Conservation
March 22, 2023

Conservation Alliance of Kenya inaugural meeting with the Ministry of Environment, Climate Change and Forestry

Patricia Awori

The partnership between the governments and the private sector is crucial in formulating lasting
solutions, especially on matters environment and conservation. To this effect, the Conservation Alliance
of Kenya had a roundtable meeting with the Ministry of Environment, Climate Change and Forestry on
Wednesday, 1 March, at the Serena Hotel. Chairing the meeting were the Cabinet Secretary, Hon.
Sopian Tuya, and Steve Itela- Chairperson of the alliance.
It was a consultative meeting to plan the way forward in which Government can partner with the private
sector to achieve its goals for the restoration and protection of the environment, following executive
order one by H.E president William Ruto in his inaugural speech on 13 September 2022.
Public-private partnership is vital in the fight for environmental protection and restoration. Key areas of
partnership on the agenda were:

• Assessment of natural capital values, Biodiversity and carbon credits to increase revenue
• Policy and legal framework
• Public education and capacity building with the communities and sensitization on Environmental
issues and MEAs
• Partnerships with private stakeholders and partners

Industry technocrats who are passionate and willing to see the vision to full fruition are available to the
alliance in terms of expertise and technical awareness. It was concluded that key pillars must be
established for the partnership to thrive.

Grassland /forest restoration: By identifying areas of maximum restoration potential. Adoption of green
schools and conservancies to grow trees based on seed suitability and availability
Water Catchment/Wetlands protection: Securing and protecting the existing water towers. Through
legislation and public participation. That is growing trees for charcoal and affordable alternative fuels for
domestic use.
Funding: It was proposed that 1 % of GDP be committed toward environment conservation efforts.
Additionally, securing funding from the private sector through CSR activities and initiatives to achieve
sustainability of the same.
Dialogue/ Roundtable: There is wisdom in the counsel of many. It was suggested that a quarterly round
table would be necessary to allow for the development and growth of these key pillars.

The Governments initiative to plant 15 billion trees in the next 10 years was also key in the agenda. This
seems/seemed like an insurmountable task. In the words of Nelson Mandela, it’s only possible once
done. The rationale behind this initiative is that if every Kenyan can plant 300 hundred trees over the
next 10 years, we will have achieved this goal. In essence, that is 30 trees a year which is simply
three trees a month.

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African Elephant Coalition Conservation
August 10, 2020

Europe’s double-standards on saving elephants

Patricia Awori

As part of its plans to be the first net zero emissions, zero pollution continent by 2050, the EU published its Biodiversity Strategy for 2030, personally championed by First Executive Vice-President Timmermans, on 20th May.

It proposes among other issues “… a further tightening of the rules on EU ivory trade” while nonetheless maintaining a thriving ivory market itself.

“A further tightening of the rules …” is hardly progress. Under the Juncker Commission, which left office on 30th November 2019, significant strides were being made to close the loopholes in the EU’s ivory trade.

The Von der Leyen “Green Deal” Commission has, however, demonstrated scant political will to maintain – let alone increase – that momentum. It is this type of double standard that we can no longer stand for.

“We are tired of these lectures that constantly come from the North, telling us how to manage our spaces while they ignore the implications of their actions. Frankly, the EU has failed to read the mood across the world,” says Dr Winnie Kiiru, Senior Technical Advisor for the Elephant Protection Initiative Foundation (EPI), an organisation comprising of 21 African countries working to secure the protection of African elephants.

As an elephant biologist for the past 20 years, Kiiru has fought for the ban of ivory across the world and is not impressed by the EU’s double standards. “Countries that had thriving markets such as China and the US have gone ahead to ban ivory trade – it seems very odd that the EU won’t follow suit.”

Beginning around 2007, a wave of poaching for ivory devastated populations of savanna and forest elephants across Africa. The total numbers of savanna elephants decreased by 30% between 2007 and 2015, while forest elephants were hit even harder.

In some countries, elephant populations declined by over 50% in under 10 years. If current poaching levels continue, elephants may be extinct in the wild within the decade – and this will be thanks in no small measure to the EU’s ivory market, among the largest in the world.

Poaching of African elephants continues unabated. The fight for countries to shut down the international ivory trade has borne some fruit with key nations such as the USA, UK and China responding to global pressure and closing their domestic ivory markets.

This action has been accompanied by a decrease in poaching within some parts of Africa, primarily in East Africa. However, in other regions, notably West, Central and Southern Africa, the poaching trend has not declined.

If anything, poaching levels are increasing in new hotspots, as major global ivory markets have remained open, notably those of Japan and the European Union.

This makes the EU’s Biodiversity Strategy, as part of the highly ambitious Green Deal suite of policy initiatives all the more extraordinary.

