Baraza

105.5 XFM INTERVIEW
On Monday 6th May 7.30 am – 8.30 am at Lion Place

Fareed Khimani: as promised we have Paula Kahumbu back in studio with us this morning, well it?s kind of a follow up.

Paula Kahumbu: it is, yeah

Fareed Khimani: well come again by the way, you are now officially the most visited, the….. how do you put that…

Paula Kahumbu: Am your most frequent visitor. Oh My God!

Fareed Khimani: of 2013, yes! And also my only one, no am joking, you are not my only one but you are my most frequent one in 2013 coz you have been invited back again. And we will keep bringing you back as long as we are making progress in this battle that you have been doing for years, that you have exposed me to over the course of last couple of months and I have taken a keen interest in your work and the great work you are doing. For those are not aware of what Dr. Paula Kahumbu does, she saves lives of elephants and other wildlife but elephants

Paula Kahumbu: well….

Fareed Khimani: I know it’s much more, much more detailed than that but I know that the ultimate goal is to make sure that this senseless killing of animals stops, but you can tell us a little bit about yourself for those who didn’t manage to catch us together few weeks back.

Paula Kahumbu: well first, thank you so much Fareed for inviting me back again, it?s another spectacular morning, I was thinking as I was coming in, you should invite me in more coz I bring on the sunshine

Fareed Khimani: You bring the sunshine! Imagine going back to school on the first day and it?s raining how awful that would feel?

Paula Kahumbu: today is just spectacular.
Fareed Khimani: it is beautiful

Paula Kahumbu: and it’s a great day to also share with you that, since the last time we met which was just two weeks ago, so much has happened and I just want to tell you all about it but, the main thing was something which I actually put out on twitter because it was so phenomenon: the Director of Public prosecutions Keriako Tobiko, responded to what we’ve been saying and even in the letters we have been sending, not just me, I mean am here alone but if I was to bring in all the people who support me in this, this building would fall down.
We’ve been challenging the judiciary, to take these things more seriously and the DPP announced last week that his office is taking over the prosecutions of wildlife crimes. He actually talks about specifically about creating units in various parts of the country, to take on these crimes and the very first one is an incident in Nanyuki. Couple of weeks ago, a rhino was killed. He was poached, speared by local people. The local community elders put out a curse, they threatened to get these guys through a curse if they didn’t come and confess. They did, they came in and they confessed. They said we did it.

Fareed Khimani: they were scared about the curse

Paula Kahumbu: More scared of the curse than to go to jail. And actually if they go to jail, frankly in this country, the penalty will be forty thousand shillings they will probably pay that;
somebody will send the money via Mpesa. So they’ve killed the rhino which is worth about a million dollar.

Fareed Khimani: a million dollars

Paula Kahumbu: That?s the value of the rhino horns alone,

Fareed Khimani: Wow! And you are fined forty thousand!

Paula Kahumbu: and you are fined forty thousand, that?s what the law says. That?s how the magistrates have been handling it. We asked the DPP, Mr Tobiko to address this as a much high crime and he’s taken this on. So these men have now been arrested, they are now in the cells, were prosecuted not just by the Kenya Wildlife service, but by the DPP’s own representative from Nyeri, he was driven up to Nanyuki. They took on this case; these guys each of them were bailed at a million shillings, which is a record for this country, plus two sureties of a million shillings each, that means each of them had to raise three million shillings, if they were to get out of the cells. Of course they can’t raise that.

Fareed Khimani: so they are there

Paula Kahumbu: so they are there and this is really is a test case. This is what we’ve been asking for so we are just so thrilled that finally its happening and it?s about time too because today is a special day, I don?t know if you know that the United Nation has just announced that as a body they recognize wildlife crime as a serious crime.

Fareed Khimani: Ok. That was today or that was…

Paula Kahumbu: that is happening today, there is a massive press conference happening at the UNEP.

Fareed Khimani: Super!

Paula Kahumbu: this afternoon, they have a famous Chinese movie star who is here especially for this. Her name is Li Bingbing, anybody who don?t know her please Google Li Bingbing. She is the most phenomenally beautiful actress in the planet and she?s going to be here. She has taken on the cause of elephants and she has come to Kenya we are extremely privileged. She is
working with UNEP with Save The Elephants and many other elephant conservation groups to save elephants. The United Nations are saying, for the first time in history, wildlife crime is not just killing of animals, we are putting human life at risk it’s a security risk across the globe. It’s attracting criminal cartels into Kenya and other countries which become hubs for illegal trafficking of wildlife products and timber. So this is a huge opportunity for us to really, you know. We started with a very small thing last week, a couple of weeks ago, actually it?s just, you know; moving like a rocket, it’s just amazing.

Fareed Khimani: that’s awesome. And now you talk about this Chinese actress and she is very beautiful Li Bingbing. Who, will be in UNEP today.

Paula Kahumbu: Stop Drooling!

Fareed Khimani: sorry. Let me close the page then and go back to twitter. But also obviously last time we spoke we said that a lot of these wildlife crimes is coming from the east, from far east and we spoke about a guy, I think he was Vietnamese if am not mistaken.
Paula Kahumbu: absolutely!
Fareed Khimani: so this particular figure head from China coming in to be sort of a face for the anti-poaching movement is a huge step forward for the Chinese government as well, I would assume or at least Chinese cinemas whatever the case maybe to actually say Hey Ho! This is our problem and we must deal with it and this is, now this is gonna be the face of sort of anti poaching movement from the East.
Paula Kahumbu: Absolutely, Li Bingbing is the second person to come to Kenya with the same mission, the other one was Yao Ming. Remember that famous Chinese basket ball player?

Fareed Khimani: sure! Absolutely the 7 foot 3inches. huge guy.

Paula Kahumbu: No! No! 7 foot 6 inches as

Fareed Khimani: 7?6, frankly he is the rocket. Brilliant!

Paula Kahumbu: he is amazing. Yes. It is extremely significant that we have Chinese super stars, celebrities, people who can influence the Chinese people. And people worldwide because
these are worldwide super stars, who are saying,; when the buying stops the killing stops too. So basically they are saying stop buying ivory. They are trying to appeal to the people of the world to stop buying ivory which is just simply used as trinkets and fashion statements. They are saying, “don?t do it, it?s killing elephants”.

Fareed Khimani: just buy diamonds. What?s the problem? I mean, Jesus! I don?t understand. Anyway, so we are moving somewhere which is great. Now, obviously you have a lot more to tell us, a lot more stories coming our way. I did wanna ask you this, last week you… and I will tell you this, you tweeted a thing this morning. Was it… did you tweet this morning? You did, right? Saying you gonna be on the show from 7.30

Paula Kahumbu: yes

Fareed Khimani: response to you being here, I think my listenership goes to the roof when you are on the show.

Paula Kahumbu: oh! That’s great

Fareed Khimani: so you can come back whenever you want actually. It could be you and of course the Samsung galaxy S4, which we are giving away on Friday, but regardless you are here which is great. So we have so much to get through today and of course we will still push the ways our listeners can help, what they can do and also a little bit of stuff you didn’t know that this particular… can we call it a pandemic?
Paula Kahumbu: it?s a crisis. It’s not just Kenya is a global crisis affecting elephants across the continent. Sudan has just announced their elephants have declined from 130 000 twenty years ago to fewer than 5,000 today.
Fareed Khimani: there you go
Paula Kahumbu: this is just a massive, just phenomenon decline of elephants.
Fareed Khimani: And we here in Kenya are the sort of the transport hub for the rest of the continent or partly one side of the continent anyway

Paula Kahumbu: we are the transiting hub which is what is so scary. You know; am just going to tell you something else Fareed which am not sure if you have thought about this. Those letters that a child from the US wrote to president Obama, to president Xijin Ping president of China and President Uhuru Kenyatta, it?s the most adorable letter. He says “Dear Mr. President for all the children and elephants in the world, we ask you from our hearts, please stop the elephant poaching in Africa and the illegal trade of Ivory in China. Poachers in Africa killing elephants because many people in China as well as other Asian Countries are buying Ivory which comes from the tusks of the elephant. It poachers keep killing elephants at this rate, they will extinct before we are even out of high school”

Fareed Khimani: My Goodness!

