The Story of WildlifeDirect at PopTech 2009
Category: Uncategorized | Date: Nov 18 2009 | By: Maina
Last month, Paula attended the Pop!Tech conference as one of the 16 fellows from around the world who were recognized for their work in social innovation. As we told you earlier, Paula took the story of WildlifeDirect and how it impacts on conservation mostly in Africa. From what we can tell, she was quite impressive. Not very surprising since the WildlifeDirect idea is revolutionary, innovative and efficient.
I say Paula and the WildlifeDirect story was impressive since now some of those who heard it, and have been studying it ever since, have started praising it as “The Right Way To Use Social Media for Fundraising.” Other NGOs are also telling of their intention to adopt this method seeing that it has been successful.
Writting on her blog, one Social Media ‘guru’, Beth Kanter, uses the WildlifeDirect example to demonstrate how NGOs can build their networks and raise funds to support their causes. She says:
“A compelling example good social media fundraising practice comes from WildlifeDirect, a nonprofit based in Nairobi, Kenya founded by Dr. Richard Leakey. According to Paula Kahumbu, Executive Director, their approach to fundraising was to build a worldwide online conservancy community.”
She then tells of the rapid growth of the great idea that is WildlifeDirect, saying, “In 2007, WildlifeDirect had 7 blogs in the Democratic Republic of Congo written by conservationists in the field. These blogs raised $350,000 to pay rangers salaries and help save mountain gorillas in the Virunga National Park.”
Paula is quick to attribute the great success of WildlifeDirect to our relationship with our donors. She says “Two years later, have over 70 blogs, donations have risen 4 fold, as has website visitation. We treat our donors as partners in our programs.”
So there you have it. It is not just about the growth of WildlifeDirect. We dont do these thing by ourselves, we do them because you have become our partners. Everyone who donates on WildlifeDirect is considered a partner. As Paula tell the story of Anthony Kasanga and the Lion Guardians in the video, she demonstrates the strength that WildlifeDirect draw from donors - from YOU.
Thank you all for supporting us.
Alert! Nairobi National Park is Being Grabbed
Category: Uncategorized | Date: Oct 26 2009 | By: Maina
Today I woke up to the most disturbing news. “Private companies and individuals are gradually encroaching on the Nairobi National Park, threatening the only wildlife habitat close to the city,” says the opening sentence of an article in the Kenyan newspaper, Daily Nation’s website.
Previous cattle invasion in the Park during drought
According to the journalist, Fred Mukindia, an 11,700 hectares area had been surveyed and some 60 acres (24.75 hectares) would be subdivided into plots to be sold to developers and land title deeds will be issued. This is clearly a fraudulent deal since the land in question is under the title deed held by the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) who are the custodians of all national parks including Nairobi. Already the law has been broken since it is illegal to survey any land without the full knowledge and approval of the owner. KWS officers say they did not sanction this survey.
Nairobi National Park is the only wildlife national park within a capital city in the world. The park has however been under pressure from private developers who want to convert it into residential and commercial area. Most of the wildlife migration corridor between the park and the southern maasailand wildlife areas - including Amboseli National Park - has already been lost to these greedy developers.
There was no legal way to stop these developers from converting the corridors since they were communal lands under the masai group ranch systems and the groups are allowed to sell the land. The park, however, is protected under the Wildlife Management and Conservation Act cap 386, Laws of Kenya. How then can the same government that is supposed to uphold this law allow it to be flouted? The same custodian of this law is preparing to issue titles of ownership to the new ‘grabbers’ in what the Daily Nation journalist refers to as a ‘fast tracked’ process!
Its even more complicated since there are already squatters in the 60 acre land. The journalist postulates that these are not genuine landless people but decoys planted on the piece of wild real estate to create public empathy until the gluttonous developers get the title deeds. This is not unusual in Kenya as we have seen in the Mau Forest, where phony squatters were used by rich land speculators resulting in the speculators being allocated colossal tracts of land in this most important water catchment.
The journalist also blames the KWS who, while they fenced that side of the park, someone forgot to fence the 60 acre parcel of land thus exposing it to land-hungry grabbers. It gets quite messy given that the squatters have started agitating for this land. Recently, the article reports, they have heightened the fight for the land and some KWS officials report to have received death threats. The KWS is said to have responded by deploying armed rangers to the area. The squatters retaliated by uprooting boundary beacons erected around the land. And so the vicious circle continues.
What am asking is, should we allow the government to break the law just because they made and are responsible for upholding these laws? The resounding answer should be NO!