Aiming to provide ‘guidance’ to African countries on steps to take in order to maintain and improve our biodiversity, it is supremely ironic that the EU’s ivory market is effectively a key contributor of the destruction of Africa’s natural heritage.

Laundering ‘legal’ ivory into the illegal market. It is all the more surprising to note this somewhat misguided act of charity has no roots within the EU.

The European Commission continues to maintain that the EU’s ivory market deals only with old ivory stocks and has no influence on current poaching levels.

Yet, recent studies have shown that ivory pieces can be aged and made to seem older than they actually are. Limiting the trade to small ivory pieces is also no solution, as carving operations have now been established in elephant range states.

This ongoing consumption of ivory puts the safety of the African elephants at great risk because, by giving ivory a value it prolongs demand, which maintains the push for supply.

Until the EU shuts down its domestic market, ivory will continue to be laundered into European markets under the guise of being ‘old or small stock’.

“The EU needs to appreciate the role of any African market in increasing the cost of law enforcement in African countries and destroying livelihoods. Furthermore, their strategy will be impossible to realize in Africa until they shut down their ivory markets,” Kiiru maintains.

Critically, ivory has no value within Africa; it is only countries outside that continue to clamour for it and by so doing fuel poaching across the continent.

And so, however good the intentions were in writing the EU Biodiversity Strategy, I am reminded of a song my mother would sing: “Sweep your yard before you come and sweep mine”. This is precisely what the EU needs to do.

The time for decisive action is now. Overall, the importance of healthy elephant populations is to increase and help support our African biodiversity, and they are part of our cultural heritage.

We cannot afford to lose them for the sake of demand by foreigners in Europe and elsewhere for trinkets.

Again it remains clear, the EU needs to re-examine its so-called ‘role’ in promoting global biodiversity; here in Africa, what it does in reality is continue to endanger African elephants.

Rosie Awori is the Communications, Marketing and Youth Affairs officer of the Pan African Wildlife Conservation Network

Source: The Independent | News | UK and Worldwide News | Newspaper

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Conservation
May 2, 2020

CORONAVIRUS A BLESSING FOR THE EARTH?

Patricia Awori

It’s a lazy Sunday afternoon and I can hear the sounds of a storm gathering outside my window. It has been a different season, the spread of the novel coronavirus COVID-19 was like wildfire and in its wake,  it shut down the world. The question has been asked on what the impact will be on the environment and wildlife.

 

In parks, wardens and rangers are the front-line workers. Working tirelessly to ensure that the animals remain safe. I am of the firm believe that we should work tirelessly to have them taken care of. Their salaries should be on time and they should have special measures arranged for their transportation to and from the park. Have they been supplied with sanitizers, gloves? The importance of species to the planet is insurmountable, from bees to elephants and thus it is only logical to ensure that those involved in the protection and nurturing of species are well taken care of.

 

The fact is, we have destroyed our environment, fossil emissions, pollution, deforestation, poaching, oil spills have all resulted in plundering the earth’s bounty. The destruction of the environment has resulted in a wide number of environmental catastrophes.

Conspiracy theories aside, simply focusing on the fact that the capacity for animals to give us disease as much as we can give them disease did not exist when nature was in a proper balance. Now that things are out of balance, we see this rising dramatically. Could be why the world had to stop, we were killing each other, we were killing ourselves and the environment around us. And perhaps this time of confinement can be a season where we readjust our values and make a better plan for how to co-exist harmoniously with our environment.

 

In Kenya and across the African continent we have adopted the slash and burn mentality as a result of colonisation. While traditionally we would build around instead of cutting our destroying in order to create a habitat. The horse has bolted, it may not be possible to flatten buildings right now, however we can stop encroaching on land reserved for wildlife. We can take steps to build further away from reserves. This is something that should be made law and gazetted so that even as we think of development, we develop in an ethical way without encroaching and ensuring we strike a balance. The truth is we have invaded our wildlife’s space and consequently they are now in our space.

 

As a starting point, everyone should plant trees one or two or however many one’s space can hold. Instead of speaking about fencing the parks we should perhaps fence the areas where we are, wildlife is constantly on the move, when it rains, they move one way and similarly during the hot periods they move another way. Therefore, it is in their best interests if they allowed to roam freely, they really aren’t interested in us.

 

As we’ve been in confinement for the past month, we’ve got a chance to see the earth healing. Airplane free skies, no emissions from industries, no pollution from cars have made the earth a beneficiary from the pandemic. Both Mount Kenya and Kilimanjaro have full heads of snow. A time like this last year the snow caps on both these mountains was melting. Global air quality has improved drastically as the rain hits the earth the smell of undisturbed ground wafts into my nostrils a scent I remember from childhood.  It is time to think about how we can be kind to the earth even when things open up again.  This is a collective responsibility that rests not only on governments but on us as citizens of the earth.

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