Paula Kahumbu: can you imagine this is a little child, who?s written to say, you know; can you imagine the world without elephants.

Fareed Khimani: that’s ridiculous

Paula Kahumbu: think about your son, is four months old. What would it be like if he grew up and the only thing you could tell him about elephants is, have a look at this picture; when I was a kid they were around but they are gone.

Fareed Khimani: it will be almost like telling your kids about dinosaurs I suppose and in that respect.

Paula Kahumbu: Exactly

Fareed Khimani: that’s really sad and that really puts it in the perspective as well and yes it’s actually a fact if it doesn’t stop before this kid or my son is out of high school we won’t have elephants grazing in the bush.

Paula Kahumbu: it’s really puts an imperative to our generation to make a difference.

Fareed Khimani: ok, but progress is being made and there is still more we can do. We will get more into it, more into details more into the nitty gritty

The destruction being caused both sides I supposes and how we help to improve the situation that is of course is our wonderful tourist attraction, which is our wildlife if you look at it in plain and simple terms the country will suffer, in terms of its economy if we continue killing this animals. However its not about our country?s economy its bout the lives of this wonderful creatures.

Paula Kahumbu: Of course and you know Fareed, as kids we grew up with these incredible documentaries on television and we fell in love with our nature and wildlife. At some point I will tell you a bit of why I do this but just want to tell you that you know, it?s not… I don?t think it?s fair to convince all Kenyans that the only reason why should save this animals is so the tourist can enjoy them,

Fareed Khimani: Right

Paula Kahumbu: Because, yes that a big economic imperative and that what we were told as kids, but think about it we would lose key species, this is part of our national heritage. Kenya really is the birth place of humanity, we evolved with these animals and I think that?s why we have this natural instinct to protect wildlife. I was just told yesterday that in Wajir, a community caught a cheetah that had just killed 10 sheep. Now in most part of this country you would expect the first thing to do is kill the thing and then call the KWS. These guys didn’t do that, they held this cheetah for 2 days, fed it tied it then they matched it down on to the police station and they said to the police “you take care of this animal this is our national heritage”.

Fareed Khimani: Really? What a lovely story

Paula Kahumbu: Exactly I think it’s so extra ordinary that what we have is so special in this country compared to nowhere else in the world. Nowhere else is there the dawn of mankind really,

Fareed Khimani: It?s almost like a mothering sort of parenting type of outlook the story from Wajir.

Paula Kahumbu: And these are not people who are wealthy and care about cheetahs in way maybe a rich American might. So I think it?s really does…. It’s something need to value, our
human connection to our natural environment, to the wilderness, to the wildlife species we evolved with and that why I think we are so attached to it.
But think about all the other elements of what happens when we have this poaching that escalates so Kenya as an international hub for trafficking of ivory means we are attracting criminal cartels to this country because it’s easy to operate it here. It’s easy because of corruption and because the penalties are so low, that means our cost for securing this wildlife is just rocketing, that means we are taking money from other areas of development or wildlife protection because we are so busy chasing down poachers, our economic growth is affected partly because of tourism as well but also just think of the economic potential of those communities who live in places with lots of wildlife. They can’t promote wildlife because there are these gangsters roaming around with guns. Which tourist would go in place like that?

Fareed Khimani: They are afraid. Absolutely

Paula Kahumbu: So that clearly affects their economic potential but also affects them directly. Communities are being attacked by gangsters. If they can’t find elephants they will actually attack people because they are hungry. They will even rape people

Fareed Khimani: Yeah, what’s the deterrent now we talked about it last week; we have touched already on it this morning. Is it different penalties, different fines, but again you can double triple, quadruple a fine, some will bail this guys out. What is it really…what is in your opinion how we stop this from happening? Is it in education or is it a combination of many things.

Paula Kahumbu: It’s absolutely a combination of everything so the reason why we are seeing these escalation is because partly impunity. The fact that the penalties are so low actually gives these guys license to keep doing this because they know they can get off. They can get off very easily, so we really need do to change this culture in the country – citizens have to take responsibility and help to restore order. But of course the legal side of it is very critical, The Wildlife Act is out of date; the penalties are too low; that needs to be reformed immediately. The Wildlife Act is huge, it covers all kinds of things but the most important thing that needs to be done right now as a crisis is to address the penalties. We can raise those penalties to the same level of economic crimes or organized crimes which is a minimum of 13 years in jail. That’s what I want. In addition if you get charged with organized crimes, you can actually have all your
assets seized. Now, you know, if you are a dealer just being under investigation means your assets are seized your bank accounts are frozen. That?s a massive disincentive
But as you said big part is education and awareness especially in the countries where there?s demand. We can keep increasing the boots on the ground and everything but so long as the demand is where it’s at in countries like China, Thailand, Vietnam, Philippines, Laos, we going to keep adding more and more costs in order to protect our elephants here. It will be a losing race.

Fareed Khimani: Is it …. Sorry I know you have more to say. Is it the more we develop the more we engage in foreign investments, the more we are at risk of losing what is our heritage. I mean that really,….and I know that its sad if it is but is that really … or is it not managing the investment properly not managing the influence properly from the west and the east and all this?

Paula Kahumbu: I think there are two things here, first as I said the demand is huge and the demand has nothing to do with Kenya engagement with any country, the demand is purely because people in Asia have got enough money to buy ivory and their governments in many cases even encouraging it. They have open legal ivory markets in China. The government in a way is agreeing, supporting enabling this trade, 90% of that ivory is illegal ivory. So what we are asking Asian governments to do is to crack down and actually close the ivory trade altogether in recognition of nature of this crisis

Fareed Khimani: But last time you were here you were also saying that a number of people that are wearing and buying the ivory think that when the elephants of rhinos die, the ivory, the tusk or the horn just fall off, that?s where it comes from.

Paula Kahumbu: So a big part of the problem is that they are very misinformed sometimes even by official figures will inform them. For examples in Vietnam, a minister told his people that he was cured of cancer because the rhino horn, this is why the price of the rhino has gone through the roof, because he has persuaded them that this thing which is equivalent to implying that chewing your fingernails can cure you of cancer. It is so ridiculous and yet so powerful because they believe in the power of the animal and size of the animal and the strength of the animal. So Yes, education is massive and it basically means we have to engage at many different levels, we want our president Uhuru Kenyatta to Engage the Chinese Premiere, the Thai Premiere, the
Vietnamese Premiere and actually show a new kind of leadership which we have never seen before.
A lot of people say we have our heads in the clouds, what are you doing? There is no way Kenya could do this. I don?t believe that. We were surprised when we saw the structure of our cabinet, I mean; I don?t think anybody expected that caliber of cabinet secretaries to be selected. We are also used to lowering our standards. I am saying, let?s break that roof.

