then there is a possibility that this revenue could be tripled.

But, how is this to be done? The government, first and foremost, must robustly tackle a serious problem facing our tourism. Most tourists visit Kenya to see our wildlife and especially the Big Five – elephant, rhino, buffalo, lion and leopard.

Of the Sh95 billion Kenya earned from tourism last year, seven per cent is attributable to wildlife. But the elephant and the rhino especially are under serious threat.

Witness the following: According to the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS), in 2007 Kenya lost 47 elephants to poachers. This number increased to 289 the following year and last year stood at 387.

As of April this year, Kenya had already lost 74 elephants.

If you follow the news keenly, then you will know that last week a black rhino was killed in a community-owned sanctuary in northern Kenya. It was the last such rhino in the sanctuary. You may also know that in the first week of this month, Mozambique lost its last rhino to poachers. No, Mozambique does not now have a rhino.

History, as they say, repeated itself; a century ago poachers wiped out Mozambique’s rhino herd. That forced the authorities to embark on painstakingly raising a new rhino population. Well, their efforts ended with the killing of that rhino.

Hunted to extinction

Danger looms terribly large for Africa. According to the World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF), an estimated 150 rhinos have been killed in South Africa this year and in 2012 the country lost about 700 elephants to poachers. Africa, reports WWF, loses some 30,000 elephants every year to poachers.

Remember that the rhino was hunted into extinction in Central Africa! The region is now regarded as the world’s elephant poaching epicentre.

How many elephants and rhinos does Kenya have? According to KWS, these number 38,000 and 1,025 respectively. And KWS, WWF and assorted local conservationists, stakeholders and civil society, say there has been an upsurge in poaching of the elephant and rhino in Kenya similar to the one of the late 1980s. It is this upsurge which forced the government to form the KWS. Why is poaching of the rhino and elephant on the rise?

Simple. Because a kilogramme of rhino horn is much more expensive than gold. And now witness the following: On March 26, 2013, Chinese national Tian Yi was arrested at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in possession of 439 pieces of worked ivory weighing 16.6 kg. He was fined Sh30,000.

I agree fully with WWF that “in many instances, wildlife smugglers are released after paying fines significantly lower than the value of the illegal goods.” But, there is urgency. According to WWF’s Wendy Elliot, “the killing of wildlife is increasingly connected to horrific violence against the rangers and community members standing between these criminals and their targets. It is long overdue for the punishment to fit the crimes in these cases”.

What will stop poaching of the rhino and elephant? It is curbing and or extinguishing the demand for rhino horn and elephant tusks. The chief culprit here is China. Of the 12 different ivory contraband seized at JKIA last year, seven were destined for China, three for Bangkok and one each for Malaysia and Nigeria.

Kenya must rally the world against China as the inspiration for global poaching. Kenya must institute stiff penalties against poaching and trafficking in wildlife products. It must equip KWS sufficiently to fight heavily-armed poachers and ensure all its security agents are trained to fight wildlife crime. The government must rethink its wildlife policy, conservation and protection of game.

The point of departure is for the governing Jubilee Coalition to create a Ministry of Wildlife. Wildlife is the goose, tourism the golden egg and foreign earnings the siagi-style lubricant for the economy.

Kwendo Opanga is a media consultant [email protected]