Everyone wants a piece of Kenya’s national parks. The Somali herdsman in search of pasture for his cattle. The villager hunting antelope. The Tanzanian entrepreneur seeking a rare plant. And, of course, ivory poachers.
Park managers say they can’t deal effectively with these problems because of insufficient funding, staff and equipment.
Researchers add there are deficiencies in another area often overlooked: access to information.
John Kariuki, research scientist at Tsavo West National Park, gave East African sandalwood as an example of how difficult it is to manage without basic information on what exists within park boundaries.
It is illegal to collect even deadwood from the parks, but Tanzanian traders have been cutting sandalwood in neighbouring Chyulu Hills National Park.
”We didn’t know it is being used to make perfumes,” in India and South Africa, he said.
Park officials learned that key bit of information only when their Tanzanian counterparts alerted them that the sandalwood collectors had moved into Chyulu Hills because plants outside conservation areas had been wiped out, Kariuki said.
James Isiche, the East Africa regional director for the International Fund for Animal Welfare, is concerned about an overall lack of land use planning, which involves gathering and processing information.
”The government should be able to say this is where you conduct a certain activity, this is where you don’t,” said Isiche, who used to work with Kenya Wildlife Services, the government body charged with wildlife conservation.
Edward Indakwa, a spokesperson for the Kenya Wildlife Services, said poor coordination between other government departments made managing the parks more difficult.
”For instance, the perennial problem of overgrazing in parks results from large livestock herds and poor management of pasture outside the park,” Indakwa said. ”I see this declining with proper interventions from the Livestock and Agriculture Ministries.”
The problems can seem overwhelming, particularly when compounded by natural events. The cyclical drought, for example, which normally occurs every five years, is now in its fourth consecutive year.
Somalis drive their cattle hundreds of kilometres from neighbouring Somalia to graze them in Kenyan national parks, as do Kenyans whose villages are near the parks, because of the prolonged drought and overgrazing of existing pasture. Villagers hit by the drought have more reason than usual to hunt antelope, either to feed the meat to their families or sell to raise money for other food. Hunting has been illegal in Kenya since 1977.
”We have not received sufficient rains for the last four years so that has compounded the issue of” poaching, said Michael Kikepu, assistant director of Tsavo East National Park.
Tsavo East is the largest of Kenya’s 24 national parks. The 57-year old park has 106 rangers to patrol its 13 860 square kilometeres. It needs an additional 120 rangers, a bigger network of roads and more aircraft, Tsavo East Research Scientist Sam Andanje said.
Tsavo West National Park Assistant Director Robert Muasya said he has 196 rangers to cover about 1 000 kilometres of road.
”It’s not my optimum staffing level,” Muasya said. An additional 140 rangers is closer to it, he said.
Tsavo East suffered the heaviest losses during the 1980s and early 1990s when poachers decimated Kenya’s elephants and rhinos to supply an insatiable ivory market. The park lost at least half its elephant population, which is 10 397 today, down from 25 268 in 1972.
By the end of the 1990s, it had only three rhinos, a drastic decline from having Kenya’s largest population in 1970s of between 6 000 to 9 000 rhinos, Andanje said.
Isiche, of the International Fund for Animal Welfare, said the parks should be seen as important resources, and funded accordingly by the government. Parks are not just areas that protect animals, he said, noting that four of the country’s parks are sources of clean water for a majority of Kenya’s 30-million people to drink and run their factories with.
But funding is difficult in a poor country.
”Most parks have been operating in a slump for quite a while,” Kenya Wildlife spokesperson Indakwa said. ”If we don’t fund them, we don’t have patrols, then that is something that can be exploited by the poachers.”
Indakwa said that at present the service finances about 71% of its 1,4-billion shillings ($18,5-million) budget from gate fees and other levies it charges people
to enter national parks, game reserves and other conservation areas.
This year the government has given the Kenya Wildlife Services about 400-million shillings ($5,3-million), or 29% of its budget, for security operations and training,
controlling problem animals and building or repairing park roads, Indakwa said.
”KWS should not be struggling to survive,” Isiche said. – Sapa-AP