Since this illegal land allocation appears to be a ‘clandestine’ operation, the first line of attack should be to create public outcry from all levels. Kenyan conservation organizations should lead the public in rejecting this dangerous move that threatens to set precedence for the future grabbing of wildlife habitats. If this is allowed to go on, nothing can stop other land thieves from stealing the entire Nairobi National Park - the Wildlife Capital of The World.
The time to act is now, before the process of issuing land ownership titles is complete. It would be helpful if conservation organizations (including KWS) would file a case in the Kenyan High Court to stop the title processing as a first step, then make a BIG noise about this illegal activity that threatens to take away Nairobi’s primary green gem.
Video of Birds being poisoned in Bunyala
Category: Uncategorized | Date: Oct 06 2009 | By: paula
We have just received this video tape of birds being collected from the rice scheme in Bunyala after being poisoned allegedly with Furadan. The Kenyan government officials of the Pesticide Products Control Board have confirmed that THEY WILL NOT INVESTIGATE ANY OF OUR REPORTS which they state they believe we have fabricated.
Please watch the video and let us know if you think we could fabricate this.
Carbofuran is the same pesticide that is believed to be the cause of the massive decline in Africa’s lions. It is also being used in fishing in Lake Victoria. Reports of these incidents can be found on our poisoning blog http://stopwildlifepoisoning.wildlifedirect.org
Although pesticide fishing and catching of birds for human consumption represents a public health hazard, the PCPB will not investigate. We will continue to furnish the government and other with the evidence.
Hopefully it won’t take a human death for them to wake up.
Tags: carbofuran, FMC, furadan, Lions, pesticide poisoning, poisoning birds, wildlife poisoning
The Winning wildlife movie is GREEN
Category: Uncategorized | Date: Oct 06 2009 | By: paula
While at the Jackson Hole Film Wildlife Festival the winner of this years winner was announced, it’s a film called “Green” by Charlie Hamilton James, Frederic Fouge. I met Frederic who surprised me when I asked for a copy of the film
- it’s available for free download on the interent. Here’s a great opportunity for every single illegal video store in the world to download this film legally for free and to show it to as many people as possible.
I’ve just downloaded it myself from this site
Charlie Hamilton James, Frederic Fougea
Tags: Frederic Fouge, Green, Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival, Paula Kahumbu, Wyoming
WildlifeDirect News - October 2009
Category: Uncategorized | Date: Oct 05 2009 | By: Maina
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Saving the Mau - Kenyas heart is bleeding
Category: Uncategorized | Date: Sep 29 2009 | By: paula
A recent report by BBC reporter James Morgan on the impact of the destruction of Kenya’s Mau Forest has been making waves in Kenya. This well researched article highlights the causes of the forest destruction (bad policies), and it’s impacts (rivers, farming, climate and conflict). The current Kenya Government is trying to undo the damage caused by the previous regime and rich cronies - ironically these people starting with the former president who have destroyed a national asset and caused untold suffering in the short and long term, will actually be compensated in cash. This policy of rewarding wrong doers has angered Kenyans intensely and the situation on the ground is very volatile.
High in the hills of Kenya’s Mau forest, some 20,000 families are facing eviction from their farms - accused of contributing to an ecological disaster which has crippled the country.
The authorities are to start the process of removing them any day now. Farmers will be asked to surrender their title deeds for inspection.
If their documents are genuine, they have a chance of being resettled, or compensated.
If not, they will simply be told to go.
Mau forest is Kenya’s largest water tower - it stores rain during the wet seasons and pumps it out during the dry months.
But during the last 15 years, more than 100,000 hectares - one quarter of the protected forest reserve - have been settled and cleared.
Tearing out the trees at the heart of Kenya has triggered a cascade of drought and despair in the surrounding valleys.
The rivers that flow from the forest are drying up.
And as they disappear, so too have Kenya’s harvests, its cattle farms, its hydro-electricity, its tea industry, its lakes and even its famous wildlife parks.
The finger of blame is being pointed at the settlers in Mau. And the solution, according to a special task force appointed by Prime Minister Raila Odinga, is to uproot the invaders and replant the trees.
Of 20,000 families living in the forest, they estimate that perhaps as few as 1,962 have genuine title deeds.
Civil conflict
“We must act now - before the entire ecosystem is irreversibly damaged,” said Mr Odinga.
“We are looking at securing the livelihoods and economies of millions of Africans who directly and indirectly depend on the ecosystem.”
