Protecting the Environment and Alleviating Poverty

Project No. 1 NATIONAL (Environment)

Kenya has been a world leader in its crusade to save the Rhino, having been one of the first countries to be afflicted by poaching. Today, according to Dr Mark Stanley Price of the African Wildlife Foundation, Kenya "now has what is probably the continent's most impressive and far-sighted national Rhino policies". The President, H.E. Daniel arap Moi, has thrown his full support behind the establishment of these sanctuaries in recognition of his government's responsibility to preserve this priceless heritage.

In 1985 the Government of Kenya and its President H.E. Daniel arap Moi realised that only drastic solutions would prevent the total loss of its Rhinos. It expressed its determination to ensure the protection of Kenya's natural heritage, and called on benefactors throughout the world to join hands in achieving this noble aspiration.

A Rhino Management Committee was appointed, which is manned by persons highly experienced in conservation from both the public and private sector, and is chaired by the Director of Kenya's Wildlife Service. This Committee advises the relevant N.G.O.s on priorities.

The Government then opted for the establishment of high security, fenced and guarded 'sanctuaries' in good Rhino habitat, where the species can breed for eventual re-introduction into the wild. Sanctuaries do work with careful and sophisticated management - this has been proven by the sanctuary on Solio Ranch in Kenya, which harbours 20% of the country's black Rhino and has the world's highest density of its population.

Not until 1988 was it known that Rhinos could be translocated into such areas and, if left alone, would breed well.
The Solio sanctuary was established almost 30 years ago and it is from here that animals will be translocated to establish nuclei within the new national sanctuaries. They will be joined by Rhino captured in outlying areas that are too fragmented to breed and are faced with the likelihood of poaching.

These protected areas are not glorified zoos. They are located in places that already contain limited black Rhino populations and vary in size from 15,000 acres to 140,000 acres. They are also helping to arrest the effects of genetic degeneration of inbreeding which could result if the populations fall still further. Moreover, the policing of the animals within these sanctuaries is simple, compared to the immeasurable logistical and economic problems of patrolling vast areas of sparsely populated country.

Following the success of sanctuaries at Lake Nakuru and part of Tsavo West - two huge areas that are now fenced and operative - another ideal location has been designated.

The Aberdare Mountain Range, just a couple of hours drive North from Nairobi, is bordered on the west by the Great Rift Valley and on the east by a fertile high plateau which separates it from Mount Kenya.

Encompassing some 767 square km of uninhabited forest and moor-land, the Aberdare Mountain Range is the largest complete and natural eco-system left in Kenya today and contains many rare and unique species of flora, fauna and avifauna.

It is perfect Rhino country.

The Aberdares, and in particular the Salient - a wedge of forest on the eastern side of the Park - used to contain many hundreds of Rhino. Unfortunately today the population is down to 70, but is rising at 5% per annum. The Salient, which was the first area to be fenced, is particularly prime Rhino habitat, with an abundance of natural water.

With its sophisticated, electrified barrier designed not only to keep the animals in, but to keep intruders out, there are great hopes that the location of a sanctuary in the Aberdare Salient will provide the spring-board for the upturn in black Rhino numbers. With close supervision, careful monitoring of their movements and supplemented by Rhino translocated from other parts of the country, the population stands a real chance of reproducing and increasing. Even Rhino from the dry Tsavo bush seem to flourish in the cooler highlands of the Aberdares where the opportunities for poachers are more restricted than in the open vastness of the plains.

Eventually, as the situation improves, Rhino will be able to leave the particular area of the sanctuary in the Salient and move into other parts of the high Aberdare range.

The Rhino translocated into the completed Aberdare sanctuary will initially come from Solio Ranch, situated some few kilometres from the Salient enclave in the Aberdare National Park. Because of its close proximity to the Aberdare Sanctuary, the translocation exercise has, so far, proven much easier and less expensive than to other areas of Kenya. Additionally, the Salient is not subject to tick-borne diseases.

The management of the Sanctuary falls under the responsibility of the warden of the Aberdare National Park, who is an employee of Kenya Wildlife Service.

Project no. 2 KAKUMA (Conflict)

Caroline Baron is an American movie producer (her latest is Monsoon Wedding, which is currently out in the UK). She organises 'Film Aid' which takes movies to refugee camps to entertain people who live there. She raised $80,000 in the US to fund the first two-month event, in 1999, which entertained hundreds of thousands of refugees before they were able to return to Kosovo.

Film Aid's next project is in Kenya, where 70,000 refugees live in Kakuma, a camp in the north west. It is not unusual for refugees here to stay in the camp for ten years with little hope.

There is still $500,000 to raise before that project can become a reality but Caroline Baron will do it... She says the work is addictive and it is a wonderful thing to see the smiles on the people's faces when they are lifted out of their difficult life even for just a few hours.