Fareed Khimani: And it?s a possibility

Paula Kahumbu: Why can’t Uhuru Kenyatta convene a meeting of all these leaders and actually discuss with them what could be done to reduce the demand or eliminate it all together, so that we save the species, it?s not just for Kenya, it?s for the world, it?s for the worlds? future children

Fareed Khimani: Come and see our elephants, absolutely.
I know we focus quite a bit on elephants and obviously that is a passion of yours and probably one of the biggest problems we have at this point is the ivory trade but it is not about just elephants we will get to that just a little, while I got a lot of questions since the last time you were here they are saying how is that you are this person that has become so compassionate towards the wildlife in this country and where did it all come from, so I think let’s start with that because we are never really given, we know what you do but we don’t know why you do it.

Paula Kahumbu: Well thank you for that Fareed it’s such a unique opportunity to be able to tell this story I think that growing up in Kenya is the really the answer to why this country has probably highest concentration of conservations and experts in this field
I grew up in a part of Nairobi that was very wild, it was forested we had buffaloes, leopards and hyenas all over the place. I don?t if you know that am one of nine kids. My family was good Catholics, and we were sent out doors to play and that was our play ground and was literally in the forest the streams the swamps and our neighbor was Richard Leakey. I grew up I am the 6th born so I was very little and my elder sister we had this thing going that we had to catch everything that walks, crawls, or flies or swims or whatever, you catch it and take it to Richard Leakey and see if he knows what it is, because he was so smart and we were sure we will catch
him at some point. So we would catch snake, frogs and birds and take them over to him and he would tell us incredible stuff about them their scientific names , life histories and take them back where we found them and release them again. We were really good about that. I grew up surrounded by this incredible knowledge and this person who was amazingly accessible and so as I grow up, he was always there for me. As I finished high school I applied to university and it was way outside of the price range that my family could afford, my mother thought the best thing for this girl, at least, was that she can be a secretary. So I was sent off the secretarial college to learn how to type and do short hand and all this stuff that was mind numbing . And after the third month that was it I couldn’t take it anymore of it. I ran away with a friend of mine and we got on a bus went to the national museums of Kenya it was the wildest thing I have ever done in my life. I was 17 old we went to national museums and we listened to a seminar about Kora National Reserve which is where George Adamson was and it was all about the research he had been doing. I knew then this is it this is what I wanted do and so I went to Richard Leakey’s office and I knocked on the door and I said, ‘I want to be a ranger’ that was my world and all I wanted to do was be a ranger and work for George Adamson. Richard Leakey was phenomenon, he remembered me from when I was a kid, he talked to me about my grades and what I wanted to do and he said well you know, maybe you don?t want to be a ranger maybe there?s something else. I was sent around the country to these amazing places. I went down to Amboseli and I spent 2 weeks with Cynthia Moss and her Maasai women who know the elephants down there and I got to learn about the elephants.

 

 

 

 

I spent 2 weeks with Jean Altmann and Philip Muruthi studying baboons also in Amboselli then I was sent to Kiwaiyu the island of the north coast which is famous now for tourism but at the time was so interesting about Kiwaiyu is not just the beaches but there were monkeys on the island. They are separated from the main land and probably has been separated for than thousands of years.

Fareed Khimani: Are you serious? I don?t know that.”

Paula Kahumbu: There are baboons and vervets on that island that are somehow surviving in a marine kind of environment,

Fareed Khimani: “bizarre!”

Paula Kahumbu: where there no fresh water, they were interested in physiology of this and you know it?s interesting and it?s not what I really wanted to do. I was sent to the Tana river which is you know quite a dangerous place but the time for me it was just a phenomenal play ground, full of wildlife and I got to work with scientist such as Margret Kinnaid who now runs Mpala research center, she was studying one of the most endangered primates in the world the crested mangaby, and so I had this amazing experiences I ended up at the Institute of Primate Research also working with primates and it was just this incredible emersion as a 17 years old with these top scientist.
And then I was invited by Iain Douglas-Hamilton who I know is listening into the show and Iain invited me to help him to conduct a stock take of Kenya?s ivory so we took all the ivory out of the vaults which that time at the national museums of Kenya. We measured each and every tusk, it’s a really depressing experience because this ivory represent elephants that have been shot, murdered. There were huge tusk and the y were down to tiny tusks and what we were able to show, working with a whole team of volunteers ,was that over the last 15 years is that the size of elephants being poached had decline and declined until we were actually shooting baby elephants. It put me off doing research to elephants and I said to Iain these animals are going extinct, am not going to invest my degree research on a species which is going anyway.

Fareed Khimani: So your emotion and passion and love is wow! I mean it?s something that going to be gone soon I suppose

Paula Kahumbu: Exactly, so I really have Richard Leakey, Ian Douglas Hamilton and all these other people I have just mentioned to thank for having the confidence in me and really giving me the space to learn, participate and contribute at a search a young age, it really made a huge difference for me.

Fareed Khimani: So you once run away from home and left home without your parents knowing and all of a sudden we go on a few years and here we are now and this incredible woman sitting opposite me with so much passion and love for the wildlife of our country. Do you mentor now as you were mentored by those wonderful people. Do you mentor and are you trying to raise the next generations of doctor Paula Kahumbus?

Paula Kahumbu: Absolutely, I think that Kenya is blessed with having these phenomenal resources of incredible capable people. I work with a lot of schools and I do talks in schools and I participate in all kinds of school event to tell kids what I do and really inspire them to get involved in wildlife conservation and its not a particular sexy of fashionable thing to do so we try and convert it into other areas of interest and last year, I met this amazing boy as part of research we were doing on lions this term. we are looking at the human-lion conflict in Kitengela just south of national park and there was one particular homestead that was not getting attacked and it didn’t make sense because they were right next to the national park. All the homes around them were being attacked by lions but this home wasn’t and there was this little light around this homestead on the outside shed of cow stockade, the boma. They told us this was the little boy invention, he was 10years old and he had come up with this amazing system of keeping lions away from his fathers homestead by tricking them into thinking he was awake at night walking around because the lights blink in such a way it looks like somebody is awake walking around all night long.

Fareed Khimani: I have actually read about this kid, so this is an incredible story. So basically this lights makes it look like someone is a watch walking around with a touch basically. That is incredible.

Paula Kahumbu: It is really amazing, his name is Richard Turere, so he is now my mentee, I am his guardian.

Fareed Khimani: Super!

Paula Kahumbu: The first thing I did before we even went public with this thing is we got him a scholarship to Brookhouse school so you know huge kudos to Brookhouse school for recognizing, he?s a kid from rural area going to a local school, they took him immediately, he spent a year there and you would not recognize him this boy from where he was a year ago and where he is today I went with him to the US, first time he ever went on an airplane, you know his dream is to be a pilot and an engineer, so the first time he ever went on an airplane was to fly to the long beach California and tell the world about his invention, he got a standing ovation.

embedded by Embedded Video

YouTube DirektTurere at ted 2013 [youtube Richard Turere at ted 2013 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAoo--SeUIk]

Fareed Khimani: Are you serious?

Paula Kahumbu: He got more attention for his talk that most of the other TED speakers.

Fareed Khimani: That?s brilliant.

Paula Kahumbu: I can?t wait to see it on local television as now they are airing TED talks

Fareed Khimani: That’s super, that’s wonderful. So, there are thousands of kids like this who have this ideas and who can make a difference so if it’s your kid, this is to my listeners or anyone you know please encourage them that it doesn’t have to be my parents considered a profession growing up, it can be about saving our environment like what you are doing and proof is here opposite me that it is a proper position in life and what a position to be in, you are in a great position Dr. Paula. if you have questions we have tones more of time am not letting this lady leave until we are done so please get to me, you could tweet us, it?s very easy you can tweet myself @fareedkhimani or you can tweet @paulakahumbu.

