Regional
Monday, May 31, 2004
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MPs Push to Repeal Kenya's 1977 Hunting Ban

By JOHN MBARIA
SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT

THE CAMPAIGN by large-scale game ranchers and some Members of Parliament to get the Kenya government to repeal a ban on wildlife hunting imposed 27 years ago gained momentum two weeks ago.

MPs from areas with large populations of wild animals, including the Speaker of the National Assembly, Francis Ole Kaparo, are spearheading the drive to lift the ban imposed by Jomo Kenyatta, the founding president of Kenya.

A private member's motion brought to parliament by the MP for Laikipia West, G.G Kariuki, declares, "Legal Notice No. 120 of 1977 (officially) Repealed." This is the gazette notice that legally banned all hunting of Kenya's wildlife in 1977.

Titled Proposed Amendments to the Wildlife (Conservation and Management) Act, the Bill is, at first sight, meant to correct anomalies in appointments at the Kenya Wildlife Service and to compel the government to raise the compensation of wildlife victims from Ksh30,000 ($384.6) to Ksh10 million ($128,205).

But the main thrust of the Bill is to have the ban lifted, with proponents arguing that "it was beyond the minister's power to issue such a directive."

The Bill argues that KWS and its predecessor, the Wildlife Conservation & Management Department (WMCD), have all along been engaged in some form of hunting through animal culling to protect crops, livestock and property and by allowing game cropping, including game capture and translocation. The Bill accuses KWS and WMCD of having "consistently contravened the ban by hunting widely and for many reasons since 1977 to the present."

Mr Kariuki defends his motion by saying that he is seeking the amendment of the Act "to regularise all hunting that has to be routinely undertaken by or through KWS."

In addition to the Bill, a document titled Wildlife Conservation & Management Policy, that is said to have been prepared last February by the KWS board, okays game hunting and says licences will only be given to those who "have passed the examination necessary to acquire a full professional hunters' game animal licence."

The MPs' drive to have the ban lifted peaked during a Wildlife Utilisation and Management Conference held at the Whitesands Hotel in Mombasa a fortnight ago. Most of the MPs, including Mr Kaparo – who repeatedly said he was in the conference in his private capacity – were dismissive of those opposed to consumptive utilisation of wildlife.

In one of the sessions, the MP for Samburu West, Simeon Lesirma, declared, "Whether KWS or the Environment Ministry like it or not, we, the MPs, are going to repeal the hunting ban."

Mr Lesirma later backed down when accosted by a number of delegates who felt that KWS had no business calling for such a conference in the first place if MPs had already decided the hunting ban will be lifted.

Indeed, there was a general feeling that the conference, which was sponsored by USaid, was dominated by proponents of sport hunting and was called to "rubber-stamp" the decision.

Mr Kaparo, reacting to a paper on The Role of NGOs in Wildlife Conservation presented by Dr P Muruthi, a scientist at the African Wildlife Foundation, said that if KWS did not allow landowners to engage in consumptive utilisation of wildlife living on their land, "We will know what to do next."

Mr Kaparo called conservation NGOs "selfish" organisations who "get all the money and use it to buy big vehicles in Nairobi, while the only benefits communities get is to be lumped together with animals."

A number of landowners – including a former colonial game warden, Ian Parker; a rancher-member of the Machakos Wildlife Forum, Stanley Martin and Dr David Hopcraft spoke of the "benefits" hunting offers to wildlife conservation.

Terming "ethic-driven" conservation "unacceptable," Dr Hopcraft said that "hunting is a principal wildlife use embraced all over the world and Kenya is the only exception." He claimed that the NGOs that write newsletters and organise anti-hunting campaigns have "rendered 80 per cent of the land in Kenya's wildlife areas unusable."

Popular with the very rich, especially in Europe and the US, sport hunting finds favour with game ranchers because of the big returns. For instance, when a buffalo is cropped and its meat and hide sold locally, a rancher can raise no more than Ksh15,000 ($192.3). But when he is allowed to invite a sport hunter to experience the thrill of tracking and killing the animal and to take its trophy home, he is likely to get more than Ksh440,000 ($5,500).

During the conference, KWS declined to take a clear-cut position on the matter.

Though Assistant Director in Charge of Non-Protected Areas Joakim Kagiri expressed the need for the upcoming wildlife policy to "reduce the wildlife conservation costs" suffered by rural communities, he nevertheless called for caution, reminding participants that a wildlife cropping experiment put in place by former KWS director Richard Leakey in 1991 was plagued by abuses and lack of a legal framework, leading to its suspension last November.

"When the programme was in operation, it was difficult for KWS to differentiate between bush meat and meat from legalised sources," said Mr Kagiri, who was however quick to exonerate the wildlife cropping project of blame for the 58 per cent decline in Kenya's wildlife since 1977.

"This is not just related to cropping but to a whole range of dynamic forces" he said.

The government took a similarly cautious position.

Environment Minister Newton Kulundu said the government has no "hard-line stand on the issue" and wanted to involve stakeholders in the revision of the Wildlife Act.

He however called on whatever interventions are finally adopted in the upcoming policy to be based "on sound scientific values."

During the conference, most delegates said that the enactment of a new Wildlife Act and policy were long overdue, and it is both "colonial" and "outdated" and that communities living with wildlife do not.

But it was obvious to most observers that a deliberate effort was made to ensure that participants did not discuss the role other forms of wildlife utilisation – such as photographic tourism – would continue to play in meeting communities' needs once the new wildlife policy is enacted.

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