F
or the
first time
in several
years, news
and features
from Kenya,
our home
base, dominate
an issue of
SWARA. We’ve
deliberately
tried to widen our geographical story
base over the years to illustrate what
conservation challenges other countries
in Africa are facing, overcoming
and succumbing to. But this issue is
dominated by stories about Kenya,
from the ocean to the rangelands,
because Kenya is synonymous in so
many people’s minds with wildlife and
conservation, and all the problems that
entails in the 21st century.
Stories about poaching and wildlife
crime make unhappy reading but are
phenomena that we have to face up
to if anything is going to be done to
reverse current trends. The London
conference kicks off our coverage and
highlights the horror people feel from
far away about the slaughter going on
across this continent. It is heartening
to see our own Ian Douglas-Hamilton
and Paula Kahumbu get the recognition
they deserve for driving the issue up the
international agenda, where it belongs.
Heartening too is the fact that the
issues are now firmly on the agenda of
the media at home and abroad. Thank
you Her Excellency First lady Margaret
Kenyatta for putting your name and face
to these campaigns. We hope to have
an article by her in the next issue (July,
2014-03).
EAWLS exists to lobby for prudent
use of our natural resources and all
those who share it. Which makes Nicky
Parazzi’s article on turtles all the more
poignant. Did you know that up to
40% of the world’s population lives
close to a shoreline? That’s the kind of
statistic that illustrates the potential for
catastrophe at the coast unless proper
planning, policy and thinking becomes
part of building for the future.
And what is the point of policy,
planning or thinking unless laws are
implemented? It is not enough to have
them on the statute books. Wildlife
Direct’s admirable study of around 750
cases in court shows us, shockingly,
that less than 4% of people who make
money out of dead animals or animal
parts ever go to jail. Is this what Kenya
at 50 is all about? How devastating
for the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS )
ranger who brought a suspect in only
to learn that he or she has escaped with
minimal inconvenience and is free to
poach or traffick again. What sort of
message does that send to the organized
wildlife crime syndicates? Certainly not
the message that the London conference
wanted to transmit – that the world has
had enough and is cracking down with
determination. We have legal teeth.
Let’s use them.
Andy Hill, Editor
SWARA APRIL - JUNE 2014 5