The prime minister was speaking at the United Nations - appealing for donations of 7.6bn shillings ($100m; £63.5m) to “rehabilitate” Kenya’s water supply.
If he does not act, he foresees a struggle for water and land which could escalate into a bloody civil conflict.
Because in the valleys downstream of Mau forest, farmers like Peter Ole Nkolia are running out of water, cattle, and patience.
“Those people up there need to just move,” says Mr Nkolia, as he stands by the carcass of a dead cow.
“If the destruction of Mau shall continue I can assure you that a lot of people will suffer.
“What you are going to see here in Narok is just the skeletons of cattle - and maybe people.”
Worse still, the water from Mau quenches thirst far beyond Kenya. Its rivers feed Tanzania’s Serengeti and keep the fishermen of Lake Victoria afloat.
When you consider that Lake Victoria is the source of the Nile, you begin to grasp the scale of the crisis the Kenyan government is facing.
“This is no longer a Kenyan problem,” said Mr Odinga. “Tanzania and Egypt are feeling the heat from the Mau.
“And the implications go beyond the environment. This has the potential to create insecurity as people squabble over dwindling resources.”
‘Buffer zone’
Chopping down the tree cover in Mau has removed a natural “pump” which keeps the ecosystem alive.
“It rains a lot in Kenya - but only in the rainy seasons. Then you have four long months with not a drop,” explains Christian Lambrechts, from the Nairobi-based UN Environment Programme (UNEP).
“So you need a buffer zone - a way to ration the rain water and release it slowly into the rivers in the dry season. That buffer is the forest.
“If you remove this ecosystem, you reduce the moisture reservoir. Which means that in the dry season… ‘Hakuna maji’. No water.”
When the rains in Kenya stop falling, the 12 rivers which stem from the Mau forest are the lifeline for about 10 million people.
And this year in Kenya, the rains failed badly.
Narok county - the breadbasket of Kenya - was a barren dustbowl in April, the wettest month of the year. The government declared a “national emergency” with 10 million Kenyans facing starvation.
Cattle keeled over and died, in their millions. And as the drought worsened, Kenyan government was forced to bail out farmers by slaughtering their weak animals for just 8,000 shillings ($105; £65) a head.
In western Kenya, the tea plantations of James Finlay, which feed on the rivers of western Mau, have seen their yields cut to 80%. And the town of Kericho experienced water rationing for the first time in a generation.
Trouble in paradise
Wildlife tourism - another pillar of Kenya’s economy - is wilting in the heat.
Lake Nakuru, the birdwatcher’s paradise, is disappearing. The rivers that feed it have run dry. They come from Mau.
And in the Masai Mara, the river which hosts the world famous “crossing of the wildebeest” has fallen to its lowest ever level.
Water scarcity has brought wild animals and farmers into conflict. Deaths, injuries and compensation claims are at record highs in Narok, according to the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS).
The fuse for all these disasters was lit in Mau.
“The Mau, in a sense, is the hen that lays the golden eggs,” says Paul Udoto, of KWS.
“The eggs are Lake Nakuru, the Masai Mara, the tea plantations… the farming that is being done by pastoralists.
“Once you destroy the centre - the hen - that is the Mau - then by necessity you have to lose the golden eggs.”
Frequent droughts
But can deforestation really be to blame for all these catastrophes?
After all, there have always been cyclical droughts in Kenya.
The trouble is that these droughts are becoming more frequent, more severe and less predictable. Particularly since 2001 - the year when 60,000 hectares of Mau were allocated to settlers and cleared.
“At a time when the climate in Kenya is becoming drier, that is when you need to boost your ecosystem - to help it to absorb the impact of climate variability,” says Mr Lambrechts.
“Go in the opposite direction, and you are going to feel those impacts much bigger. That is what we are currently feeling.”
Mr Lambrechts is one of 30 officials recruited to the task force by Prime Minister Odinga.
Their report, published in July, set out in painstaking detail how more than 100,000 hectares - one quarter of the entire forest reserve - was parcelled up and cleared for settlement.
Almost 20,000 land parcels were “excised” by the governments of Daniel arap Moi and Mwai Kibaki, and handed out to farmers - which helped to boost the two presidents’ popularity in the run-up to elections.
At the time, much of these excised land parcels were promised to Ogiek peoples, the original forest dwellers. But the title deeds ended up largely in the hands of local officials and incoming settlers.
