BY IAN RAMAS
It wasn’t until a key conservationist took to her blog to grief Tim that Kenya, nay world, became aware of the oversize mammal in the country’s Amboseli. Nature lovers instantly recalled Ahmed, popularly known as King of Marsabit, who had symbolized the country’s faltering anti-poaching war of the 1970s. Despite the 24-hour surveillance decreed by the then President Jomo Kenyatta, Ahmed died at the hands of poachers in 1974, but not before it attracted plenty of benefit to bureaucrats and wildlife lobbyists. Even in death, it was a major attraction.
Now, exactly 40 years after Ahmed’s death, Tim has replaced “him” as the new treasure trove for conservationists and mandarins. But before Tim were Mountain Bull and Satao, a six-ton bull whose death in Tsavo East National Park months ago opened avenues for international fundraisers, and brand merchandising in its name and image. Unknown in life, Satao hit celebrity status in death – a huge business. A tearful world forked out millions of dollars apparently towards the safety of the African elephant.
Tim is ailing in the Amboseli wilderness, having been speared weeks after key conservationists had revealed “him” to the world. Would “he” have been harmed had “he” not been exposed? That is the question on people’s lips. Olga Levari Ercolano wrote on Facebook thus, “these guys (Ahmed, Mohamed, Satao, Tim) lived peacefully for so many years until they were made public …” And Ivanova De Lassé-Black observed, thus “please don’t divulge how many or the whereabouts of these elephants.”
Pieter Kat wrote on his Facebook page: “The road to the hunters is open Tim … As Ivanova De Lassé-Black says, these sorts of fundraising campaigns are not transparent and we have no idea what they achieve….”
Observers see a common denominator in the predicament the three treasures (Ahmed, Satao, Tim) faced: These animals were scouted, branded and reveled to the world by the so-called conservationists, and killed or wounded by poachers. And in all this, the skeptics are convinced, money was the key drive. “It follows the same narrative – identify an elephant, brand it, and let its death or hurt transfix the world. It will open the taps and sympathy and money will flow from the West,” says an independent lobbyist. “It’s almost the rule of the thumb in Kenya’s conservation world.”
For four decades, Kenya’s wildlife conservation has been the intersection of brutal business and hallowed environmentalism – between poachers and conservationists. Yet, at times, the distinction gets really blurred – brutal business and holy conservationism close ranks. “We have enough proof that some of the poachers are actually aided by the so-called conservationists,” William Kibet Kiprono, head of the country’s wildlife custodian Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS), recently said. He didn’t divulge details. “Why would someone post a picture to ask for funding from donors on an animal that was killed and yet when the KWS rangers are in pursuit of poachers, (the same people) do not help in any way.”
Wildlife conservationists are canny – and their tactics depend on the eventual. For Kenya, their strategy has oscillated between ivory ban, and burning ivory stockpiles, branding specific elephants, heaping pressure on State to declare poaching a national disaster, and disparaging KWS.
And the eventual is always money. But why is the elephant a great scent for poachers and lobbyists?
Two reasons: It’s a global resource with enormous economic value; it evokes emotions because it has been proved to be “human” owing to its massive intelligence.
Indeed, the elephant is one of the most intelligent species around. It exhibits emotions, and is known to bury its dead – as Cyntia Moss showed in her award-winning documentary, Echo of the Elephant.
That apart, the estimated tourism value of a life elephant is Sh145 million over its lifetime, in contrast to Sh1.9 million which is the value of a poached elephant, according to Dead or Alive?, a report by Ivorry which analyses the value of the elephant. Implicitly, the lifetime total value of Kenya’s 35,000 elephants is Sh5,040 billion – 5,000 times Kenya’s national budget.
The exact amount lobbyists make through fundraisings is unclear because non-governmental organisations (NGOs) hardly declare their financial statements. Nearly all of them are yet to link their programmes with those of the statutory custodian, KWS, in spite of the billions they attract from the West.
KWS hardly benefits from the fundraisings yet the NGOs make about Sh10 billion a year. The organization has been operating on deficit. For instance, in 2013/14, KWS requested Sh4.44 billion from the government for its operations; it got just 3.328 billion.
Three months ago, Principal Secretary, Ministry of Environment, Water and Natural Resources, Dr Richard Lesiyampe told the Amina Abdalla-led Parliamentary Committee on Environment and Natural Resources that most of the NGOs as run as charitable organisations for foundations hence do not remit taxes to the government thus the need for auditing. He plead for “unity of purpose in wildlife conservation”, and asked the government to “ensure that all NGOs and stakeholders of conservation are called upon to support wildlife conservation”.
