KWS blamed for poaching cases in parks, reserves

By Kipchumba Kemei

NAROK, KENYA: Conservationists have said war against poaching will not be won until Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) incorporate communities neighbouring national parks and reserves.

They faulted the service for fighting poaching without the communities, warning that it was an exercise in futility.

“The communities which have co-existed with wildlife for many years know who poachers are. We don’t know why they are being excluded. Had they been brought on board long time ago, the menace could now have been contained,” said Nick Murero, the Narok County Wildlife Forum Coordinator.

The Government, they also said should break KWS into two entities, one dealing with the management of national parks and reserves and the other which should be placed under the police for the protection of wildlife.

Murero said during a Wildlife Stakeholders Forum at Sekenani in Masai Mara Game Reserve that KWS Intelligence Unit was ineffective in monitoring poachers’ movements and their activities and wondered why most poaching activities were taking place within close proximity to the service outposts.

The group said efforts should be made to monitor wildlife movements along the Kenya-Tanzania border especially in the larger Siana and Olderkesi Conservancies where hardly a week passes without an elephant being killed by marauding poachers.

“Emphasis should also be put along Lolgorian, Kawai and areas bordering the Mara Triangle where an elderly male elephant was killed on Thursday last week and its tusks taken and also within the Mara North Conservancy. These are the areas where poachers are on the loose,” said the coordinator.

The meeting further claimed that infighting in KWS was slowing down or compromising the fight against poaching, charging that since the immediate former director Dr Julius Kip’ngetich left killing of wild animals have increased.

County governments, conservationists added should work in tandem with the service and locals to tame poaching, saying communities should also reap benefits from tourism as a way of ensuring they co-exist with wild animals.

The KWS Narok deputy senior warden Emanuel Koech said in the last three months, poaching of elephants, rhinos for tusks and other wild animals for game meat have gone down and called for cooperation between the public and relevant authorities to stump it out.