Bushmeat in Kenya

Category: findings | Date: May 27 2009 | By: bushmeateastafrica

In a stew

Oct 27th 2008
From The Economist print edition

Conservationists ought to try hashing out which is the least bad bushmeat

THE sight of a monkey impaled on a stake, or a wild boar slung over the shoulders of hunter, or a steaming bowl of “bushmeat” stew on sale at an African market would distress most conservationists. People eating wild animals, the conventional wisdom runs leads inevitably to over-exploitation. Indeed, it is commonplace in conservation circles to speak of a “bushmeat crisis”, in which African, Asian and Latin American hunters are said to be pushing various species of game to extinction. As the website of the Bushmeat Crisis Task Force explains, in many cases, hunting is a bigger threat to jungle creatures than deforestation.

There are lots of examples of humans hunting species to extermination: think of the dodo or the passenger pigeon. Modern Americans nearly managed to wipe out the bison; their prehistoric predecessors are thought to have eradicated lots of big game-as are the first human settlers of Australia, New Zealand and other Pacific islands. In recent years, various studies have revealed unsustainable hunting in places as diverse as Paraguay, Cameroon and Indonesia. Some of the most charismatic of megafauna, from orang-utans to elephants, are at risk from healthy human appetites.

That is a problem not just for the species concerned, of course, but also for the ecosystems in which they live. Wipe out a few of the bigger, tastier species, and a host of problems arises. If the hunted animals are predators, then their prey might proliferate, putting a great strain on the even smaller animals or plants that feed the prey. If the hunted animals are themselves prey, then their predators will suffer. Plants can also be affected if the depleted game are pollinators, such as fruit bats, or dispersers of seeds, such as monkeys and birds. The loss of a few “keystone” species can send an entire eco-system into collapse.

Earlier this year, the vast majority of the world’s countries agreed, under the auspices of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the weightiest international treaty on conservation, to “address as a matter of priority…unsustainable hunting and trade of bushmeat”. The problem, as is so often the case with conservation, is that the countries where the problem is most acute do not have the wherewithal to tackle it. Simply banning the hunting of wild animals and the trade in bushmeat is no use if you do not have the money or manpower to enforce the ban.

Moreover, lots of people depend on bushmeat for food or, in the case of commercial hunters, their livelihood. In parts of central Africa, bushmeat accounts for some 80% of the protein in local diets. Indeed, that is one of the reasons why simply banning hunting seldom succeeds: whatever the law says, people cannot do without bushmeat, both in a nutritional and an economic sense. It is also why the international body that manages the CBD, along with various other conservation groups, recently published a paper which suggested a different tactic: to allow the hunting of less vulnerable species, in a bid to shield the most threatened ones from extermination.*

That may sound simple and reasonable enough. But the strategy depends on knowing which species are common and which are rare, how quickly they reproduce, what their migration patterns are and so on. Different surveying methods provide contradictory findings about the abundance of any given animal. The report cites two studies of duikers (forest antelopes) in a particular area of Congo. One group of scientists came up with a population estimate based on the frequency of sightings. Two years later, another group decided the true population was nine times bigger, based on the amount of dung they found. This sort of uncertainty makes it very hard to determine the size of a sustainable catch. The report’s authors are quick to point out that they are not suggesting an “open season” on the most abundant bush species.

Nonetheless, the thrust of the report is clear. The best must not be the enemy of the good. If people are going to hunt, they might as well hunt the species that are least at risk. If they are going to eat bushmeat stew, better that the recipe call for duiker than elephant. And there are lots of species of primate that most conservationists would be happier to see impaled on a stake than a chimp or a gorilla.

What is your opinion on this article? Please leave a comment.

Mwenja

Technorati : Bushmeat trade, Conservation, Poaching

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Category: Bushmeat kenya | Date: May 19 2009 | By: bushmeateastafrica

All plans are set for Kenya’s first bushmeat symposium scheduled tomorrow at the East African Wildlife Society. The participants for this symposium are drawn from the Kenya Wildlife Service, Donor organizations, wildlife conservation organization, Institutions of higher education and communities. This people are concerned about the illegal killing of wildlife. This symposium should provide an excellent learning opportunity, as well as a venue for the exchange of ideas among this highly interdisciplinary group of conservation practitioners.

Below is a quick reminder for participants on what they need to bring.

Ø Bring your power point presentation in a flash disk

Ø Come with reports, brochures and fact sheets that you would like to share

Ø Bring field photos to share with participants and journalists

Ø Come with a flash disk with enough space to carry documents and files being shared

Ø Bring your business cards for networking

Ø Don’t forget your camera

Ø A folder to carry hard copies documents distributed

Ø Make sure you arrive early and submit your powerpoint presentation before 09:15 am

Directions to EAWLS office - Take Ngong rd turn right (coming from town) to Riara rd at the Jamhuri Telkom exchange (posta stage which is past Adams Arcade). EAWLS is next to the main Raira Primary school on Riara road.

