Kenya: Thai Experts Oppose Wildlife Export Plans
The East African Standard (Nairobi)

March 13, 2006
Ochieng' Oreyo
Nairobi

Leading Thai conservationists arrived in Nairobi on Friday to protest at Government plans to export wildlife to their country.

The delegation of five officials, which was led by Surapon Duangkhae, was received by Tom Aosa, the leader of the Joint Conservation Committee, which has taken the Government to court over a controversial plan to export some 175 animals to Thai zoo.

Surapon said his group would ask the Government to retract the memorandum of understanding on the animals deal signed last year. In a statement on Sunday, he said the Thai Government was "too ill-equipped to handle its own wildlife" .

Last year, the then Foreign minister, Chirau Ali Mwakwere, and his Thai counterpart, Kantathi Suphamongkhon, signed the memorandum before President Kibaki and the Thailand Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

Surapon was scheduled to address a joint press conference with local activists and visit national parks and game reserves in a bid to exert pressure on their Government to abandon the deal.

Nairobi CBO Consortium, the Kenya Society for the Protection and Care of Animals (KSPCA) and Tom Aosa sued the Tourism minister last year, seeking to block the transfer of the animals.

The activists won round one of the battle when they obtained a court order blocking the implementation of the exports pending the outcome of their application.