Bushmeat in Kenya

Category: MENTOR family | Date: Dec 18 2008 | By: bushmeateastafrica

Through the 2008-2009 Wildlife Without Borders Africa program, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS), the Africa Biodiversity Collaborative Group (ABCG), the College of African Wildlife Management, Mweka, Tanzania jointly developed a “model” mentored fellowship program to build the capacity of eight emerging African wildlife professionals in an effort to curtail the illegal and unsustainable bushmeat trade in eastern Africa. The Program in traning and equiping the the eight young conservation leaders with skill to address bushmeat challenges and lay the foundation for implementing bushmeat solutions.

As the first step, the Fellows have formed a network - Bushmeat in Eastern Africa Network (BEAN), which now act as a regional platform for addressing bushmeat problem in eastern Africa. The Fellows has come up with a communcation strategy that will ensure that they keep all the stakeholders informed and engaged in every activity they undertake.

Below is a sneak preview of the BEAN website. Click on the image to view the website.

Iregi Mwenja

Administrator of the BEAN Website

Technorati : BEAN, Bushmeat, East Africa, USFWS MENTOR Fellowship

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Category: MENTOR family | Date: Jun 06 2008 | By: bushmeateastafrica

Th US Deputy Assistant Secretary, Fish and Wildlife and Parks of the Department of Interior Mr Kaush Arha yesterday visited CAWM Mweka and had a meeting with the MENTOR Fellows. He gave an inspiring address to the MENTOR Fellows, sharing with us the conservation challenges wildlife managers in America had faced in the past, most of which are similar to what we are facing here in East Africa today. This was after he carefully listened to each MENTOR Fellows who shared with him the bushmeat challenges in their respective countries.

The MENTOR (Mentoring for ENvironmental Training in Outreach and Resource Conservation) Fellowship Program was established by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, the College of African Wildlife Management- Mweka, Tanzania, and the Africa Biodiversity Collaborative Group to train and build the capacities of emerging conservation leaders in order to build a network of eastern Africa wildlife professionals who can lead efforts to reduce illegal and unsustainable bushmeat exploitation at local and regional levels. The USFWS have generously provided the funds for this program.

A group photo after the meeting

After the meeting he agreed to join us for dinner at the college cafeteria, to the surprise of many of us. The easy going Senior US government official was at home eating food prepared for the students as you can see in the photo below.

It was a great honour meeting and talking to such a senior US official. I was elated by the fact that he was interested in my project on wildlife policy review in Kenya. That motivates me.

Iregi Mwenja

USFWS MENTOR Fellow

Technorati : MENTOR Fellows, Mwenja, bushmeat

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