Elephant poaching in Kenya on the rise…
Copyright: Amboseli Trust for Elephants
Recently there has been a lot of local and international press about an increase of elephant poaching in Kenya. Late last month WildlifeExtra ran a story about 500kgs of ivory being seized from poachers
Some elephant conservation specialists believe that this increase is very likely to be related to the to, “the lifting of the ban on trade in ivory, and the one off sale that took place in Botswana, Zimbabwe, South Africa and Namibia in November last year” (Read the full post on WildlifeDirect HERE)
Needless to say this is a big concern for us. We have been working for several years in elephant populated areas trying do as much as possible to contribute to elephant protection either directly by helping with sanctuary maintenance and protection in places like Mwaluganje Elephant Sanctuary on the Coast and Rukinga Sanctuary in Tsavo (both vital corridors for movement of elephants) or trying to improve the standard of living by creating alternative income generation as well as looking at ways to reduce the human-wildlife conflict such as creating natural buffer zones.
Renovated gift shop by plastering, fitting door and windows and painting
Things are never simple and straightforward and whilst we are enraged about the brutal murder of so many elephants, we have to understand that things are so much more complicated and somethings are beyond our control such as the fact that a recent one off sale in southern Africa can actually have a terrible repurcussion all the way in Kenya.
Camps International as some of you will know has dedicated itself to a long term presence on Rukinga Sanctuary (Camp Tsavo is our base) which forms one of the most important corridors for migrating elephants between Tsavo East and Tsavo West (which together form one of the largest national parks in the world). The sheer size of these parks (bigger than England!) makes it virtually impossible to ensure protection of the animals at all times but the authorities do what they can and we also do what we can even though it might seem like a simple drop in the ocean.
This summer, we will be repairing watering holes on Rukinga Sanctuary and building a rangers post to at least secure a 24hour surveillance in another area of the conservancy. But we also want to increase our activities to assist people with alternative forms of income and thus, we will be piloting organic biomass fuels for communities to use and sell instead of depending on charcoal and fuelwood. Sadly, making charcoal is always done in these areas at the same time as hunting for bushmeat so hopefully we can try do a little bit more to reduce the bushmeat trade.
It’s really hard to explain in a couple of sentences how all these little things are so intricately linked; how every part of the puzzle needs to be looked at at the same time from helping to provide water security to building a rangers post, to going on scouting patrols, to making elephant dung paper! Believe me, it’s all linked!
So, yes, let’s scream and shout against ivory trade and sign every petition that is out there but let’s also come down to the ground if we can and help create a foundation that addresses some of the key driving factors like food security and increasing people’s chances to make a decent income…
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