From James Isiche, Regional director, International Fund for Animal Welfare
In describing the role of the International Fund for Animal Welfare, Mike Norton-Griffiths exaggerates its influence on Kenya’s wildlife policy review, and his suggestion that sport hunting is the panacea for protecting wildlife flies in the face of local opinion (23 March, p 24).
The national steering committee set up by the minister for tourism and wildlife has established, through a consultative process, that the majority of communities living with wildlife are overwhelmingly opposed to the resumption of sport hunting. IFAW’s staff in East Africa, who are all Kenyan, believe that a pro-hunting policy would negate conservation and provide even fewer returns for local communities in wildlife areas.
It is far-fetched to imagine, as Norton-Griffiths does, that IFAW has the financial and political clout to influence the views of Kenyans on such a grand scale. IFAW’s position is that to stem the decline in wildlife populations and their habitats it is necessary to have a national land-use policy that embraces wildlife conservation, the prudent management of conflicts between people and wildlife and the consequent compensation claims, and the establishment of mechanisms for equitable sharing of benefits from wildlife.
IFAW East Africa is working with local communities and landowners to construct a 150-kilometre electric fence in Laikipia district that will secure space for wildlife, reduce the human-wildlife conflicts that are rife in the region, and so improve the livelihoods of local people. This is but one example of our work in Kenya in which we offer practical solutions to the challenges facing the wildlife sector. One only wishes that pro-hunting lobbyists like Norton-Griffiths would do the same, instead of attempting to resurrect a bygone and largely catastrophic era for Kenya’s wildlife.
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Nairobi, Kenya
