By Renson Mnyamwezi
Many residents living around the Tsavo National Park still recall the cracking sound of automatic guns that rattled the region for many day in 1988 when the Government issued a shoot-on-sight order against poachers.
The operation was conducted by Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS), then under the command of former Director Dr Richard Leakey, backed by the General Service Unit and Administration Police.
Bands of poachers who had nearly decimated elephants from their largest sanctuary in Kenya were defeated and the animals lived again in peace.
But ominous signs of sporadic resurgence of poaching that could grow to the proportions of 1988 have re-emerged.
Conservationists say resurgence in poaching has reared its ugly head in the Tsavo and poachers have indiscriminately been killing elephants and other animals.
Increasing organised poaching has emerged silently in the park with many of the poached animals like elephants targeted for game trophy and smaller animals for meat.
Some of the other endangered wildlife species in the park facing extinction due to poaching include antelope species, zebras and bushbucks.
With scarce wildlife enforcement resources and large tracts of open land in the park, only a small number of poachers are caught and punished.
The recent arrest of six rich traders and seizure of ivory in Voi District was a pointer to the seriousness of the poaching problem in the Tsavo ecosystem.
The suspects were influential businessmen in the area said to be operating their illegal trade in Voi and Mackinnon towns along the Nairobi-Mombasa highway.
The KWS arrested the suspects and impounded 84 kilogrammes of ivory. The consignment, according to KWS, was one of the largest in Kenya in years.
In court
The suspected poachers appeared before the Voi Resident Magistrate Mr. L.M. Nyakundi. Two of the accused pleaded guilty to the charge of possessing 60 kilogrammes of ivory and were fined Sh10,000 each or to six months in jail term in default.
The rest denied the charges and were released on a Sh50,000 bond and a surety of a similar amount.
The group was suspected to belong to a syndicate in which poachers kill elephants in the area and sell ivory to lucrative international markets in the Middle East and Far East.
The arrest came at a time when poaching has been on the rise in Tsavo. Scores of elephants have been killed during the recent prolonged drought.
Some of the poachers were suspected to have harvested ivory from dead elephants.
Patrick Omondi, the KWS Head of Species Conservation said Kenya lost 98 elephants to poaching in 2008, double the number killed in 2007.
He said the elephant remains top in the list of the endangered species owing to widespread poaching and KWS had stepped protection efforts.
The KWS Tsavo Conservation Area Assistant Director Jonathan Kirui described the arrest as a major breakthrough in the fight against poaching in the area.
"Since the one-off ivory sales from Southern African countries late last year, we have noted an unprecedented rise in elephant poaching in Tsavo," he says.
Kirui said there is need to change the current laws to ensure stiffer penalties are meted out against those engaging in poaching.
"The current penalties are too lenient to the offenders who are often wealthy businessmen. The government should provide for tough custodial sentences to deter the illegal activities," says the director.
Ivory auction
Last year the first legal ivory auction in nine years was held and more than 100 tonnes of elephant tusks were sold exclusively to Chinese and Japanese buyers who fought to outbid each other in multi-million dollar sales.
The resurrection of such auctions and the increase in Chinese workers in Africa has sparked fears about the potential impact on a species that has only recent ly recovered from illegal poaching. The Amboseli Trust in a recent report said they had information some road contractors buy bush meat and game trophy from poachers.
"We are told by our informers that they are buying ivory and bush meat,’ said Omondi.
"The situation for elephants in the Amboseli area has become critical over the past year and more particularly over the past four months," warned the report by the Amboseli Trust, run by veteran conservationist Dr. Cynthia Moss, who has been working in the 150-square-mile reserve in southern Kenya for 37 years.
The international Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) has also warned that poaching is on the rise following the slaughter of five elephants in six weeks in the Tsavo recently.
Kirui said KWS has launched ground and air operations to flush out poachers who use poisoned arrows to kill animals.
Private ranches
He said sporadic poaching was also rampant in private ranches and the periphery of the park. The director cited Bachuma, Taita and Ndara ranches are the worst hit by poaching activities.
"The illegal activities have spread in northern parts of the park in Kone area and the western part in Rombo," said Kirui adding that the menace was not alarming.
Tsavo is Kenya ’s biggest wildlife sanctuary and was made famous world-wide at the beginning of the last century by man-eating lions that terrorised the builders of the Kenya-Uganda railway.
According to African Wildife Foundation (AWF) 45 years ago, the elephant’s survival was not a subject of great concern.
AWF says: "But today, it is difficult for elephants to live outside protected parks as they are pressured by poachers and by the habitat loss that comes with increasing human settlement. AWF has been involved with elephant research in eastern and southern Africa, developing management strategies to minimise human-elephant conflict.
AWF says e lephants are an essential component of African ecosystems, but can upset the ecological balance of their surroundings.