Transcribed by Loise Njagi_ (Intern at WildlifeDirect)
For more information contact Paula@wildlifedirect.org or pkahumbu@gmail.com

According to IFAW Tanzania has reportedly withdrawn her proposal to sell her ivory – though this has not yet been confirmed by CITES, the news has been met with elation by conservationists in Kenya.

Joyce Poole of Elephant Voices an organization that monitors elephants in the Masai Mara ecosystem stated

 

“Elephants are under extreme threat from an ivory trade spiraling out of control. Inserting more ivory into the mix would send the wrong message to consumers, and further stimulate the illegal trade. I congratulate the Tanzanian authorities for the wise decision to withdraw their proposal”.

Tanzania had proposed to downlist her elephant population from Appendix I to Appendix II and sell 137 tons of ivory at the next years 16th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of wild Flora and Fauna, CITES, which takes place in March 2013 in Bangkok. This is the third time that has failed to win support for a similar proposals to sell ivory at CITES. Apart from a few southern African countries and China, Tanzania’s proposal received virtually no support locally and had been termed “ludicrous” by some conservation organizations like the Environemental Investigation Agency, EIA – the government had admitted that 30 elephants were being killed each day to poachers, and together with Kenya, Tanzania is a major player in the illicit ivory trade an issue that has been linked to corruption in the government.

The decision to withdraw the proposal comes after other positive statements including a commitment to step up anti-poaching, and after the Chinese embassy in Dar es Salaam stated commitment to working with Tanzanian authorities to combat poaching, and ivory trafficking. The Kenya government will be welcoming this news wholeheartedly.

Through expert submissions from the Kenya Wildlife Service, Kenya’s position has been fiercely against Tanzania’s proposal. Despite huge investment in anti poaching and enforcement poaching is rampant in Kenya as a result of the demand for ivory which has been whetted by the limited renewal of legal trade.

And, this decision does not alter Kenya commitment to extend a 9 year moratorium on ivory trade to all elephant range states. This would prevent any country from proposing to trade in ivory until after 2017. Most conservation organizations back Kenya’s proposal including Save the Elephants, WildlifeDirect, Elephant Voices, the Amboseli Elephant Project, Born Free Foundation, IFAW, and others many of whom will travel to Thailand to lobby for Kenya.

For the first time in this dark period of elephant poaching, there is cause for hope. The Kenyan Minister for Forestry and Wildlife and the Director of the Kenya Wildlife Service have raised the alarm and renewed commitment to anti-poaching efforts. The US Secretary for State Hilary Clinton has raised the issue in congress, and the Tanzanian government has requested support from the USA improve park management.  While China is the main market for ivory, major markets also exist in other Asian countries like Thailand, Vietnam, and Malaysia. What we hope for now is for all of these countries to make a commitment by jointly denouncing illegal domestic ivory trade, and contributing to a fund that will enhance African elephant range states enforcement, investigations, and management of elephants.

Royal Malaysian Customs have just announced the seizure of 24 tons of ivory in Port Klang. This is the largest ever seizure of ivory in transit through the country, and is equal in size to all of the ivory seized in  2011 from Africa. The 1,500 pieces of ivory came from over 750 elephants were exported from Togo, a tiny west African country that has fewer than 200 elephants. The ivory was hidden in containers containing wooden crates that were built to look like stacks of sawn timber. The two crates were shipped from the port of Lomé in Togo, and was going to China via Algeria, Spain and Malaysia. Here are some reactions on text, twitter and facebook

“What the hell is going on?”

“Oh My God, this is Crazy! There must be some major crime ring in this. Chinese Mafia?”

“very sad”

“Folks, that’s 750 dead elephants right there! Completely atrocious.”

“When will these countries see the light? Money,money,Money thats all it is!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Disgusting”

While the rest of the world is in a state of shock at the scale of the seizure, Bonadventure Ebayi, CEO of the Lusaka Agreement Task Force the African Interpol for wildlife, says he is not surprised. Togo has virtually no law enforcement to speak of. It is a country through which timber from other central African countries is exported by both China and Malaysia. The ivory, he believes, came from several central African countries.

The size of this shipment reveals that it probably took months for the dealers to accumulate this volume of ivory and it was brought in on small boats plying the waters in this area. Togo is notorious for slack enforcement and is considered something of a free port with zero law enforcement.  The dealers of this ivory, clearly operated without any hindrance. They are probably a mafia like syndicate, took their time in packing the consignment, and the shipping route was not direct, but a rather lazy route via several other countries. Asked if there were officials involved Bonadventure laughed cynically “nothing would make a consignment of 1 ton, or even 500 kg of ivory through a port without corrupt practices”. He emphasizes that the smuggling of trophies is only possible through corrupt practices. The Togolese government seems not to care about the illegal trade going on at Lome and neither is it likely that the Malaysian or Chinese governments will do anything about this seizure.

Apart from one seizure of ivory in Singapore from several African countries which was returned to Kenya and later burned, none of seizures of African ivory in Asia have been returned to the country of origin. Investigations are not carried out, and there is no system of monitoring the specimens. At the end of the day this ivory will become “owned” by Malaysia.

The reason for this apparent lapse in investigations and monitoring of illegal ivory is money, or rather, lack of money. The law enforcement agencies of Africa are extremely poorly resourced in terms of man power, equipment and funds considering the work that they are expected to do.  The ivory syndicates are operating on mega budgets of tens or hundreds of millions of dollars. African enforcement agencies which are expected to monitor all ports, and all wildlife, are cash strapped.

Moreover, there is a general lack of political will in the governments concerned. Many African countries wildlife agencies are dependent on support from the US Fish and Wildlife Agency, which is its self a national agency in USA, not an international agency. The US Fish and Wildlife Agency receives it’s funding from the US government. Why aren’t African governments financing their wildlife agencies adequately? International agencies and CITES agencies are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on monitoring elephants and writing reports for CITES conferences – their budgets often exceeding those of the government agencies. The reports often say that the problem is that law enforcement is lacking in Africa. It’s a tail chasing exercise. Hillary Clinton has raised concern in Congress about the scale of illegal trade of wildlife in Africa, but the silence from African leaders is deafening. Not one of them has echoed her call for addressing the problem.

AFrican governments have lamented for too long that there is inadequate funding for wildlife conservation, enforcement and security. We need to rethink our priorities in Africa and recognize the colossal economic loss due to criminal syndicates that are illegally exploiting our natural resources and national heritage.

 

To turn things around Africa must take responsibility.

1. Quantify the economic impact of illegal trade of African wildlife. It is estimated that only 10% of exported natural resources from Africa are legal! It’s not just elephants and rhino that are being illegally exported from Africa everyday. Many other mammals, insects, plants, reptiles and birds are also being illegally exported but nobody notices them because we are all looking at elephants and rhinos.  In fact, Africa is losing most of her natural wealth to criminals, and is hemorrhaging her heritage. Wildlife agencies tend to be positioned low on the economic ladder and are minimally resourced.  Moreover, the impact of poaching on nascent eco tourism outfits threatens investments and therefore jobs and revenues.

2: Reform law enforcement: Poaching and ivory dealing is not just a wildlife crime which is treated as a misdemeanor in most countries.  It is an economic crime that is deeply associated with corruption. Handling of wildlife crime cases as economic and organized crimes needs to be prioritized. This will take sentsitization of leaders, and bringing all the relevant agencies together nationally and internationally. And it will require a lot of money.  The criminally organized and militarized nature of elephant poaching and ivory trading in Africa, means that the syndicates are extremely well resourced. African governments must invest in raising these funds to reform the judiciary and educate the relevant agencies.