Map showing three types of settlement within the Mau forest reserve: (i) Land excised and allocated to settlers by government (ii) Trust land which was adjudicated to indigenous forest peoples (iii) Land which was encroached or illegally purchased
Meanwhile, in the southern Maasai Mau forest, almost 2,000 plots were illegally purchased within the protected forest reserve, with the help of local officials.
Plots known as “group ranches” were expanded, subdivided and then sold on to third parties, unaware that their new title deeds may be “irregular” or “bogus”.
Finally, large chunks of the forest were simply occupied and squatted - “encroached” to use the official terminology - by settlers with no title claim whatsoever.
Political tightrope
The task force insists that almost all of these settlers and land owners should leave the forest as soon as possible.
But how many deserve compensation? This is a political tightrope for Prime Minister Odinga.
The task force has promised that each family will have their claim heard on a “case-to-case basis”.
All holders of “genuine” title deeds will be compensated - perhaps even those high-ranking public officials who are named by the task force as having received land via irregular means.
A search for new land to resettle farmers is underway, but is already provoking controversy.
“I hope when they go to the World Bank they won’t get any money,” says Professor Wangari Maathai, the Nobel Laureate and environmental campaigner.
“The only reason why we are being held hostage with the Mau is because people who were in power want to be compensated.”
Double-whammy
But perhaps the biggest challenge of all facing Kenya is the ecological one - the co-ordinated replanting of 100,000 hectares of indigenous forest.
It will take decades to restore the canopy - years in which Kenyans will continue to suffer from the double-whammy of local land degradation and global climate change.
Yet among environmentalists there is some relief that, at last, Kenya has woken up to a disaster that has been brewing for decades.
Countless warnings have gone unheeded, as Ms Maathai can testify.
“I keep telling people, let us not cut trees irresponsibly… especially the forested mountains,” she says.
“Because if you destroy the forests, the rivers will stop flowing and the rains will become irregular and the crops will fail and you will die of hunger and starvation.
“Now the problem is, people don’t make those linkages.”
In Kenya this year, everyone is making those linkages.
Tags: BBC, Climate change, deforestation, forest, Kenya, Lake Nakuru, Maasai, Mara, Masai Mara, Mau Forest, Serengeti, wildlifedirect
Lions in Nairobi Park
Category: Uncategorized | Date: Sep 28 2009 | By: admin
With the drought biting hard KWS has been aggresively chasing cattle out of the parks and the government of Kenya has been trying to solve the humanitarian crisis by buying huge numbers of cattle. It is not going very well and nature is taking it’s course - cattle are dying all over the country in droves.
The degradation due to over grazing outside of parks has predictably led to wildlife returning to the parks for the only grazing available. Nairobi Park in particular now looks like the Serengetti in full migration!
The influx of wildlife has led to the appearance of big cats. Lion, leopard and cheetah sightings are now quite common.
Stalker!
After half an hour of great tension the lion had crept right up to this zebra and seemed about to launch herself onto the stripes when I heard the sound of other cars approaching. Sadly the hunt did not conclude in breakfast for the lioness, my wild gesticulations asking them to slow down and stop, seemed to attract the vehicle even more. The tour van revved up beside me for tourists to get a good shot - which of course flopped because the zebra got spooked and walked off. The lion lay down in the grass and turned to us glaring angrily.
Just seeing this today made me feel proud of what we are doing at WildlifeDirect - saving endangered species so that we can continue to enjoy rare and precious moments like these.
Thank you all for reading our blogs and supporting all of our the amazing projects.
Paula
Tags: cattle, conservation, drought, Kenya, Lion, Lions, nairobi national Park, wildlife, wildlifedirect
Three white rhino’s escape from Nairobi Park
Category: Uncategorized | Date: Sep 08 2009 | By: admin
Today three of the ten new white rhino’s of Nairobi National Park did a runner and escaped in to the nearby gorges.
Concerned for their safety, KWS caught them by darting from a helicopter. One of them nearly fell down a cliff but was saved at the last minute. I was able to get a few photos of the recapture and return of this particular rhino.
Drugged, Bound in ropes and with his eyes covered he probably wasn’t aware of the commotion around him.
Once inside the box it was lifted onto the vehicle and he was driven away, back to the National Park where hopefuly, he and the other two will stay this time!
Tags: endangered species, Kenya Wildlife Service, Paula Kahumbu, rhino, rhino rescue, white rhino, wildlifedirect
Paula talks about dying cattle on Kiss FM
Category: Uncategorized | Date: Sep 07 2009 | By: admin
After sending a letter with graphic images of cattle dying in Nairobi Park to Caroline Mutoko of Nairobi’s No. 1 radio station Kiss FM, Paula was surprised to be invited onto the Big Breakfast Show with Caroline Mutoko, KEnya’s most influential radio personality, and Larry and Jalango on Kiss FM 100.3 last Thursday.
