Baraza

Category: Ivory, elephants, poaching, wildlife trade | Date: Apr 29 2009 | By: admin

Two men were arrested on the 25th April for carrying 703 kg (1,550 lb) of elephant ivory in southern Kenya. They were traveling by vehicle in Tanzania when they were ambushed by wildlife scouts from the Amboseli-Tsavo Game Scouts Association. They fled across the Kenyan border, and were caught and arrested by authorities tipped off by the scouts.

This is biggest seizure in recent times in Kenya and the ivory is valued at around 59-60 million Kenyan shillings ($750,000). The men, whose identities have not been released, appeared in a Kajiado court on Monday morning where they plead guilty. The men  face up to a year in jail.

The haul of 33 whole tusks and 57 pieces, weighing over 700kg, is believed to represent over 50 individual elephants.

The Amboseli elephants are not anonymous animals, after more than 40 years of research each elephant is individually known. The field team now fear that “some of the tusks could belong to the splendid bull Ganesh or Echo’s son, Ely, or the impressive long-tusked Theodora from the TD family that has been spending more time in Kimana than Amboseli over the last decade”.

Who killed them and how? One person claims that these elephants could be the victims of Furadan poisoning. This is one of several indicators that ivory trade is on the rise as is elephant poaching in Kenya, Asia and Congo. Cynthia Moss of the Amboseli Trust for Elephant have been reporting alarming increases in poaching in the Amboseli ecosystem. We believe that this is all in response 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.

Harvey Croze of ATE writes that “it appears that our concerns have been vindicated when Cynthia reported in February on increased poaching for ivory in Amboseli. Perhaps now authorities will take seriously the twin threat to Africa’s elephants: the one-off sale of ivory from southern African stockpiles to China, combined with the presence of Chinese roadgangs in the ecosystem”.

It is depressing that these two men face only a year in jail for one of the biggest seizures of ivory in Kenya. Their sentence will hardly dampen the demand or reduce the incentives for many who are greedy for ivory. We have it on good authority (from someone who wishes to remain anonymous), that the ivory was being transported in a vehicle owned by a powerful person. Until these bigger people are brought to justice, the poachers, and small time dealers will continue. The challenge is how to catch and prosecute these powerful, and politically connected big shots.

Four questions for you to think about

Kenya currently holds over 35 tons of ivory in her strong rooms - for some this represents fantastic commercial value, to us they represent death and destruction.

Q1. Do you think it is time we revive the ban on trade in ivory?

Q2. Do you think we should aggressively resume pursuing the perpetrators of this cruel trade?

Q3. Will you help us to raise awareness and demand for better protection for all elephants?

Q4. What should Kenya do with the 35 tons of stockpiled ivory?

Leave a comment and let us know what you think.

Tags: Amboseli, Cynthia Moss, elephant poaching, Ivory, ivory trade, Kenya, KWS, poaching, Tanzania

17 responses so far

Category: Uncategorized | Date: Apr 27 2009 | By: Maina

The WildlifeDirect bloggers have been busy this last week. They have brought several stories about their work and the aspects of conservation that they are are concerned with. These are the Stories that the WildlifeDirect team found to be of key interest.

Iregi Mwenja of the Bushmeat in Kenya blog gave us several pointers as to why we may lose the fight against illegal bushmeat in Kenya.  The overriding reasons they provided for this unfortunate realization was because of bad laws, inadequate enforcement of the same laws, the twin devil of population growth and poverty and slow reforms in the wildlife sector among others. You can read the entire story in the blog.

On a more positive note, the team at Tacugama is making  good progress in enriching the chimpanzee enclosure at the centre. With the help of Ruud and Esther, volunteers I presume, they are enriching the center’s enclosures buy constructing play platforms for the younger chimps. In Enclosure A, the platform has already taken shape and up to 30 younger chimps spend most of their day there. You can read about this and watch a video of the chimps playing in the blog.