“NGOs are not in tandem with supporting conservation through KWS. These NGOs develop campaigns derived from reports done and presented by KWS to which they then pitch on the platform of supporting conservation and protecting wildlife against poaching. The campaigns bear an emotional appeal, as Kenyans are called upon to protect their national heritage. As a result, these campaigns attract and raise substantial amounts of monies yet the proceeds of such campaigns do not support conservation. It is believed that some NGOs in wildlife conservation source about 10 billion annually, (which is) bigger than KWS budget and have used Kenya’s wildlife for fundraising but never support conservation,” Dr Lesiyampe told the MPs.
Indeed, KWS hardly benefit from NGOs’ fundraisings because the battle for the elephant and rhino is uncoordinated, envious and personal. It’s based on a cultic belief in individuals. It’s driven by a cabal.
The ‘conservation evangelists, to borrow journalist John Mbaria’s word, whip up public emotion over poaching to source funds and for personal aggrandizement. They possess connections in high places, foreign missions based in Nairobi, including the United Nations machinery, State House, Judiciary, Cabinet Secretaries as well as a groundswell of support in Western capitals.
They use pictures of injured or dead elephants and rhinos, thus creating a larger than profile images of wild animals by humanizing and romanticizing them. Then, they conduct a well-choreographed campaign under the guise of creating public awareness on poaching.
The tactics deftly tap into the twin hot-button issues of poaching and terrorism to grab national and global attention. At the end of the campaign is an invariable plea for donations to ostensibly support conservation, akin to the infamous ‘seed gospel’ by rogue preachers. After all, it’s a good story: it grabs attention and therefore funds.
But the untold story is that the beneficiaries are not elephants or rhinos or those who protect them, but a select group of well-connected activists. Peter Knights of the ivory demand reduction charity WildAid neatly summarized the script: “It’s not about the facts, it’s about emotion.”
The NGOs have heaped pressure on the State to declare poaching “a national disaster” much to the disgust of the parent Ministry concerned that such a drastic move could push tourists out of game sanctuaries, such as parks and reserves. These wildlife activists got a voice through the Nehemiah Rotich-led Taskforce on Wildlife security whose report, Lifting the Siege: Securing Kenya’s Wildlife, was eventually trashed by Parliamentary Committee on Environment, Wildlife and Natural Resources.
Because the Taskforec report was thrown out, KWS director Kiprono and Dr Lesiyampe had to scramble for comprehensive report they handed over to the House team. It explained why poaching shouldn’t be declared a national disaster – tourists would scamper on fears that parks and reserves were insecure, and thus tourism industry would be hit hard; global perception would be that Kenya was carelessly losing its wildlife.
Not to be outdone, the conservationists targeted State House and sought the help of First Lady Margaret Kenyatta. In one of the letters to Mrs Kenyatta, a top conservationist writes, thus “by now you have heard that one of the Kenya’s greatest elephant icons, Satao, is dead. Satao lived in Tsavo East National Park and he was slain by a poisoned arrow. Less than a month ago another icon, Mountain Bull, was gunned down in Mount Kenya. I am sure that you share my deep sorrow, words cannot describe how devastated I feel about what his happening to our elephants.”
The letter pleads with the First Lady to take three important actions “that will transform our performance and success in this war against the criminals who threaten our heritage, our economy and our security”.
The same conservation circulated a letter within the wildlife conservation circles, asking individuals to personally appeal to the First Lady. “I am writing to invite you to join us in a letter writing campaign to the First Lady of Kenya. This is to let her know that each and every one of us is grieving Mountain Bull, Satao and all the other elephants and that we trust her leadership through this crisis. Please feel free to borrow from this language, strengthen it, edit as you like and your own letter before June 20th,” implored the June 14, 2014 letter.
Stephen Managene, the Director of Wildlife in the Ministry of Environment, Water and Natural Resources, told a recent meeting drawing KWS and NGOs, thus “Kenya’s wildlife industry has been unable to speak with one voice on a number of issues affecting it. This has put the industry at considerable disadvantage when negotiating for issues such as taxation, incentives and policies.
“In some instances, there has been outright competition and undue adversarial relationships between wildlife advocacy and management aspects.”
He suggested “wildlife industry needs to be better coordinated and organized for effective conservation like the Kenya Wildlife Conservancies Association (KWCA) or Kenya Private Sector Alliance (KEPSA). This is in line with government intention that people working in the same industry should collaborate and work towards a common goal.”
As the Elephant fights to beat back the international terrorist, its protectors – NGOs and wildlife custodians, such as KWS – have opened up a new Armageddon – for the ubiquitous wildlife dollars.
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