Here’s the recording of the interview.
Let us know what you think?
Androcles Lion on Capital FM
Category: Uncategorized | Date: Sep 06 2009 | By: admin
This story just appeared on one of Kenya’s top radio stations
NAIROBI, Kenya, Sep 3 - Renowned Kenyan conservationist, Dr Richard Leakey has inaugurated the display of the WildlifeDirect lion statue that will be creating public awareness about poisoning of lions by cattle herders using Furadan.
The lion statue, which is part of the Pride of Kenya campaign to create awareness about the status and to raise funds for conservation of Kenya’s remaining 2,100 lions will be on public display at Yaya Centre in Nairobi.
On Tuesday WildlifeDirect joined the Born Free Foundation in the official launch of the Pride of Kenya campaign at the Nairobi National Park. Integrated in the campaign to save the last lions of Kenya is the inauguration of WildlifeDirect’s call to have all carbofurans - especially Furadan a lethal agricultural pesticide that is behind the death of 75 lions in the last 4 years - banned in Kenya.
With the life-sized lion statue christened The Androcles Lion as the centrepiece of their campaign, WildlifeDirect seeks to rally support from prominent Kenyans and the general public to have the deadly carbofuran class of pesticides banned from the Kenyan market by the Kenyan Parliament.
The Androcles Lion which is painted Fuchsia, the prominent colour on the retail packaging of the most used carbofuran in Kenya - Furadan - and with chains around it denoting bondage by these poisons, seeks to communicate the threat that carbofurans are posing to the survival of this charismatic species.
Prominent personalities such as Dr Leakey - who became the first person to endorse the campaign - UNEP Director Achim Steiner, Nobel Laureate Wangari Maathai among others, have been invited to show their support for the push to have Furadan banned in Kenya by inscribing a signed message supporting the ban on the body of the lion.
The objective is to initiate public debate and support of the proposed ban so that Kenya’s Parliament finally discusses the motion and eventually pass a law that makes it illegal to import, manufacture, repackage or sell this killer pesticide and anything else in its class.
Kenya’s lion population is declining at an alarming pace and climate change, habitat destruction and conflict with humans have been the key drivers for this precipitous fall in numbers.
On August 17, the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) announced that Kenya’s lion population had been declining by an average 100 animals per year in the last seven years and now stands at a little over 2,000.
In the 1970s there were about 30,000 lions in Kenya. Given the current decline rate, lions will become extinct in Kenya in just two decades. At the time, KWS spokesman Paul Udoto told the media that “communities are the largest threat to the lions and other cats.”
It is through conservationists blogs hosted by WildlifeDirect that the widespread use of Furadan by cattle herders for retaliatory poisoning of lions suspected of killing livestock first came to the limelight.
With increasing reports of lion and other predators as well as birds of prey and scavengers being poisoned using Furadan, WildlifeDirect convened, in 2007, a meeting to bring together affected conservationists and Furadan importation firms in order to chart a way forward in addressing this situation.
The meeting resolved that a total ban on Furadan would be the best way to eliminate herders’ access to this lethal poison and thus reduce poisoning of lions. The Stop Wildlife Poisoning campaign was thus launched.
On March 29 this year, American broadcaster, CBS, aired a documentary showing the devastating effect that Furadan was having on Kenya’s lions. Following this documentary, and the information that WildlifeDirect had provided the Member of Parliament for Naivasha, John Mututho - who took the issue to parliament - the question of banning Furadan was discussed in Parliament.
Parliamentary recommendation was that a committee be formed to craft a notice that would, if integrated into law, make it illegal to import Furadan and other carbofurans into Kenya. The Honourable Minister for Wildlife and Natural Resources, Dr Noah Wekesa, instructed that that committee be formed.
With the distinctively pink lion with a mane covered with replica Kenyan currency notes, representing the greed that is driving the sales of a poison that has already been banned in the US and Europe WildlifeDirect will continue to drum up support to the member for Naivasha and all those parliamentarians who support banning the substance.
WildlifeDirect’s quest is to end the poisoning of lions by herders using Furadan, and that is the message that the Androcles Lion will be sending as it goes on public display at Yaya Centre.
Tags: Born Free, Capital FM, Lion, Lions, Pride of Kenya, wildlifedirect
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