Elsewhere, Miroslav Bobek of The Revealed blog  shares with us beautiful pictures of forest elephants of Dzanga Bai in Central African Republic. Apart from the wonderful photography and warm storytelling, this blog post awakens in me an urge to go into Central African Republic, gather some conservationists and coerce them to blog everyday…just for you. Read about this and marvel at the amazing pictures in the blog.

Photo: courtesy The Revealed

There are other blogs who posted last week including the Orangutan Foundation answering some good questions from the readers while introducing us to Asian large cats blogs. The Lion Guardians also show their happiness after receiving a new camera and camera trap as gifts from a reader in Utah.

There were more stories which I believe you read when they were published but we just wanted to remind you of these particular ones. Let’s see what our bloggers will be up to this week.

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Category: Uncategorized | Date: Apr 24 2009 | By: Maina

You all visit our blogs. Most of you leave comments and you donate to the blogs of your choice. And for that we thank you, over and over again. But today, this is a special thank you note for Shelyl B and Brenton H.

With your support, we will go further

Sheryl is dedicated. A passionate campaigner like no other. A volunteer who has helped many of our bloggers do their posts and improve them. She highlights many blogs in her own blog and gets them more publicity elsewhere. Sheryl is also a dedicated vegan who believes that if we all went vegan, Mother Earth would have a better life. I once said that if there were a million Sheryls this world would be much better. I still believe that to be true.

Sheryl did something that caused ripples here at WildlifeDirect: She donated her birthday to us. Instead of collecting material gifts for her birthday, or as she and I have come to call such gifts, ‘Stuff’, she asked her friends to donate to WildlifeDirect whatever amounts they intended to spend buying her gifts (Stuff). Sheryl, you are a darling.

Enter Brenton H, and Sheryl’s position as my number one favourite person looks like it has a challenger. There is a contest now - albeight unintentional. Brenton reads ALL the blogs and donates to almost to the same number. And he donates not once in each blog, but several times. He comments on all these blogs: encouraging a blogger here, giving a word of advice there, and providing additional information in another blog. But Brenton goes further than that, and like Sheryl, he gives our blogs more publicity - this time in Australia.

Only recently, Brenton made it possible for Paula, our CEO, to be interviewed by Australian Radio. I believe that that should enable more Australians visit our blogs and interact with our bloggers, and, make donations to help these bloggers continue with the noble task of saving the last of our beloved wildlife.

So, from the WildlifeDirect team, and - most definitely - our Chairman, Dr Richard Leakey, this is a special THANK YOU to Sheryl and Brenton.

You Rock!

Oh, and for your information, of the unintended most favorite person contest between you two, it’s still a tie

3 responses so far

Category: National Parks and protected areas | Date: Apr 20 2009 | By: admin

Hi everyone, this is Paula. Last Thursday I attended a breakfast meeting at KWS, the Director, Julius Kipngetich revealed that the post election violence hit hard and deep.  Within the first 3 months of 2008, revenues declined by 90%.  They haven’t fully recovered and currently revenues are still only at 60% of 2007. He warned that if anything happened and revenues slipped lower than 50% it would spell a disaster for KWS.

He also mentioned that the financial environment is further complicated by the current global economic crisis and the ongoing drought which he believes is the worst in Kenyan history. He admitted that there were huge herds of livestock in Samburu, Tsavo (over 100,000) and other protected areas.

However, he noted on a cheerful note that the Rhino population is up by 5 – 7% and we now have 800 individuals in Kenya. 15 were released into an intensive protection zone in Tsavo West recently where they are protected by 40 rangers. Each rhino has a chip in the horn and so can be tracked.

Elephants are also up by more than 4% in Tsavo, as well as Isiolo, Samburu and Marsabit. So are Greys zebra.

However he noted with some concern that  Kenya’s lion population has stagnated at 2,100. Threats to lions include lack of space, in Mara, wheat production and livestock. Being the national symbol, and one of the big 5, KWS is committed to protecting lions and will be starting a large carnivore program – recruitment soon.