See you there.

Iregi Mwenja

Co- chair

Bushmeat symposium organizing committee

Technorati : BEAN, Bushmeat, Bushmeat trade, Conservation, EAWLS, Hunting, Kenya, Poaching, Snares

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Category: Bushmeat kenya | Date: May 08 2009 | By: bushmeateastafrica

The EastAfrican
By RUPI MANGAT
Posted Friday, April 10 2009 at 23:19

Everyday, thousands of wild animals get caught in snares across the continent to feed a rising appetite for wild meat.

War-torn countries like the Democratic Republic of Conago are going into the last frontiers and wiping out the few surviving great apes for the pot, while in Kenya, which has no war but unfortunately has unclear policies on wildlife utilisation and an increasingly poor population that sees it as an easy target, poachers set snares to catch anything from ostrich to the tiny dik dik antelope, including Kenyan endemic species such as the rare bongo or the roan antelope.

“Today, the greatest threat to wildlife after habitat loss, is the bushmeat trade,” says Iregi Mwenja, a wildlife biologist who returned recently from a bushmeat conference in Ghana.

“Statistics show that the trade is increasing by the day and we have all the reasons to make the situation worse.” He pauses for a moment and continues. “There’s poverty, landless people settled next to wildlife areas and unemployment. And they all have to eat something and the most available thing is wildlife.”

“Even though our situation is not as bad as in Tanzania or Uganda or other African countries, there’s no reason to celebrate because things are getting worse. For one, we have no national strategy on bushmeat.

“And there’s weak collaboration between the government bodies. The Ministry of Tourism probably doesn’t realise how serious the situation is and this will translate directly in tourist numbers falling as we lose our wildlife.”

In the stark heat of the mid-morning sun on the burnt out plains of Kapiti within half-an-hour’s drive from Nairobi, Kenya’s capital city, a small team of youngsters walk along the fence, stopping every few metres.

The youngsters are part of a desnaring team, volunteers with the Born Free Foundation - the animal rights group set up by the actress Virginia Mckenna and her late husband Bill Travers, the duo who starred in the 1960s epic film, Born Free.

Born Free supports wildlife conservation work across the globe such as protecting tigers in India, bears in Canada, elephants in Sri Lanka and partnering with Kenya Wildlife Service in Kenya to support its anti-poaching work.

“Bushmeat is a big thing in Kenya today,” says Alice Owen of Born Free. “Statistics show that Kenya has lost 60 per cent of its wildlife in the past 30 years. We’re the generation that’s caused the loss.”

Those not familiar with the term bushmeat will find it hard to fathom how such a cruel and illicit trade has flourished where wild animals meet a slow and painful death trapped in snares with razor-sharp claws.

There are cases of elephants having their trunks amputated to set them free from the snares and lions left to die slow and painful deaths. It’s indiscriminating.

The meat is sold for the pot and it has found its way into urban centres like Nairobi.

Unfortunately, because of no policy on the bushmeat trade, offenders are let off with a minimal fine such as the woman trader in Nairobi’s Burma market who was fined Ksh30,000 ($375) and set free.

With a ready market for bushmeat, poachers have no problem selling the “free meat” to village butcheries and the truckers who ferry containers across the continent.

Unfortunately bushmeat is dirt-cheap in Kenya, unlike West Africa where it is double the cost of the domestic meat.

A chunk of giraffe meat or a dikdik in Kenya goes for as little as Ksh 50 (62 US cents).

This low price does not reflect the true value of the natural resource, undervaluing it at the cost of the national economy. A whole chicken on the other hand, costs five to six times that.

The desnaring team, a group of 10, comprises volunteers from the Wildlife Clubs of Kenya, Kenya Wildlife Service personnel and Born Free staff.

They have been on the move since early morning, walking an average 30 kilometres a day under the hot equatorial sun, looking to collect as many snares as possible.

Alice and I join the group. Two giraffes on the ranch watch us and then continue browsing. I, in my naïve way, ask if we will find any snares today.

There’s a pitying silence and then voices all at once answering, “Yes, without doubt.” Within a few minutes, we find the first snare, then the second and then the third - simple wires fashioned into loops, fixed to the fence to ensnare the unfortunate victim as it steps into it. As the animal moves further away, the noose begins to tighten.

The young volunteers articulate their emotions.

“I was shocked to see the simple method used by the poachers to snare the animals,” says Moses Gichohi, from Wildlife Clubs. “It’s emotionally disturbing to see carcasses rotting in the snares.”