3: Create effective communication and collaboration between different security wings: It is generally known that the ivory and rhino horn trade is controlled by high level cartels who also deal in drugs, money laundering, human trafficking and gun smuggling.  The revenues generated are believed to be contributing to armed conflicts which threaten communities and significantly impact on tourism.  To deal with wildlife crime will mean collaborating with agencies involved in dealing with corruption arms  dealing, money laundering and other forms of organized crime.

4: Initiate effective monitoring: The impact of elephants poaching in Africa is very poorly documented and must be stepped up. In addition, investigations of the ivory seizures must be conducted, and ivory seizures must be monitored and national stockpiles across Africa and Asia audited to ensure that ivory does not escape into the illegal markets.

I asked Mr Ebayi what he thought of the recently announced Memorandum of understanding between Vietnam and South Africa. Would it make a difference for rhino, and should we pursue a similar arrangement with China on ivory. He wondered aloud what a piece of paper would achieve. “So long as the culture of consuming ivory and rhino horn are not addressed the demand will remain”.  He asked for proof that Vietnam was serious in the form of a government statement banning the use of rhino horn in country, and a significant contribution towards anti-poaching in South Africa. China will need to do the same for ivory if she expects her promises of support to be taken seriously.

 

The recent signing of a memorandum of understanding between Vietnam and South Africa stunned the world – it revealed Vietnam’s recognition of her role in the record poaching levels of rhino in South Africa.  It is estimated that Vietnam consumes 75% of the worlds rhino horns. It is true that rhino are once again facing extinction due to poaching for the horn and it’s not just Vietnam and South Africa or even rhino that are affected by the wave of poaching and illegal trade. Many species are threatened by Asian demand including elephants, to lions, rhino, chimpanzees, gorillas, snakes, turtles, sharks, pangolins and many other species. Indeed it is surprising that Vietnam was the first country to step up and take leadership in this crisis, after all, it is well known that China is the main market for illegal wildlife trade from Africa.

Is it too much pressure from trade, or too little resistance against poaching in rhino range states?

Last weekend 4 rhino’s were shot dead in Lewa Conservancy, and another one was killed at Oserian Wildlife Sanctuary in a devastating weekend for Kenya.  Are rhino’s being massacred due to demand in Asia or is it failed enforcement in Africa? Much time has been wasted in debates about what is driving the poaching and attempts to enforce the provisions of the Convention on International trade in Endangered Species (CITES) have been fruitless. The convention made up of member states, tip toes around and behaves as if all are helpless against the giant, China. Once a powerful convention, CITES seems rather toothless nowadays and sanctions against countries that violate the provisions of the convention are rarely used.  CITES and even some scientists even argue that the science does not prove the links between legal trade in rhino horn in Asia and illegal trade, and they push responsibility to poor African countries which they blame for enabling the illegal trade by failing to curb corruption. We agree that corruption is a problem but lets be honest, if there was no demand for rhino horn, there would be no killing of rhino’s.

Think of it as pressure vs resistance. Imagine a dam wall under the pressure of rising water levels. If there was no pressure, the dam wall would not need to be heavily reinforced. However, under increasing pressure the wall will requires greater investment to resist. It becomes an arms race. But the wall can also be breached if someone chips away even the most highly reinforced dam wall.

Similarly, the pressure to poach rhino’s comes from demand for rhino horn in Asia. African countries have invested heavily in enforcement, but corruption reduces the effectiveness of the antipoaching and enforcement measures. We argue that it is in fact the demand for horn has led to such an increase in price that rhino horn now rivals gold and it is this demand and price which has created the opportunity for corruption and this in turn has led to the breeding of organized crime. The water in the dam is filling up at a dizzying pace, and though dam wall has been reinforced, in most countries there are busy people drilling holes into it and in some countries, the entire wall has collapsed and rhino’s have been poached to extinction.

We are losing the arms race to keep rhino’s safe

Black rhino’s (Diceros bicornis) were declared critically endangered in the 1980’s after they had suffered catastrophic declines reducing Africa’s rhino from 65,000 in 1972 to fewer than 2,500 by 1992. Kenya was hit particularly hard, her population of 20,000 black rhino crashed to fewer than 400 between 1970 and 1990. To reverse the trends, Kenya adopted an intense rhino program to rebuild the rhino populations. The strategy included the creation of a rhino program with massive investment in security and paramilitary training for a special rhino force, intelligence, enforcement, training, monitoring, and equipment, ring fencing all remaining populations of wild rhino, individually tagging each individual, and keeping a 24/7 vigil on every single rhino. Kenya is particularly key in rhino conservation because she holds 85% of the world’s population of the eastern black rhino, (D. b. michaeli ). Kenya is also home to a larger population of southern white rhino’s which were introduced after the northern whites went extinct. Last year, Kenya imported the last remaining 4 northern White rhino. The investment paid off and over the last 20 years, Kenya’s elephant populations have grown. The situation in South Africa has been critical and to protect her rhino’s, the South African Parks have taken an extreme position of engaging the army in anti-poaching in Kruger National Park which is particularly vulnerable.

Despite the investment and reinforcement of rhino anti-poaching, record numbers of rhino’s are being poached across Africa and Asia. This year the last Javan rhino in Vietnam was been poached and the species is now extinct. The West African black rhino has also been declared extinct, the Sumatran rhino is on the verge of extinction in Indonesia. South Africa has been losing more than 2 rhino per day to poachers for the last 18 months.

Is poaching driven by ancient tradition or recent rumours?

Like ivory, rhino horn has been used traditionally for millennia in the Middle and Far East. In the Yemen, rhino horns have been used for the handles of curved daggers called “jambiya,” which are given to muslim boys at the age of 12 as a relious sign of manhood. The daggers are extremely valuable and are often studded with jewels. Imports of rhino horn were banned into Yemen in 1982. Use of rhino horn in China dates to at least the 7th century AD where it is carved into ceremonial cups, and used for buttons, belt buckles, hair pins, and paperweights.

The most significant and rising use of rhino horn however is in the traditional medicine systems of many Asian countries, including Malaysia and South Korea, Vietnam, India and China. Legend has it that rhino horn has been used as an aphrodisiac, however this is not true. It is ground up and boiled to produce a cure for fever, gout, snakebites, hallucinations, typhoid, headaches, carbuncles, vomiting, food poisoning, and “devil possession” and other disorders.

But the reason for the sudden increase in rhino horn demand in recent years is a belief that it can cure cancer. Apparently a rumor began to circulate about 6 years ago that rhino horn had cured cancer in a Vietnamese politician. The rumor quickly spread by word of mouth, mobile phone and Internet. The value of horn rose so sharply that Vietnamese rhino’s were hunted to extinction, thieves began breaking into museums to steal rhino horn and Vietnamese “hunters” flooded South Africa where they paid for legal hunts in order to get the trophies. Poaching in South Africa rose dramatically with poachers using helicopters, dart guns and chainsaws to obtain horns. Illegal horns were laundered with legal permits to enable tens of horns to leave South Africa. Police now say that the poaching and dealing of rhino horn has become an organized crime involving global criminal syndicates.

All of this because of a rumour that rhino horn cures cancer! Rhino horn is basically hair and scientists have examined the properties to determine whether it really does have medicinal properties.  Comprised mainly of keratin, they also contain some calcium and melanin. In structure and composition they are similar to horses’ hooves, turtle beaks, and cockatoo bills. Scientists have found little evidence of any medicinal properties apart from in one experiment where high concentrations of rhino horn mildly reduced fever in rats.

The fact that science has proven that rhino horn has no medicinal properties against cancer has not helped rhinos. The price of rhino horn now exceeds gold, and collectors in China are now hoarding horns to increase their value as rhino numbers decline and availability of horns decreases. One rhino farmer in South Africa slaughtered his own herd to store the horns. The problem is exacerbated by the growing wealth in Asia which is driving demand and the advent of internet commerce, and presence of Asian investors in Africa makes trading in illegal products much easier than ever before.