Wildlife is under unprecedented threat from bushmeat poaching especially in Kajiado, between Naivasha to Nakuru, and along the Mombasa highway.

The outlook is bleak Kenya’s human population is still growth faster than the GDP which means that poverty is worsening and this problem will get worse. The availability of weapons in the north of the country means that every man, as well as some woman and children has a fire arm that is often turned against wildlife.  Poaching is more sophisticated than ever as poachers are simply herdsmen who turn to poaching when they get an order placed by someone in Nairobi via phone. Money is also transferred using cell phones.

To address these new challenges, KWS is about to launch new strategic plan (6th May).

The strategy will examine climate change concerns and opportunities for funding.

It includes the introduction of a new Wildlife Bill and Policy which has been sent to the Minister. He also noted that we should expect tariff adjustment – that means park fees will continue to increase. He mentioned specifically Nakuru and Amboseli National Parks as well as  Mt Kenya where new fees will more than double from $20 per person per day today, to $50 per day, but tickets must also be purchased in a block of 3 days. This he felt competes with Tanzania where it costs $100 per day to climb Mt Kilimanjaro.

Mr Kipngetich was proud to report on the activities that KWS has been upto over the last year.

Last yea he recruited 36 new management trainees. He also created an emergency Management team has been created to deal with emergencies like fire.

KWS armed forces toook over the management of the Mau Forest which is Kenya’s most important water tower. This forest is supposed to be under the management of the Kenya Forest Service, a new unit that he declared is not disciplined. The Mau is patrolled daily from Nakuru by the KWS air wing.  He said that he has proposed a new ‘sustainable’ model for the Mau complex of forests and that these have submitted something to the Prime Minister.

In dealing with wildlife populations, KWS has handled two important translocations – the move of 2,000 ungulates moved from Lake Nakuru Park to Meru National Park.

Several hundred ungulates have been moved from Tsavo to Shimba Hills, as well as from Solio Ranch to Ruma National Park after 15,000acres was hived off Solio for resettlement of poor commnities. A rare antelope, the Lelwell Hartebeest was moved to Ruma.

A major donor, the Rhino Ark is now completing the fencing of the Aberdares forest and concentrating on raising funds for the maintenance of the fence.

KWS has been working with the African Wildlife Foundation on the Kenya Land Conservation Trust – a Land bank that purchases critical conservation lands for conservation. Already bought Eland Downs in Laikipia. Formerly owned by former president Daniel Arap Moi and originally earmarked for resettlement of people now on Solio Ranch in Laikipia.

Although we did not see the new KWS strategic plan, we were told that it is to be launched on May 6^th  to re energise conservation efforts.

In brief he spoke of 6 key strategies in the new strategic plan

1. Force modernization, technology to monitor troop movements
2. Infrastructure to strengthen customer service, staff housing and roads
3. Ecological integrity  more scientists, labs, equipment and collaboration in science
4. Customer service, rangers removed from gates to be manned by civilians, changing old smart card to Safaricard
5. Community mobilization, community enterprises, no more hand outs
6. Resource mobilization – lobbying for more funds from GOK.
   1. Pricing study to be done and  new fee structures 
   2. Create Wildlife Endowent Fund targeting Euros 100m
   3. Donations

Kipmgetich spoke about the creation of a private sector Association to get Kenyans to participate in Kenya lobbying on behalf of KWS especially on negotiation of budgets. I.e wildlife industry lobby group.

 An number of Questions were raised  –

1. What climate change coping mechanisms have you in place for climate change

Ans – we need to get skills and knowledge  to advice policy makers – we need to do research in order to know what adaptations are required.

2. How will independent researchers collaborate?

Ans. Everything must be science based

3. How will you enlist Kenyan supporters when park fees our out of price range for the masses?

Ans. Pricing study will get to the sensitivity  - prices are currently affordable for Kenyans

4. New bill proposes KWS breaks up into 3 unites, what will be the relationship between the three bodies

Ans. KWS currently does regulation, policy, operations, research, security and  training. Split will create the Directorate of Conservation in the ministry to define policy.

