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'Putting wildlife in protected areas would be catastrophic'

The East African Standard (Nairobi)

INTERVIEW
August 21, 2004
Njonjo Kihuria
Nairobi

An interview with George Wamukoya, Head of Development and External Relations, WWF

What do you make of the recent presidential order that KWS confines wildlife in protected areas or else ?

It is my view that the President was expressing the desire that some action ought to be taken in regard to the overall management of wildlife.

I do not think he was saying the animals should be confined in the national parks, which is not feasible as most of the wildlife are long range and move from one area to another depending on the sources of food and climatic changes.

So if we captured all these animals and put them in protected areas, we would have a catastrophe because the limited space within those areas would not be able to sustain them.

I think the President was simply asking how effectively we are managing the protected areas and that if we were doing it well, we would then lessen the human-wildlife conflict.

But how can KWS, which is in the red, effectively manage the wildlife?

The reality is that the Wildlife Act under which KWS operates, confers a bigger mandate to the service than can be accomplished with the resources they receive from the Government and partners.

KWS has the responsibility for all wildlife in the country irrespective of whether they are in protected areas or outside, which is a huge mandate and puts a lot of pressure on KWS in terms of resources.

So I agree KWS is ill funded and both the Government and partners have to find ways of supporting KWS, so that it can deliver.

Which brings to the fore the question of whether the Government has committed commensurate resources to KWS to fulfill its obligation of managing and protecting wildlife throughout the country and the obvious answer is no, as most of the money is gets is focused on the protected areas.

So it is the Government that should financially bail out KWS?

I would strongly say yes, since wildlife even as defined by the Wildlife Act, is a national heritage and so the Government must demonstrate its commitment first before calling on partners to support the endeavor.

With the recurrent financial constraints, do you think the commercial wing of KWS should be privatized?

We would want to look at KWS as a national institution that has the capacity to provide guidance on the management of wildlife and that would be able to generate resources from those areas that it is managing, to improve infrastructure.

But where other people want to use those facilities for example the air wing, those people pay for the services. So some elements should generate resources when KWS is not using them, but only for the purposes of contributing to conservation.

This is opposed to the commercial approach, which negates the purpose for which KWS was established.

Apparently following the presidential directive at Laikipia, some people have already started killing wildlife

The problem with our people is that we always want to use any simple statement to justify some mischief we want to get into, but the reality is that these people have been living with the wildlife for a long time.

Because of increased pressure for human settlement, we have encroached on areas where wildlife used to go, leading to increased human-wildlife conflict, but it would be unfortunate if based on that statement, there is resurgence.

Who has encroached on whose territory - the animals or the humans?

Conservationists in Kenya always look at wildlife at the expense of the people, but from the WWF view, we look at nature and how it can live in harmony with people. We seek to find a balance so that nature can contribute to the livelihoods of the people and the people contribute to the sustainable management of nature.

There is demographic growth in terms of numbers of people, increasing pressure on land resources and some of the areas previously reserved for wildlife are now settled, a good example being Kitengela, which used to be an open area where animals from the Nairobi National Park passed while migrating to the Amboseli.

The question here then is how to find a balance so that the animals can continue operating how they ought to, while human beings have the space to enable them earn a livelihood.

How does the human-wildlife conflict affect tourism?

Whenever we have wildlife death resulting from damage to either crop or human death, it is publicised and once it is said we are killing animals that gives a bad image. Even when KWS cull the animals for control purposes, it still gives us a bad name, although at that stage it is inevitable as such animals would continue behaving in the same (destructive) manner and the most reasonable thing is to eliminate them.

But most of the tourists who come here, are nature lovers and the less stories we hear about killing of animals, the better for our tourism. And then there are instances where livestock are taken into protected areas, driving off the wildlife. Can you imagine the effect it would have on a tourist who pays a lot of money to come and visit our parks, only to find livestock in the parks!

Fencing of protected areas has miserably failed in some areas; what should be done?

There is this contention that when you fence, you confine the animals and the problem goes, but we tend to forget that some of these animals need to move, leaving the area they have been occupying, to recover.

But when you confine them, the area becomes completely degraded and as a consequence, it reaches a stage when it can no longer sustain the animals.

Fencing assumes there will be good maintenance, and usually the maintenance is left to communities, but this does not usually go with benefit sharing and so communities feel over-burdened. They hence abandon the fence, which finally collapses.

Conservation is not fencing but having enough space to enable the animals to survive and contributing to the livelihood of the people.

Can you comment on the huge tracts of land that the Maasai are claiming?

From a holistic point of view, the change in ownership of land, land tenure, is likely to have effect in the overall land use in Kenya.

Group ranches, which were good areas for wildlife and livestock, have now been sub-divided and the land put into agriculture, which is not appropriate, so essentially you lose the value of the land, and confine the person tilling it to poverty.

So while the Maasai can continue asserting their right, we carefully need to look at the consequences of the resultant form of land use.

From our perspective we would want see a form of land use that enhances conservation and the improved livelihood of communities.

Has translocation of elephants from Shimba Hills to Tsavo escalated the human-wildlife conflict situation?

From a professional point of view, I would say no as Tsavo is an expansive area and that is why it used to be home to up to 30,000 animals and with just under 9,000 now, it means there is a lot of space.

But unfortunately the animals (residents and those re-located there), sometimes stray and I would hesitate to attribute the increased human-wildlife conflict to the translocation. But as we do the translocation, we ought to look into certain factors, including the fact that the habitat is being degraded and even Tsavo may not continue to support the same population it used to.

So ultimately translocation may not be the panacea and since the amounts spent on it are quite huge, if part of it is put into community nature-based enterprise, we would reduce the human-wildlife conflict.

How can the human-wildlife be effectively tackled?

The conflict has no simple answer and will continue living with us, but it requires at sometimes and some places, specific interventions and more so involving the relevant communities living in those areas.

There is not way you are going to sit in Nairobi and come up with an overall policy because it manifests itself in different forms. We need to fuse indigenous knowledge and practices into our policy framework.

I would also like to see a situation where there is equitable sharing of benefits arising from wildlife related activities.

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