This time, the lions are not to blame, we are

Kenya is an amazing country with a landscape accentuated by pristine coastal beaches, tropical, savannah woodland in the plains, onto rolling hills and a snow-capped mountain, all straddling the Equator.

Across this picturesque nation are exotic fish species, an enviable mix of wildlife, unique scenery, making Kenya the tourist hub of East Africa. Tourism has for decades been the country’s second-largest foreign exchange earner, after agriculture. Government is now trying to expand earnings from traditional wildlife safaris and beach hotels to engaging conference tourism and opening up new circuits in the hinterland.

But all this is coming under an unfamiliar threat. Global warming and resultant changing climate patterns have seen long, dry spells leave grasslands withered, forcing wild animals out of their natural habitat into human settlements. Unfortunately, too, Samburu and Maasai herdsmen, who are becoming increasingly sedentary farmers, are feeling hemmed in by the encroaching animals.

Both communities, traditionally considered wildlife’s greatest custodians, are turning on marauding elephants and lions using chemicals in retaliation for destroyed farm produce and slain domestic herds.

Unchecked growth

This is understandable, perhaps since vast areas of Maasai land is designated as game parks and national treasures such as Serengeti, Amboseli, Nairobi and Loliondo.

Today, Kenya boasts only just under 2,000 lions in the wild. That is a harsh indictment of the unbridled growth of urban centres, land grabbing, modern-day lifestyles that have seen water sources dry up and game reserves polluted.

It is painful to envisage a time when the big cats, will only exist in greenhouses, zoos and circuses, like they do in other countries today. Let us save our wildlife heritage, even if it means fencing all national parks.