A regulatory body will handle licensing

Research will be a semi autonomous body within KWS to help KWS attract funds from treasury.

Training is already a semi autonomous body

4. Tanzania’s wildlife policy is talking about taking tourists from Kenya. What are we doing about this?

Ans Regional cooperation was not described in the strategy but is essential for cooperation and collaboration at international meetings like LATF and CITES. We are working in framework of EA community even though TZ has a different approach and is derailing the EA community. E.g a Kenyan registered car cannot take tourists into a Tz park. Hoping for resistance to decline over time. 

5. Training is currently very limiting – rangers need to understand the flora and fauna. Will you introduce specialization in the program. What is happening in the Mau where there are tense situations between FD and KWS

Ans. Mau is an emergency, KFS guard were not disciplined like KWS. The forest has been sectorized.  KFS is in charge of Masai Mau, Trustland is managed by County council, KWS has a sector as does admin police.

Overall command is with KWS warden. There are occasional flare ups due to differences in perception and discipline. Destruction of the Mau is due to the incompetence of FD/KFS.

Recommendations have gone to PM but are not public – to restore Mau on a more sustainable basis. It will severely restrict KFS who will take 10 – 20 years to develop.

Staff transfers are no longer random, now all computers, all staff go for training each 3 years. 92% of staff are men.   

At the end of the meeting, there was a group photo and I chatted to the Director. Later I caught up with him to talk about the problem of poisoning of lions, especially with Furadan. He said that he wanted to see all the facts and figures before he could quantify the scale of the problem.

After the meeting someone asked me if anyone had seen the document  on the Prime Ministers desk regarding the Mau Forest, or the proposed new Wildlife Act- well I haven’t, and nobody I know has either.  I sensed that while the public sector was being asked to lobby on KWS behalf through our political channels, our MP’s etc, we actually don’t really know what the proposals are. I tried to get a copy of the strategic plan but was told it would unfortunately not be available until the 6th May. Since it was prepared in-house, nobody outside of KWS knows what is really in it even though the document refers to communities, stakeholders and partners.

I guess we’ll have to wait and see.  More on that later

Tags: furadan, Kenya Wildlife Service, Kipngetich, Lions, Meru, Nairobi Park, Nakuru, Paula Kahumbu, rhinos, shimba

2 responses so far

Category: Poisoning wildlife | Date: Apr 18 2009 | By: admin

Here’s a report from Dino Martins, of the Insect Committee of Nature Kenya (The East Africa Natural History Society).
April 14, 2009

SUMMARY REPORT:
PESTICIDE FISHING IN LAKE VICTORIA

The Insect Committee of the East Africa Natural History Society has been surveying
dragonfly and damselfly diversity of Lake Victoria as part of a summer course (Ecology
of the Great Lakes and the African Savannah) for ~3 years.

As part of the surveys and interaction with fishermen and people involved in the fish trade, we have found that
pesticides are widely used to fish with in certain parts of the lake (especially nearer to
urban areas or towns).

We have gathered data on the prevalence of pesticide fishing and its effect on one
indicator group of insects: dragonflies (Odonata). The prevalence and distribution of
pesticide fished areas was roughly mapped through direct observation of zones of dead
fish that appeared to have been poisoned, and through interviews with fishermen and
other local stakeholders. Diversity and distribution of dragonflies was monitored by
direct observation at different sites. We also looked at dragonfly diversity in areas that
were not pesticide fished (but fished using conventional methods) and in areas that were
protected. The results are very clear: pesticide fished bays have much reduced dragonfly
diversity. On several occasions we found numbers of dead nymphs (aquatic larval
dragonfly life-stage) floating in the water where pesticides had been used, as well as
poisoned non-commercial fish species (mainly cichlids) and other aquatic insects. We
hope to publish the results of the dragonfly survey shortly.