Some economists are even suggesting that rhino horn trade should be legalized to manage and regulate the demand and supply. However, others argue that legal trade is virtually impossible to regulate, and others wonder if the primary use of horn is for medicine, and the horn has no medicinal properties what does this legal trade really achieve? Indeed one study has already shown that only trace amounts of rhino  horn are actually used in the medicines, and more than 70% of medications claiming to contain rhino horn have none at all, all instead have traces of buffalo horn and deer antler.

Vietnam has made a commitment, on it’s own it’s not enough. China must step in and take the lead for Asia

It is true that corruption in Africa is a major facilitator of illegal trade of any sort and African countries have an enormous challenge to end impunity if they are to save their spectacular heritage. However Asian countries also have a critical role to play. It is no secret that Asian economies are driving the unsustainable exploitation of African animals from great apes, to pangolins, lions, elephants, rhino’s, sharks, snakes, and many other species.  Top of the list of culprits is China who scientists claim consumes between 70 and 90% of ivory, rhino horn and other wildlife products from Africa.  It will take a new kind of courageous leadership in Asia to reverse the trend. Vietnam has led the way by signing an MOU with South Africa “to promote cooperation between the two countries in the field of biodiversity management, conservation and protection. Particularly aimed at curbing the scourge in rhino poaching, the MOU seeks to promote cooperation in law enforcement, compliance with the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) and other relevant legislation and Conventions on the basis of equality and mutual benefit.”

Conservationists are celebrating this collaboration but it won’t mean much unless China, Thailand, The Philippines and other Asian countries adopt similar leadership positions as part of their global responsibility.

Richard Leakey and WildlifeDirect seek to end the killing of rhino’s. Support our work by making a donation now to help us raise awareness, lobby our governments, and protect rhino’s . Thank You.

Africa’s lions are in trouble! That’s the conclusion of a comprehensive study that has just been released confirming lion numbers have dropped to 32,000, from nearly 100,000 just 50 years ago. The study by Dr Stuart Pimm and associates at Duke University was published online in this week’s journal Biodiversity and Conservation here. This is the most comprehensive assessment of lion numbers to date.

WildlifeDirect has been raising concern that lions in Africa are threatened due to loss of habitat and killings as a result of human wildlife  conflict on our blogs here on Baraza as well as on Stop Wildlife Poisoning  and lion guardians. In Kenya pesticides are used to poison at least half of those lions killed.  Less than 25% of lion habitat, savanna’s, remain in Africa. Last week the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service initiated a study to determine whether to list African lions under the Endangered Species Act which would ban hunters from bringing lion trophies back into the United States even if hunts are legal. We are committed to raising global awareness about the problem and promoting workable solutions like the lion proof fences and the invention of a 13 year old Maasai boy Richard Turere  – lion lights.

 

Today the KWS announced a 14% decline in elephants in the Samburu/Laikpia ecosystem over the last 4 years. Samburu and Laikipia’s image as the poster children for Kenya’s wildlife recovery is now dented. The impact on tourism cannot be ignored, heavily armed bandits threaten more than elephants, if we can’t protect elephants how can we protect international tourists? But it’s the long term consequence that are of greater concern. One of Kenya’s Vision 2030 flagship projects is to develop the tourism potential in the area to elevate tourism income, create jobs, and increase tax revenues. If we have no elephants in Samburu –will tourists bother to come? Putrid elephant carcasses do not make good tourist attractions. And that is not all, it is now known that the poaching of elephants and rhino’s in Kenya and other countries is linked to criminal cartels that are financing Al Shabaab and other terrorist organizations.  Kenya has remained silent the seriousness of this, but US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has not.

In a way the result of the Samburu census is good news. For the first time in 8 years, KWS has admitted that elephant poaching has reached alarming levels and that it threatens our elephant populations, tourism and our economy.  Hopefully this will lead to concrete reaction from the state. Conservationists are not surprised with this figure. Most scientists knew we were in a crisis all along but openly questioning the official number can be dangerous as Onesmas Kahindi discovered when he was arrested and nearly charged with “undermining a public official” earlier this year. He was released, but the experience of his arrest resounded through the conservation community and sadly many Kenyan conservationists have backed away from raising their concerns to the authorities or the press.

The results of Samburu could have been predicted. In 2011 a count of the Tsavo Ecosystem found 500 dead elephants, a 3 fold increase since 2008 suggesting a rapid rise in poaching over that period. And, similar results are expected where poaching is escalating in Galana, Masai Mara, Laikipia, Amboseli and Kerio Valley. The problem is not just in parks nor is it one group of people we need to stop. In the previous elephant crisis it was primarily the Somali’s who were armed, today numerous tribes in north and Central Kenya are armed and the weapons are being turned against each other and wildlife. Nor is the elephant poaching problem restricted to Kenya, CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species) estimates that over 25,000 African elephants across the continent were killed to supply illegal ivory markets in 2011. This was the highest rate of poaching recorded in the past last ten years.

And its not just elephants. Poachers are also gunning down rhino’s, robbing people and engaging in money laundering, gun running, drugs trade and the money is said to be financing terrorist activities.

To make matters worse, Kenya is not just a haven for poachers, it is also a gateway for ivory movements from other African countries. In July this year CITES noted that together Kenya and Tanzania account for a whopping 65% of the illegal ivory trade in Africa. The ivory is going to China which consumes 75% of the world ivory. But China only recently became the main threat to Africa’s elephants. Elephants have been killed for their ivory for millennia and the ivory trade thrived during the colonial period of Africa’s history – in those days ivory was sought after for billiard boards and piano keys. After the 2nd World War Japan became the world’s largest consumer of ivory taking 40% of all of all ivory for the production of Hanko’s or name seals/signature stamps. By the 1980′s the world began to recognize the crisis facing elephants and CITES put systems in place to regulate the ivory trade through a control system and registration of ivory stocks. This only worsened the situation as criminal cartels found ways of “legalizing” illegal ivory. As a result, ivory prices continued to rise and elephant killings reached a zenith. Legalizing the elephant trade was driving the species to extinction and African countries wildlife authorities were overwhelmed by the highly militarized killings.

It took two men and a crazy idea to turn it all around. In 1989 Richard Leakey persuaded Daniel Arap Moi, the Kenyan president, to publicly burn the entire Kenyan stockpile to send a message in what became the worlds most iconic conservation spectacle. That year Tanzania pushed through a proposal to put elephants on CITES Appendix 1 which bans international trade in elephants and their products. Though not all countries agreed with the listing, yet it is clear that the ivory trade ban led to the immediate a collapse of ivory demand and prices plummeted. Poaching came under control and African and Asian elephants began to recover across Africa and Asia.

Why is the crisis back?

In 1997, four southern African nations sought down listing of their elephants to sell live elephants. This was granted and then in 2000 they sought sales of their ivory stockpiles. Despite concerns that legal ivory trade never worked in the past, and warnings that any legal trade would trigger renewed demand and illegal trade, the sale went through and in 2002 a one off sale of ivory was permitted to Japan. In 2007 another one off sale was permitted, this time, to the horror of conservationists, China, a country notorious for weak enforcement of laws affecting endangered species was permitted to receive the ivory. The legal ivory met a massive demand from the hundreds of millions of newly rich in China resulting in a phenomenal rise in the price of ivory. The state cleverly manipulated the situation by releasing small amounts of legal ivory onto the market each year at very high prices.  The Chinese use ivory for art (carvings) and making household implements like chopsticks. They value it for its texture, warm feeling, softness, glowing colour and ease of carving. Despite the availability of man-made alternatives, real ivory is what is in demand because it symbolizes wealth and status. One study found that the 75% of Chinese buyers would purchase illegal ivory if it was cheaper than legal ivory, it is no wonder then, that similar studies have found that 90% of all ivory on sale in China is illegal.

