One of the regular commentator in my blog, Sheryl recently commented on one of my post; “The answer to your questions that no one wants to discuss is human overpopulation. There are simply too many human animals on this planet. If we don’t slow down human population growth, we’ll be the only living things left on this rock. But not for long …”

That reminded me of something. Yes, no one want to discuss human overpopulation. Particularly the Editors of popular media. That is why my article below was never published three years ago despite being a regular contributor to a regional popular weekly Newspaper at the time. Here I get a chance to publish it for the first time without an Editor diluting the message!!

With a population of 50 million in 2020, there will be no wildlife outside parks!

By Iregi Mwenja

Seldom are we reminded that human overpopulation in this planet is largely to blame for the current rapid deterioration of our environment and the depletion of our natural resource base. We lay the blame on global warming, Ozone layer depletion etc etc but shy away from pining down the root cause and the real culprit - homo sapiens. Unfortunately, Kenya’s economy (and that of many third world countries) is entirely dependent on our beleaguered natural resources, a fact we cannot run away from.

No one wants to point out that we have surpassed the “carrying capacity” of our environment and that is why desertification, drought, flooding, disease outbreaks and famine have become a permanent phenomenon in this country’s annual calendar.

The single greatest threat to the biological resources of this country is the current uncontrolled proliferation of the human species and the resulting poverty. In a natural resource based economy like ours, if the people are poor, environmental degradation will continue no matter what legislations we put in place.

Meanwhile, we will continue begging for foreign aid when the cheapest and surest way to save ourselves is to maintain human population at “carrying capacity” and live in harmony with our environment.

Our biological resources are of considerable economic and intrinsic values. Agriculture, fisheries and forests account for most subsistence survival, economic output, employment and export earnings. Tourism is Kenya’s largest foreign exchange earner and is largely based on the presence of wildlife and beautiful clean seashores

Agriculture and tourism are the backbone of our country economy yet the deterioration of the environment diminishes the agriculture and tourism potential of our economy as we continue to add more mouths to fed. Soon, the resilience of our environment that is currently overstretched will give in. It will not be able to sustainably provide for the large population - meaning that we could be multiplying our way to self-destruction!

Kenya’s biological resources are considered to be internationally important as areas rich in biodiversity and endemism. Kenya has a network of 56 national parks and reserves stretching from the coast to the peak of Mt. Kenya encompassing 6.7% of Kenya. It is estimated that 10% of the wildlife live in parks, 15% in reserves and 75% in non-protected areas. However this figures are changing as wildlife outside protected areas rapidly lose their habitat and the majority fall prey to poaching. This is largely due to our protectionist policies on wildlife that limits wildlife use to tourism only. We have 20 million herds of livestock well managed by Kenyans. How comes the same Kenyans can’t manage (through husbandry) a few thousand zebras found in their private land?

It is not surprising Kenya is the only country in East and Southern Africa that still retains the old-fashioned conservation policies propagated 5 decades ago, the socio-economic changes that taken place in the last 45 years notwithstanding. Current conservation policies and laws do not take into considerations the realities of demography and that’s why they have failed. Sustainable consumptive use is still illegal despite its potential in securing the few remaining pristine wildlife habitat found on private land.

We lack a comprehensive land use policy, have outdated Environment, Forest, Fisheries and Wildlife legislations (the amendment of the Act and the policy review were hijacked by a few NGOs) and unregulated urban development. Consequently, agriculture, industrial and urban development are poorly regulated thereby undermining the very ecosystems that generate Kenya’s economic base.

The population of Kenya will be 50 million in 2020. Currently 80% of Kenyans - 24 million people live in high potential land that covers 20% of the country land area. This is among the highest population densities in the world and the consequence on resource use is immense, forcing migration into forests and wildlife habitats. But our population growth remains among the highest in the world. By this time, the few animals remaining will only be found in protected areas which will be completely fenced off! How will I explain this to my kids?

By 2020, the population in high potential areas will be 40 million and the already over-exploited natural resources will not have expanded. We are still fighting ‘Shamba’ system responsible for re-establishment of forests and provision of food for the extra mouth and wildlife husbandry that would protect the 75% wildlife outside protected areas.

Consumptive and non-consumptive sustainable utilization of wildlife and forests products by communities living with wildlife and near forests is still not recognized in law when we are always reminded that the wildlife in non-protected areas holds the key to the future of wildlife in Kenya. These communities are sitting on a gold mine yet they are some of the poorest in Kenya, their poverty mostly resulting from human-wildlife conflict.

The ugly face of human-wildlife conflict. The poor suffer most and they resort to killing wildlife to draw attention to there plight

Incidentally, Kenya has many well-funded international conservation NGOs most of which are concerned more with the animal welfare and rights rather than the people who live with and protect those wildlife. Their contribution to the debate on wildlife utilization has always been one-sided as they always mobilize their resources to demonize utilization as the way forward for wildlife and forest management. Yet habitat for wildlife is not expanding but shrinking with expanding human population.

Conservation areas are becoming isolated islands. The resulting compression of wildlife in conservation areas has severe ramifications on ecosystems, species composition and genetic diversity. The loss of species and habitat has reached alarming levels in Kenya. Only 1.7% of and area is forested while 15 mammalian species are in the Red list (IUCN) of threatened species.

When conservation and development are not in harmony, the environment loses out. As long as our economy continue to relay directly on our natural resources and the population continues to skyrocket resulting in rising poverty levels; as long as most of us continue with our conspiracy of silence; our future and that of our children is the great country is doomed!

Mr. Mwenja is currently a USFWS MENTOR Fellow studying illegal bushmeat exploitation in East Africa iregim@yahoo.com

Iregi Mwenja

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