Pesticides are widely available in lake-side towns, such as Mwanza, and sometimes sold
in shops that deal in fishing gear and tackle. Local people were often aware of the
pesticide fishing and were concerned about this. It is apparent that it is a few
unscrupulous fishermen who use this technique and not the majority. Several different
pesticides are used, including ‘Furadan’ which is the cheapest option available in local
shops. For more information, please contact the Insect Committee of Nature Kenya.

The victims of pesticide poisoning are not only fish, invertebrates and lake biodiversity, but include innocent and vulnerable HIV orphans who are who are permitted to pick through and select poisoned fish for their own dinner.

Dino J. Martins
Chairperson, Insect Committee –Nature Kenya – EANHS, Box 4606 Nairobi

Tags: carbofurans, fishing, FMC, furadan, Kenya, Kisumu, Lake Victoria, Poisoning wildlife, richard leakey, wildlifedirect

2 responses so far

Category: Poisoning wildlife | Date: Apr 16 2009 | By: admin

What a week of ups and downs! We were so pleased when FMC announced the withdrawal of Furadan from Kenya, and welcomed the opportunity to meet a team from FMC here in Nairobi. All our colleagues came, with stacks of evidence of the damage that Furadan is causing to our lions, vultures, waterbirds and fish. We were sooo hopeful…like naive fools. Of course FMC are not really interested in wildlife per se, and we’ve been warned that their local distributor won’t give up without a fight over their deadly product. The scariest thing we heard from FMC was that they “will reintroduce Furadan once the right conditions are in place” course they wouldn’t divulge what those were.

Most of us in the meeting (represented by WWF, Nature Kenya, various bird groups, Living with Lions and others) felt that our concerns were not really being acknowledged, at least the FMC officials were not able to officially accept that their product was devastating Kenyan wildlife. We were told that the Government chemist who has analysed all our samples did not have the correct testing kit and were therefore producing false positives. The advice to us, look for another source of poison. This didn’t jive well with all the other evidence we have, eg. people admitting to using Furadan, purple grains on carcasses baited for lions, purple grains on snails for the bird hunting in Bunyala….How much more obvious does it have to be??? FMC were just as adamant that Furadan is just a name used to define any pesticide. AAARrrrrrrggghhhh it is so frustrating.

The other problem is that the government chemist charges 20$ for each sample while the other organization KEPHIS charges nearly 100$ per sample. We just don’t have the resources to analyse samples that are still in the freezer!

The meeting was fairly polite but I personally didn’t feel as if we made much headway, FMC maintain that there is no credible evidence that their product is killing Kenyan wildlife, but they do admit that there is potential and that they have withdrawn the product as a precaution. They also expressed many valid points about the alternatives, the black market and competitors flooding the market, issues we chewed on for a while.

We asked many questions – but I especially loved this cheeky one   “If you are an ethical company, why not just stop producing Furadan altogether”. Ouch. I don’t recall the answer.

FMC have a series of other meetings with the government, obviously they are more concerned about the authorities and we totally understand this. We just feel that it’s equally important that consumers and citizens have the right to information, opinions and a place on the negotiating table. Sadly, many people fear the response from the authorities - I don’t for a minute deny that our ‘officials’ and ‘leaders’ can be heavy handed. In general once elected our Kenyan leaders forgot (or perhaps never learned) what being a civil servant  is all about, Servant is the key word.

The truth is that while Furadan is misused for poisoning wildlife, even when it’s used for agriculture, it is not used safely in Kenya anyway - people do not use protective gear when applying this deadly pesticide.

KWS who admit that our lions and other predators are in trouble, are not really coming out strongly about the risks to our lions posed by Furadan. Meanwhile the Pesticide Control Products Board (PCPB have a statement that sounds like their interest is in protecting products not people or the environment.
Thankfully the public are listening though and we want to thank all of you who have written in support or donated towards our work to end the poisoning of wildlife in Africa.