A zebra with a cable snare on the neck

It’s a cruel way of killing,” says Johnson Kitheka who is the expert at desnaring.

He has been to Ruma, Tsavo and other national parks in Kenya to assist KWS to remove snares.

“The problem is that the snares are coming in faster than what we can remove them.”

Continues Elsie Kariuki from Born Free, leading the team, “People do not know the severity of the situation. In less than five days, we have collected 150 snares - which means we have saved 150 wild animals being killed to sell to people. So it’s a really organised market with a huge appetite.”

“When we were at Kasigau [near Taveta] we collected 350 snares in two weeks,” chips in Alice.

“When l first arrived in Kasigua in early 2000, there was only one butchery that sold mostly goat meat. Within one year, there were five more butcheries and most of it was bushmeat. A dikdik sold for Ksh 100.”

“Most of the poachers on this ranch come from the village behind that hill,” says Corporal Mweu, pointing to the massif across the busy Nairobi-Mombasa road.

“The village is called Vota.”

It’s a poor village with few resources to support it. Water is scarce and whatever land there is, is not fertile enough for farming.

The hawk-eyed peasants from across the road keep a vigilant eye on the ranch, setting the snares mostly at night.

“They know we are understaffed,” Mbindyo Mailu the KWS man explains. There are about 13 rangers manning Machakos, Makueni and Kibwezi - an area that extends more than 300 kilometres along the Nairobi-Mombasa road.

Says Alice. “Unfortunately, in Kenya, we see wildlife as a commodity that belongs to the government versus the government being the caretaker of the country’s wild resources. It has always been the cause of a rift as people see the government or KWS being more concerned about the wild animals than citizens. Compensations are low when it comes to injury or death caused by wildlife or loss of crop due to wildlife. People prefer to take matters into their own hands and kill the animal.

“Just a few weeks ago, we intercepted a matatu with the aid of the police after a tip-off at 4am at Mlolongo. We retrieved a sack of bushmeat on the floor of the matatu. It had 256 kilos of wildebeest and zebra meat. But the offenders were released after a weekend in the cell. The judge set them free citing that they were first offenders!” The police know what’s going on but when the offenders are let off so lightly, it seems futile to bring offenders to the book.

“The bushmeat trade is not about to stop,” asserts Iregi. “The government cannot even feed the starving families when there’s drought. So what can the conservationists do?”

The only ray of hope seems to come from the youngsters marching along the fences, giving their time for free to save the last of Africa’s wild heritage.

2 responses so far

Category: Bushmeat kenya | Date: May 05 2009 | By: bushmeateastafrica

The idea of bringing together stakeholders in the bushmeat sector in Kenya has been on many peoples mind particularly in the last one year. Though there are very many players conducting diverse mitigation activities aimed at controlling the illegal bushmeat trade, a forum to bring these people together to share information and lessons learnt have never been organized before unlike in other fields of wildlife conservation.

This was the motivation behind the two organizations - East African Wildlife Society and Bushmeat-free Eastern Africa Network organizing this first bushmeat symposium for Kenya. The organizing committee is co-chaired by me, Iregi Mwenja of EAWLS/USFWS MENTOR Fellowship program and Evanson Kariuki of USFWS MENTOR Fellowship program. Our hope is that this is the first on many such events that will be organized here in Kenya.

The symposium will be held at the East African Wildlife Society, Nairobi on 20th May, 2009 starting at 09:00 am and end at 16:30 pm. The participant for this symposium will be drawn from the wildlife conservation sector, majority of whom are involved in solving the Bushmeat problem and communities affected by the illegal trade. The theme of the symposium is, ‘Sharing information and lessons learnt in the fight against the illegal bushmeat trade’.

The symposium has three main objectives;
• To share information and lessons learnt in the fight against illicit bushmeat trade
• To provide a forum for interaction among bushmeat stakeholders to encourage dialogue and information sharing
• To come up with draft recommendations and solutions for the problem in Kenya

This symposium should provide an excellent learning opportunity, as well as a venue for the exchange of ideas among a highly interdisciplinary group of conservation practitioners. You are encouraged to come with reports, publications, articles and any bushmeat information both in hard and soft copy to share with others.

For more details on symposium and registration, please visit our website: http://www.bushmeatnetwork.org/?p=529 or call me on 0723713642.

Iregi Mwenja

Co-chair

Bushmeat Symposium organising committee

Technorati : Bushmeat Symposium, Bushmeat trade, Bushmeat-free Eastern Africa Network, East African Wildlife Society, Kenya

Technorati : Bushmeat Symposium, Bushmeat trade, Bushmeat-free Eastern Africa Network, East African Wildlife Society, Kenya

Technorati : Bushmeat Symposium, Bushmeat trade, Bushmeat-free Eastern Africa Network, East African Wildlife Society, Kenya

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