Film Aid has the support of Robert De Niro, Susan Sarandon, Whoopi Goldberg, Julia Ormond and Liv Ullmann.

They show movies which bridge the language gap - including silent movies, Toma and Jerry and films such as ET and include educational films on AIDS, sexual violence and land mines. They also train some of the refugees to man the equipment.

Some people say this is a 'let them eat cake' approach - refugees are dying so why spend money on films?

However, Gerry Martone, Director of emergency response for the International Rescue Committee which has adopted Film Aid as an official project, says collecting donations for food and shelter is fairly easy - what is more difficult is finding money for 'soft interventions' such as education, therapy or entertainment...things that address the emotional needs of refugees.

He says refugees need distraction and good things to think about otherwise their lives are just unbearable tedium with nothing to think about but despair and that the movies are 'a tonic for the soul' particualarly as they mix stories and laughter with films about genuinely useful things.

Project no. 3 KIUNGA (Environment)

This entry has been filed via email by Julie Church, Project Executant WWF Kiunga Project, PO Box 99 or PO Box 62440 Lamu Nairobi

Telefax Lamu: 254 121 33456. Tel Nairobi: 254 2 572630. Fax Nairobi: 254 2 577389. Email: [email protected].

Julie writes:

The 250 km2 Kiunga Marine National Reserve is a marine protected area located in northern Kenya, adjoining the Somali border. It was gazetted in June 1979, and together with the terrestrial Dodori National Reserve, became a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in 1980.

The area is of local and global importance for its habitat, species and physical and biological processes. Mangroves, seagrass beds and coral reefs act as homes, nursery and spawning grounds for the large fish, curstacean, invertebrate and mammal populations. It is a key nesting site for 3 species of turtles that are found in Kenya's waters, the Green, Hawksbill and Olive Ridley. The rare dugong is occassionally seen in areas adjoining the reserve. The area is known as Kenya's last remaining and best fish/crustacean stock. Boats from Mombasa,300 km south travel to Kiunga to buy fish, lobster, crab, sea-cucumbers and mangroves. The area is also known for its bird life having the worlds largest breeding populations of roseate terns, and is a key feeding ground for many migrants.

The Marine Protected area is almost joined by a terrestrial protected area - Dodori National Reserve, of 850 km2 and gazetted in June 1976. In the 1980s this area was known for its large populations of elephant. As a result of large scale poaching efforts in the 1980's and increased poaching from Somalia the elephant numbers have dwindled as have other species.

However, the area still has a large population of lions, cheetahs, caracals, wild dog and buffalo and an intracate river, coastal forest, grasslands, dune and lake system.

Reasons for the Kiunga MArine Reserve area being as intact as it is, may be related to the limited road network, high winds and insecurity in Somalia. Access is controlled by the winds and tide, and development controlled to a by insecurity, low GDP and limited management skills.

The local population comprise Bajuni along the coast and Boni inland and are 99% Islam. The Bajuni are of Arabic/Bantu origin and the Boni are traditionally Hunter-Gatherers and a threatened tribe..only around 3000 left. Both ethnic groups are found in Kenya and Somalia. The main economic activities include fishing, farming (slash and burn), mangrove harvesting, trading. Tourism is carried out but is not seen as a major economic activity for the area.

The major threats to the terrestrial and marine habitats, species and large stocks include a) increasing local and international demand/market for fish and mangrove products, b) increased poverty in the Less Developed Country of Kenya where employment, health and education needs in the cities are hard to find, let alone in remote areas such as Kiunga Marine Reserve and c) limited management skills at the national, regional and local levels.

Work in the KMNR recognises these threats and with the support of the World Wide Fund for Nature, the Kenya Wildlife Services, the Kenya Fisheries Dept, the local administration and the local communities are exploring ways to ensure that a balance is found between use and non-use of the resources to ensure that the habitats, species and ecological processes are maintained or improved for both current and future local and international generations.

So what is being done?

The overall objective being:'to safeguard the biodiversity and integrity of physical and ecological processes of the Kiunga Marine National Reserve area for the health, welfare, enjoyment and inspiration of present and future generations'.

To do this work is carried out in 6 areas - all are inter-related.

1. Fisheries management programme

Using a simple catch data collection system that supports the Fisheries Dept and enhances local communities involvement in fisheries management, monthly catch assessments are made in each village area around the Reserve. This provides valuable data to the management authorities and the local fishermen and through such a process good fisheries management practices can beimplemented. Five young local fishers are involved in collecting the data and feed the
information back to the local fisher village groups. They work with the Fisheries Officers/Scouts and through monthly meetings good management strategies are put in place.