What I can’t get my head around is how our government can defend the use of a chemical that is banned in Europe and for which the US EPA has found there is no safe way to use it in a country of educated people who also have excellent enforcement.  In Kenya the people who use Furadan don’t even know how to read the label and none of them use any form of protective gear. That alone should make the officials question whether it’s safe for human use.

There are rumours going around that thanks to all the negative publicity (especially the decline of lions), there is support for a Furadan ban in certain quarters of our government, so fingers crossed, perhaps we’ve reached someone who actually does care and is willing to do something about it! Our challenge will be to effect a ban on the actual chemicals not just the trade names - Carbofurans.

Keep reading right here, we’ll updated you here and on the stop wildlife poisoning blog.

Tags: carbofuran, furadan, poison prevention, poisoning, richard leakey, stop poisoning wildlife, wildlife, WildlifeDriect

8 responses so far

Category: Albertine Rift Project, Gorillas, Rwanda, Uganda, wildlifedirect | Date: Apr 06 2009 | By: Maina

The MacArthur Foundation-funded Albertine Rift project shifted gear on 24 March 2009 as WildlifeDirect organized the first ever wildlife blogger training in Kampala, Uganda. It was revolutionary in many ways. Many of the participants not having blogged before, they were quite keen to learn all they could about this experience.

Victor explains a point

The training was attended by various individuals representing the civil society as well as governmental organizations in environment and conservation during the two days that it was conducted. They included representatives of the Albertine Rift conservation Society, the Uganda Nile Discourse Forum, Makerere university, Wildlife Clubs of Uganda, the Uganda Environmental Education Foundation, the country’s wildlife authority, Uganda Wildlife Authority, the Kikandwa Environmental Association, and several community-based organisations.

The training took the form of a day of lectures and practical activities, the first step introducing the new bloggers to the Wordpress dashboard and how to use it to create a blog post and the second step teaching how to blog well. Victor Ngeny took the trainees through the initial step which was done in an interactive manner allowing the trainees to practice what they learn in real time. No wonder a few of their mock-up blog posts showed up in Baraza and caused a little confusion.

Samuel Maina would then take over the next session which, as interactive as the first one, would teach the new bloggers the elements of a good blog post and how to improve their writing so that they can attract and retain readers. They were also taught how to frame their calls for action such that they were credible and likely to elicit positive response from the readers.

Participants during a practical exercise

Masumi Gudka, who would first introduce each training session, would mostly introduce the new bloggers to WildlifeDirect as an organization and prepare the bloggers for what to some would be a lifetime experience. The participants would also be shown a short video, featuring non other than the Dr Richard Leakey, that explained what WildlifeDirect does.

Amid the tasty teas and open interactions between the training team and the trainees, a new and huge thing was developing. We were building a new community of conservationists from one of the most biodiverse ecoregions in Africa: The Albertine Rift. You can expect to read from the new bloggers we trained soon. Expect good quality posts.

Some of the participants pause for a group photo

From  Kampala, the trainers headed to Buhoma, the southwestern Uganda district where the world renowned Bwindi Impenetrable National Park is located. The experience there was different. Being rural and close to a national park - with gorillas in it - the experience must definitely be so much different from that in Kampala City. That is why I will tell you about this experience tomorrow.

Tags: Albertine Rift Project, blogger, Buhoma, Kampala, training, Uganda, Wordpress

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Category: Emergency appeals | Date: Apr 06 2009 | By: admin

The flu epidemic affecting bonobos at Lola ya Bonobo is worsening and now Lodja is dead, and Kikongo is sick. We are doing everything we can  to get emergency funds to Claudine and Vanessa.

Tags: Bonobo, bonobohandshake, Claudine Andre, DR Congo, emergency, Lola ya Bonobo, vanessa woods, wildlifedirect

One response so far

Category: Gorillas | Date: Apr 03 2009 | By: admin

When Jana Jirátová and her boss Miroslav Bobek visited us from Czech Radio last month we had never heard of ‘The Revealed’ - a Big Brother parody played out by Gorillas in the Prague Zoo. The competitors were members of a lowland gorilla family; Richard, Moja, Shinda, Kamba and others.