This high and rising price of ivory has been the main driving force behind the continuing and escalating massacre of elephants in Africa where criminal cartels control the killing of elephants and the movement of ivory. The influx of Chinese workers across rural Africa have, no doubt, been an important part of this.  The impact is worst in countries that are poorly governed, minimally equipped and burdened with weak legislation and minor penalties to fight against highly militarized poaching gangs. DR Congo is thought to have lost over 80,000 elephants as a result. Despite the huge investment in the military wing of KWS since 1989, Kenya is a country where rule of law means little, especially in rural areas where elephants are being slaughtered. Weak governance has made it easy for poachers and dealers to get off, the police and the judiciary are notoriously corrupt. Until now, the shooting of suspected poachers has been the most effective deterrent against poaching, but even this is not sustainable.  The social backlash is likely or has already started to threaten conservation efforts and relations with local communities.

So what can be done?

Most conservationists agree that the only solution is to ban ivory trade forever. Even CITES now admits that the partial lifting of the ban on ivory sales sent a confusing message out and stimulated a demand that has driven the price up and led to massive laundering of illegal ivory. Regulating legal trade is horrendously expensive and difficult especially in a country like China where it is estimated that 90% of ivory on sale in China is illegal. Detecting the impact of ivory trade on populations is expensive, slow and it is virtually impossible to prove. Kenya has always held a principled position against the ivory trade, and has been a leader on CITES elephant issues and has always sought to unite African elephant range states around elephant protection and a total ban on ivory trade. A simple single message is needed, that ivory is banned. Southern African countries argue that their elephants are well managed and that they deserve cash for their ivory stocks. We propose then, that they be compensated for the destruction of their ivory stockpiles to prevent it from ever entering the markets and again stimulating demand. The Chinese argue that Kenya has failed to protect elephants effectively. It is true. We urgently need to step up enforcement, crush the cartels, increase penalties, enact new laws, and create awareness and genuine benefits for communities who live with elephants, otherwise poaching will continue to tempt poor people. We propose that Kenya restores her image by allowing a public audit of her ivory stockpile to prove that it is not making it’s way into the illegal market, and then destroys all of her ivory in renewed commitment to protect elephants.

Unless Kenya cleans up her image she will find it hard to present her position and concerns at the next CITES convention in Bangkok in March 2013 with much conviction. The challenge is to prevent Kenya’s neighbor and former ally, Tanzania, from winning permission to sell her ivory stockpile. Even though the Tanzania proposal is as good as dead in the water (Tanzania has admitted high level government corruption in the illegal killing of elephants and the illegal ivory trade) it would be more effective it Tanzania and Kenya stood side by side on this crisis. Tanzania is losing elephants even more rapidly than Kenya – they say that they are losing 30 elephants per day to poachers. Tanzania and Kenya are accountable for 65% of all ivory trafficking out of Africa, a truth we conveniently keep quiet about. Unless Kenya takes the urgent steps to demonstrate integrity, transparency and seriousness her position will not be taken seriously especially against the loud and aggressive clamoring for the opening up legal ivory trade by southern African states. The idea that legal ivory trade can generate funds to protect elephants is equivalent to resuming slavery to finance efforts to end slavery. It flies in the face of all of our known experience in trying t manage legal ivory trade. If only the proponents of ivory trade had the memories of elephants, they would know that we already tried that and it failed. We cannot afford any more experiments with elephants. We must send out a crystal clear message to the world and ban ivory trade forever.

 

Today the Amboseli Trust for Elephants celebrated 40 years of elephant research that has revealed the secret world of elephants to us. The event symbolically held at the Ivory burn site in Nairobi National Park where Richard Leakey, then Director of the Kenya Wildlife Service, and Daniel Arap Moi , the president Kenya, set alight 12 tons of ivory worth USD 3 million in 1989 to eliminate the national stockpile and send a message to the world that Kenya was taking a principled stand against the ivory trade. I find it sad that as we celebrate we cannot ignore the fact that thousands of elephants across Africa are once again being massacred for the ivory trade.

In her statement Cynthia Moss, the head of the Amboseli Trust for Elephants, noted that this is the longest running study of elephants anywhere in the world and apart from extending our scientific knowledge about elephant intelligence, society, communication and  a host of other discoveries, the project had brought elephants to the world as female led families with values  that humans can only envy. The project, which started in 1972, witnessed the terrible 15 years of all out poaching that included government sponsored or facilitated elephant poaching that decimated 85% of Kenya’s elephants . The period ended with  the dismantling of the Wildlife Conservation Management Department and the creation of the Kenya Wildlife Service. Today with 1,500 elephants in the study, the Amboseli elephant population has more than doubled from where they started.

The event was attended by a number of elephant scientists including Iain Douglas-Hamilton who runs Save the Elephants under whom Cynthia Moss first trained, Esmond Martin who studies ivory trade, and Joyce Poole who conducted her PhD research on elephants in Amboseli. Representatives of government included the Former Director of KWS Julius Kipngetich and a number of high ranking KWS officials.  During his speech, the Chairman of the Kenya Wildlife Service, the government authority responsible for wildlife management, David Mwiraria, congratulated the project for contributing so much to Kenya and the world. He noted the introduction of the community consolation scheme started in 1997 which serves to respond to livestock losses to elephants.

What he didn’t mention, and what nobody spoke about openly, was that Amboseli is once again the playground of poachers. In their own blog post, the ATE reports the loss of the QB family after Qumquat and her daughters were violently gunned down on the edge of Amboseli National Park.This video illustrates the deadly methods used by poachers, well armed and extremely quick elephant herds are gunned down within meters of each other. (Warning this video shows dead elephants and the capture of a distressed elephant baby. Some viewers may find it disturbing).

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This suggests military precision and the possibility that poachers have some sort of military training. One person noted that “Back in the 2000 the KWS was only just getting established, we had staff few, basic training and limited technology”. Today with far better equipment, more staff and highly trained ones at that, the authority cannot contain the poaching. Why?” he asked. I can only conclude that the scale of poaching is much worse than ever before and we just can’t keep up with it.

I have been seeking views on what people perceive is the greatest challenges facing elephants is today. Here are some of the responses ranked in order of importance

1. Demand or ivory  in China. Everyone agrees that demand for ivory, especially the Chinese is the driving force behind the rapid rise in elephant poaching. The argument goes that ivory has always been part of the Chinese culture as a status symbol. The rising wealth of the middle class Chinese has exploded the demand creating a crisis for elephants as demand far outstrips availability.
2. The presence of bad elements throughout Kenya known to be involved in this business– he meant the presence of Chinese and Somali’s who place orders on ivory. Cartels that deal in drugs, arms, illegal goods and contraband, and even human trafficking have networks on the ground in remote corners of the country and can obtain ivory easily using cell phone ordering.
3.  Corruption in Kenya and possible involvement of high ranking officials makes it easy for dealers to move ivory through Kenya and other African countries.
4. Poor legislation and lack of enforcement has allowed dealers, poachers and now traffickers to get off easily
5. Ineffective anti-poaching country wide -  Despite the gains, anti-poaching and intelligence gathering is always one step behind poachers.

I would make a personal addition, one of the greatest threats to elephants is the total lack of will from African governments to deal with the Chinese who are now important donors and trade partners. Embarrassingly, the USA which is not an elephant range state, when Hillary Clinton have come out with the strongest language and commitment to date on the scale and risk of the escalating poaching problem.

