AR-NEWS Digest 596

Topics covered in this issue include:

  1) [KE] Cash crisis threatens Kenyan wildlife
     by David J Knowles 
Date: Wed, 03 Dec 1997 21:00:39
From: David J Knowles 
To: ar-news@envirolink.org
Subject: [KE] Cash crisis threatens Kenyan wildlife
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>From The Electronic Telegraph - Thursday, December 4th, 1997

Cash crisis threatens Kenyan wildlife
By Louise Tunbridge 

THE Kenya Wildlife Service is facing a financial crisis that risks leaving
endangered animals in the country's game parks without protection.

Conservationists say a lack of money and poor management at KWS have led to
the neglect of the parks and an increase in poaching. Kenya's game parks
attract tens of thousands of tourists, including large numbers from
Britain, every year.

Many visit Tsavo East, the largest national park and home to most of
Kenya's elephants. But the six KWS anti-poaching vehicles designated to
patrol Tsavo East, an area the size of Wales, are barely mobile on a fuel
allowance of about £230 a month.

Daphne Sheldrick, an elephant expert said: "It's crucial that the field
forces are kept moving to tackle the poaching gangs and bandits, who are on
the increase. At field level, the KWS has collapsed. There's just no money
for field operations but there's plenty of money for public relations,
meetings and workshops."

With the KWS unable or unwilling to act, the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust
has paid for a tanker of petrol to keep the anti-poaching teams going for a
few weeks. The British charity Care for the Wild is paying to patch up the
park's roads, which are in very poor repair. In other parks run by the KWS,
there are reports of similar deterioration and lack of basic resources.
Roads are bad, vehicles and machinery are out of order, and water sources
for animals are badly maintained.

Within Nairobi's tight network of wildlife specialists, criticism is
growing over the leadership of the KWS director, David Western, who took
over the job in 1994 when his predecessor, Richard Leakey, the naturalist
turned opposition politician, was forced out of office by a
politically-motivated campaign.

This week, local newspapers disclosed a KWS plan to lease out land and
buildings in prime areas of the country as a desperate measure to try to
balance the books. Reports said a major element of expenditure are the
salaries paid to top management, including Dr Western, whose own net
monthly earnings are said to be about £7,500. Dr Western said such figures
were "wrong and exaggerated". He said that the KWS spends far more than it
makes but said the organisation had to spend vast amounts of money
protecting the bulk of wildlife living outside the national parks.

In a seven-page statement, Dr Western said his monthly earnings two years
ago were about £2,600, before being reviewed following extension of his
contract for a further three years. He said: "I reverted to my former
salary scale within the harmonised KWS structure." Asked whether the KWS
was in financial trouble, he said: "We cannot be self-sufficient. We are
exploring with the government and donors how we can become viable."

A successful reorganisation had been carried out, creating eight regions
and cutting 560 jobs at headquarters in Nairobi. The changes, he said, had
"put the strength back into the field". Although morale had suffered during
the retrenchment, "all of that is now behind us".

During his tenure, Dr Western has rejected all the ideas and principles
that Dr Leakey used to make the KWS into Kenya's most efficient and
respected institution. His attention centres on areas not encompassed by
the parks - where tourism is highest - and which therefore accrue no
official revenue.

The organisation has undergone a radical and expensive restructuring
programme, in which responsibility has been devolved from the Nairobi
headquarters to regional offices. Many KWS employees are unhappy with the
changes. A number of key figures have resigned and many who remain complain
that the new system involves endless meetings and
conferences but little action.

One senior KWS officer said: "The truth is that morale in the organisation
is at an all-time low. Things are barely ticking over now. Money is being
wasted and security is definitely getting worse. It's appalling." Glossy
KWS brochures state that only 11 elephants were killed by ivory poachers
last year but security sources say the true figure is at least 67.

Dr Leakey is widely acknowledged to have stamped out poaching, which had
been rampant. His Kenyan-scale salary as the KWS director earned him £300 a
month. He said: "There is a very serious question mark over the future. It
seems to me that the KWS is bust and the high salaries are a great
embarrassment. No other organisation in Kenya, even in the private
sector, pays those salaries."

Donors also express frustration with the current management, which appears
to have little ability or interest in steering the KWS towards
self-sufficiency. In the wake of political violence at the coast last
August and in the run-up to general elections due by the end of this year, the
tourist industry in Kenya has recently hit rock bottom. 

Fewer visitors than ever are visiting the national parks. Yet an offshore
trust fund set up under the Leakey regime to tide over the KWS during just
such an eventuality was wound up by Dr Western.

© Copyright Telegraph Group Limited 1997.



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