The show was odd in so many ways, a TV program done by a radio company, the public were voting on Gorillas- and learning about themselves in the process. The interesting part to us was the link with Gorilla conservation. After 72 episodes, the Czech public did not allow the show to end even though the siverback Richard, had ‘won’ the popularity contest.

The show used 17 cameras hidden in the Gorilla house of the zoo, and captured the ins and outs of gorilla politics, births, deaths and  captivated the imagination of the public, and the show won the prestigious BBC Wildlife “Wildscreen Award”. Public interaction and bringing it to Africa, has made this show even more exceptional.

Of course we leaped at the offer to partner with Czech Radio and bring The Revealed to WildlifeDirect because the project now benefits one of our bloggign partners, the Limbe Wildlife Sanctuary where  live coverage is about to debut. We love the ingenuity behind this idea, and we think you will fall in love with the characters and the project too. Here is a note from the team who have just landed in Cameroon

“In a couple of days, we are setting off for Central Africa. As of April 1, we will start posting reports on WildlifeDirect from our journey to the Limbe Wildlife Centre in Cameroon, our visits to local schools where children received our books, negotiations about our future cooperation and, most importantly, from our expedition to tropical rain forests. We have received a unique chance to travel to the forest in the southern part of the Central African Republic and track a troop of lowland gorillas, the only of its kind in the world. We shall see how our plans materialise - but we will do our best…”

So please don’t miss it, log on at 12 noon GMT to watch the life and times of Gorillas in The Revealed live from Limbe.

All donations will support lowland gorilla conservation activities in Africa starting with Limbe

Enjoy! Paula

Tags: Czech Radio, Gorillas, lowland gorilla, Moja, Odhaleni, Richard, The Revealed, wildlifedirect

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Category: Uncategorized | Date: Apr 02 2009 | By: admin

Dear friends,

Here is the official MC Response to 60 Minutes Story on Kenyan Lion Poisonings

March 29, 2009

On Sunday, March 29, CBS News 60 Minutes aired a story on the human-wildlife conflict in Kenya that reports Furadan®, an FMC insecticide, has become the preferred product that many cattle herders use to poison lions that kill their livestock. FMC strongly condemns the use of its products to kill wildlife and is very concerned about these allegations. The company has taken several actions to address the situation including:

• Stopping all sales of Furadan to Kenya immediately after learning of an incident in May 2008
• Immediately initiating a Furadan buy-back program in Kenya to remove any remaining product from the market
• Direct outreach to leading conservationists to get any data concerning lion poisonings

In the segment, “60 Minutes” implies that more than 75 lion poisonings have been caused by Furadan. We are greatly troubled by the potential magnitude of this situation as it has never been brought to our attention despite our repeated requests to the Kenyan Wildlife Service to share any and all information about lion poisonings.

When a report surfaced last year that Furadan may have been involved in poisoning lions in the Maasai Mara region of Kenya, FMC immediately suspended the introduction of any additional Furadan into the distribution channel. We have now instituted a buy-back of Furadan to speed its removal from the market. We will not reintroduce Furadan into Kenya until appropriate safeguards are in place.

FMC is a global company dedicated to delivering innovative products that improve the lives of people around the world. We take tremendous pride, not only in our products, but in our stewardship programs. We will continue to work with the Kenyan government, agricultural industry and conservation groups to try to prevent the misuse of our product or any other pesticide used to kill wildlife.

For further information about FMC products and stewardship initiatives, please visit www.furadanfacts.com.

Media contact: Jim Fitzwater – 215.299.6633 or james.fitzwater@fmc.com

Download: FMC Statement on 60 Minutes Story on Lion Poisonings - Press Statement (PDF, 137KB)

Tags: CBS 60 minutes, FMC, furadan, lion poisoning, Masai Mara, richard leakey, wildlifedirect

4 responses so far