Baraza

Category: Mara Triangle | Date: Jan 25 2008 | By: admin

The post election violence caused by the disputed outcome of December 27^th presidential elections has completely rocked Kenya and everyone is hurting. We have had to close the office many times to avoid getting caught up in riots. Some people are scared and are just moving altogether.

This family used a cloth donated by USAID to cover their pick up as they moved away from a trouble spot in Nairobi

Hundreds of children, women and men have died violently as neighbours and even familes have turned on each other, hundreds of thousands are suffering after being displaced, losing property and their livelihoods.

Only a few businesses have from the trouble

People are tired, scared and desperate.

I pass this billboard everyday - it was erected in happier times, its so out of touch now!

Everyone here in Kenya is pinning their hopes on Koffi Annan’s mediation genius. It seems has made a major breakthrough by getting President Kibaki and the main opposition leader, Mr. Raila Odinga to actually meet over the crisis. We’re yet to find out what actually transpired in those meetings …. But at least they are both talking peace.

Today’s front page news that Koffi Annan had succeeded in getting Mr Kibaki and Mr Odinga together has brought smiles back to faces

You’d think something catastrophic had happened - newspaper stands were crowded this morning

While peace may soon return to the violent hotspots around the country, it will be years before the vibrant tourism can recover which has direct implications for wildlife conservation. The scenes of violent demonstrations and confrontations with police which have been frequently screened on international TV networks have wrecked untold damage to the tourism industry. I met with the head of KWS Mr. Julius Kipn’getich this week, he told me that visitation to the parks had dropped by 90%. Hopefully the parks which include Amboseli, Tsavo, marine parks, Lake Nakuru and Mt. Kenya will get some promised government support but I’m personally a bit skeptical that government will come through with significant help, they have a reputation of not following through with promises. For example, only this week showed that they would be unable to follow through with free secondary education country wide as promised.

Things are slowly returning to normal. Most schools are now open - this little girl’s father gives her a ride on a specially adapted chair

Trade is going on and this guy was weaving dangerously through traffic to get his produce into the city!

Jake Grieves Cook, the Chairman of the Kenya Tourism Board (KTB) told me that the disruption to tourism is the worst disaster for industry that Kenya has ever faced. The KTB and related organizations are working overtime to reverse the negative image of Kenya and lure tourists back because the parks are actually not affected by the trouble in the country.

The British Travel Advisory was amended on Saturday so that it is no longer a blanket “non-essential travel” warning against the whole of Kenya and applies only to specific locations which his on similar lines to the US and German government advisories. This may bring slow relief – we expect it over coming months or years, but with only 10% visitation at a time when over 85% occupancy in hotels was expected has driven the industry to take extreme measures. Some hotels have even closed down and all businesses are hurting.

We are already seeing a cascading effect. Tourists have stop coming, hotels are closed, staff have been laid off, transport, supplies and other service contracts are canceled.

With no tourist plying the roads, all the roadside business will lose out, women who supply farm produce lose markets, and nobody has money to send home to rural areas. Tens of thousands have fled cities for rural areas where there are no jobs and no food. We predict that the protected areas will be unable to sustain anti-poaching activities and poaching will escalate.

Brian Heath of the Mara Conservancy, has raised an alarm and we are compelled to respond. The Mara has always been close to Richard Leakey’s heart - it is, after all, Africa’s greatest nature preserve . We believe that there is a looming conservation catastrophe that can only be averted with a well prepared program to raise funds. In response we intend to launch a major program to save this wildlife spectacle which was voted the worlds 7^th Wonder just two years ago.

The Maasai Mara is home to the worlds most famous wildlife spectacle and beautiful people

Yesterday we launched a press release which was picked up by some papers here. We are going to ensure that the Mara Conservancy blog raises 160,000 dollars in the next 5 months. To achieve this we urgently need 16,000 dollars immediately to set up a sub station in the Mara that will enable Brian Heath to produce materials for blogs that will be as effective, if not more so, than gorilla protection blog. In 2007 we established camps in Bukima and Mutsora to enable blogs to operate from the bush. These blogs raised 350,000 dollars which has tremendously improved the protection of mountain gorillas in the Virunga National Park. We are certain that we can replicate this for the Masai Mara to avert a wildlife disaster of similar magnitude to losing mountain gorillas.

In our press release yesterday, we stated ‘The damage to the local economy means many people are expected to turn to poaching wildlife for the bushmeat trade, causing irreparable damage to the ecosystem. With its millions of animals, the Maasai Mara is especially vulnerable; over 900 poachers were arrested in recent years. In 2007 alone nearly 500 wire snares were collected, 15 animals rescued and 46 animals were found either dead in snares or recently butchered. The tourism crisis has lead to reduced manpower for surveillance which will lead to an immediate rise in poaching’.

Wire snares like these are made from any source of wire - fences

Traditional means of poisoning and shooting wildlife is also a threat

As are modern weapons

Snares are indiscriminate and cause unimaginable suffering to many species

Dr Kashmiri (center) responded to an alarm from Brian Heath (right) and with help from the Ann Kent Taylor Foundation saved this lioness and this baby elephant below

He now has a permanent limp but is fine

We know that the Mara depends on tourism because the entrance fee contributes to the protection of wildlife and management of the conservation area. We’re hoping that would be visitors will still be willing to contribute the equivalent for a 4 day safari, about 80$ to ensure that the Mara is protected and therefore survives this crisis.

We need to raise Ksh 10 million in 5 months to protect the wildlife in the Mara. That translates to 158,000 dollars. We can raise this with only 2,000 people donating 80 dollars or with 615 people give us 50 dollars each month for 5 months. We’d appreciate your help with circulating this information and helping to raise this money.

The mara is home to the worlds most famous wildlife spectacle, losing it because of political unrest in Kenya would be a global tragedy. Please help us. Paula

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