Do you agree with these five ? What else do you think contributes to the problem?

When we first met Richard Turere in FEbruary this year we had no idea that this young genius would get a scholarship to one of Kenya’s top schools, or that he would have a stab at the world stage through TED.

Watch his audition at the TED Talent search here. To support Richard make a donation here and vote for him on the TED website here

 

 

Thank you

 

On 28^th of June in the afternoon a group of newly initiated Masai moran, or warriors, went on a hunt to kill a lion that had apparently killed a sheep on a ranch. In the attack three warriors were critically injured and the lion killed. This incident comes hot on the heels of the killing of 6 lions in Kitengela next to Nairobi National Park on June 20th. This incident is tragic on several fronts. First, it happened on the privately run community ranch called Kuku, where researchers and conservationists have been working hard to protect lions for many years. The lion, was wearing a radio collar as he was the subject of research. This male was the head of a pride of 12 others. His loss is a devastating blow to the country’s dwindling lion population because when pride males are killed, other males will take over, killing all the cubs and chasing off or killing other all the other males in the process.

I was at the neighbouring ranch, Mbirikani for a traditional Masai wedding last weekend. Anthony Kasanga, a former lion guardian was tying the knot. Young warriors attended his ceremony and danced for 3 days in a row. The new initiates, aged between 14 – 20 were dressed in traditional red robes, had beautifully braided hair, and had adorned themselves in beaded jewelry. Their faces were painted with red ochre to make them appear fierce. This was no ordinary disco. The dancing of moran, or warriors involves putting the initiates into a trance, they chanting and leaping high into the air in a competition for glory. Girls surround the warriors to assess their prowess. It’s no secret that the highest jumper is considered the most attractive. But nothing is more appealing to the girls than a demonstration of courage – and killing a lion is the ultimate proof.

 

We interviewed 5 elders in the community to learn about how things were in the past and to explore what has changed as part of a folklife project called Africa’s Wildest Stories (which you can listen to here). Every single man spoke of his hunting accomplishments. One bragged that he had killed 50 black rhino in his youth. Another described how the warriors used to return from lion hunts with the skins and heads which would be raised in the village on poles like flags. This was a message to all visitors about the courage of that group of warriors. The sight was not just a boast but a challenge to any other warriors to try and do better.

Though much has changed since those days, the courage of the Maasai is still legendary. To attain the courage needed to take on killing a lion with only a spear is no small feat. The warriors chant and dance, and invoke the spirits to protect them. This puts them in a dream like trance in which they become fearless.  For new initiates like those inovlved in the hunt two days ago, it does not always work, and now three teenagers lie in critical condition in a hospital.

I live in the city of Nairobi and on the edge of Nairobi National Park whose greatest attraction is the 40 plus lions. Nowhere else in the world does a capital city have a park with wild lions on within the city boundary. This is what makes Nairobi Park special. But the tiny 117 square kilometer park depends on a large ecosystem through which wildlife disperses each rainy season. On December 28^th last year 3 of the park lions left the park following the zebra and wildebeest. They killed livestock and were themselves killed in retaliation. After a series of meetings with the authorities, the community agreed not to kill any more if compensation was paid for the dead livestock. Then barely 6 months later 6 more lions were killed in a savage attack. They were trapped in a stockade and the community killed two adult females and surprisingly 4 cubs. If they hadn’t escaped, two males would have been killed too. There is no honor in killing a weakened  enemy and to many Maasai , the killing of the cubs was cowardly and unnecessary.  But then this was no ordinary hunt, a tipping point had been reached. The Maasai community say that they are fed up with being expected to incur the costs of the losses of livestock to lions. To these urban Maasai, lions are simply vermin.

WildlifeDirect working with the Friends of Nairobi Park and the local community have been monitoring and mapping all of the  lion predation incidents around Nairobi since October 2011 under a grant from the National  Geographics Big Cats Initiative. The killings of the 6 lions was no surprise to us. In fact in our observation the community had shown enormous restraint considering that over 140 head of livestock worth thousands of dollars had been killed in the previous 9 months. But most Kenyans are outraged because Kenya’s remaining population of only 1,970 lions is sliding quickly towards oblivion. The implications for the tourism based economy are enormous, lions are the number 1 attraction for tourists to the country. Expanding the tourism industry under Kenya’s ambitious Vision 2030 requires  them.

Why is it so hard to manage only 1,970 lions? Most of Kenya’s wildlife occurs outside of the protected areas in landscapes increasingly dominated by people. The situation is extreme around Nairobi Park where lion predation incidents have been rising rapidly.  Lions are constrained in a tiny park area because of an increasing human populations in the dispersal area south of the park. The lions have been getting away with killing livestock which is easier and safer than chasing down a zebra or buffalo. Of course this has emboldened them and increasingly they are attacking livestock in daylight and are even taking their cubs into homesteads.

Efforts to resolve the human-lion problem have  involved local NGO and KWS drive efforts to build lion proof stockades, compensation for livestock losses, financial rewards for protecting lions, sharing of revenues from tourism and education of warriors and the curious invention of lion lights by a 13 year old Maasai boy Richard Turere which we reported here. But there are two reasons why the killings of lions continue. First there is the culture of lion killing by the Maasai. Lion hunting is still appealing for warriors as those who kill lions will be championed as brave warriors.  It is completely against the law of course, but so far, no one has been arrested for any of these incidents. In fact the Minister for Forestry and Wildlife has publically exonerated the lion killers and a local member of parliament has urged the Masai to kill all “stray” lions. Kenyans are demanding that the new wildlife legislation which has been languishing in draft form since 2008 be urgently passed. In it are provisions for carrots and sticks. The Wildlife Bill will guarantee compensation against loss or damage of property at cost. It also includes severe penalties for poaching, and dealing in wildlife.  But any law is only as good as how it is implemented. So long as the Kenyan leadership continues to lack political will – lion killers will continue to escape and more lions will die. The government authority responsible for wildlife conservation, the Kenya Wildlife Service, is increasingly finding its self between a rock and a hard place as the situation continues to worsen.  Not only are the current laws out dated, but the central government has not invested adequately in conservation outside of the protected areas where 75 percent of Kenya’s wildlife resides.  Given the importance of lions to the economy, what Kenya must do is develop a national plan for managing lions in the wild at an ecosystem level. Thankfully, being the hub of conservation and research in eastern Africa, there is no shortage of experts and interest in helping the government to solve these problems. If Kenya can’t get it right, then there is little hope for Africa’s threatened cats.   In any case, Kenya does not have a choice, lions are the national symbol of the country, and a Kenya without lions is unimaginable.

As I sit here typing I can hear two lions roaring. It’s a mating ritual. It is a wonderful  earthy sound that reminds me of how lucky we are in the city of Nairobi. But I can’t help feeling that unless we solve the lion conflict situation, the lions of Nairobi will not survive for much longer.

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Yesterday mornings killing of  six lions just 15 kilometers south of the Nairobi Park has sparked outrage in the Kenyan news and the news has gone global sparking huge debate. These weren’t any old lions, they are all individually known lions The two females (AF3 and AF4) and their cubs, two juveniles and two young cubs.

The local communities argue that their losses of livestock are not taken seriously by the Government authorities. The Government has threatened to arrest those responsible for killing the lions which has only hardened the community stand. This morning a local elder told me angrily that he was ready to go to jail – for saving his community’s livelihood.

WildlifeDirect, working with the National Geographic Big Cats Initiative has been discussing the challenges with the local communities and seeking a lasting solution that will enable people to benefit from living lions to secure their future in this landscape. We are exploring how to secure adequate land for lions .