2. Habitat programme

Catch data is complimented by quarterly under-water demersal fish surveys and coral reef assessments. Since 1998 just before the large scale coral reef bleaching event, the KMNR management team carried out their first annual coral reef survey. Local fishers together with the wildlife authorities have been trained in SCUBA so that they can carry out habitat and resource surveys on shallow and deep reefs. Identification training of species, habitat health and diversity has also been carried out, but to ensure the system is user friendly local names are used as much as possible, and when the data is analysed for scientific purposes, scientific names are used.

3. Species - 3.1. Turtles

A local community turtle monitoring programme was established in 1997, and since it started over 27000 hatchlings have successfully gone to the sea. A female nesting tagging programme was started in August 2000 and over 27 turtles have been tagged and given individual names.

Turtle work in Kiunga is supported by and supports the Kenya Sea turtle Conservation Committee (KESCOM). A regional sea turtle strategy for Mozambique, Tanzania and Kenya is being developed and the Kiunga project supports this process with the provision of technical and administrative advice.

3.2. Dugong

The actual numbers of dugong that use the Kenyan waters is still unknown. In 1997/8/9 a simple fisherman based ground truthing exercise was carried out in the areas known for dugong which was outside the protected area. The results were unclear, but through this exercise the first ever recorded dugong net release in East Africa occured adjacent to the KMNR in October 1999. There are plans to carry out a more thorough survey.

4. Environmental Health

In order to achieve the overall objective, it appeared fruitless to talk about conservation, when the local communities health was not being properly taken care of. So as a conservation organisation, WWF recognised its limits and to date supports various environmental health related activities,including the development and promotion of the health/cleanliness groups, awareness campaigns and village and beach clean up activities.

Additionally, recognising their limited technical and financial abilities to implement a full-scale health programme, WWF, KWS and the Fisheries Dept. have approached the Kenyan NGO - African Medical Research and Education Facility (AMREF) to develop a district level health programme. The first steps to doing this are being taken, and the results are to be seen in the next 12 months.

5. Income generating

Employment opportunities in Kenya are few, and even harder to find in remote areas. The challenge to conservation of our environment and sustainable development is to try and find a happy medium where those living adjacent to an area of high biodiversity are able to see the value of their resources.

In Kiunga Marine National Reserve an ecofriendly, recycling handicraft industry has been created to generate income for the households with the ultimate aim of improving the household livelihood and cleaning up the beach. Flipflops/thongs washed ashore from all over the world are collected by the women, children and turtle patrol team then carved in to a variety of saleable handicrafts including belts, bags, keyrings, magnets, children's mobiles, necklaces, sunglass holders and more. The income generated from this goes back to those directly involved in the work, and to finding long term management strategies for the area.

This has been very successful and over USD 12,000 has been generated by this handicraft industry in the last 2 years.

6. Education and Awareness

To support the process of developing a conservation ethic in an area where illiteracy levels are high, and the national education programme is weak, the Kiunga MArine Mangement team have a four speared education and awareness programme: primary school EA Programme; Secondary School EA Programme; Village based EA Programme and a public/general EA Programme.

6.1. Primary school support comprises developing inter-school debate/quiz days; celebration of annual environment-related days; promotion and development of environmental health/wildlife clubs; field visits;library/video loaning system; basic school development support and calender/poster competitions with other schools from outside the area.

6.2. Secondary School support comprises of a scholarship programme; holiday programme for the sponosored students (involvement in turtle, ecofriendly, fisheries work); video/book library system; support to wildlife clubs.

6.3. Village support: celebration of annual environment days; village clean-up programmes and competitions; video loaning/showing system; attendance at weekly meetings; adult education.

6.4. Public/general: national showing of the Kiunga video - High hopes, low tides; Support to district level conservation bodies such as the Lamu conservation association; tourist involvment in Kiunga activities at the education centre; snorkeling, SCUBA; involvment in the development of a ecoregional marine conservation strategy, i.e. for the area from northern South Africa to southern Somalia; fisher/village group exchanges within Kenya and to adjacent countries...

Challenges

There are many when working in an integrated development and conservation programme...but some of the key challenges include:

1. Developing a sustainable revenue generating system for the area.

2. Developing a workable management system for the Lamu area and Kiunga Marine Reserve.

3. Finding a sustainable market for the ecofriendly handicrafts.

4. Overcoming national and local level politics.

5. Developing a long term conservation ethic with the local communities, local authorities and national government...

In brief - well it is now quite long, this is what we are trying to achieve in the Kiunga Marine Reserve Area. We have a management plan, fact sheet and video and many reports too...

Project no. 4 NAIROBI (Environment/Poverty)

The Nairobi shantytown youth football players who - in the absence of city government - took over the rubbish collection.