The Cabinet Secretary for Tourism and Wildlife, Najib Balala is calling on wildlife and conservation sector stakeholders to work with the government to enhance public-private partnerships in curbing human-wildlife conflicts.
Balala made the remarks during a webinar that saw the screening and discussion of ‘Living on the Edge’, a documentary film by Black Bean Productions that highlighted the plight of Africa’s human Elephants crisis.
In a press statement, Balala said that mitigation measures are short term and the dialogue needs to dive deeper in terms of financing, mapping, and taking stern but crucial decisions for the conservation of the wildlife.
“…Let the global community fully support the Elephants conservation efforts in word and in kind,” he noted.
Speaking during the webinar, Prof. Lee White, Minister of forests, Oceans, Environment and Climate Change, Gabon, said climate change is affecting elephants’ population making them leave their habitat to go look for food in human settlements.
Grant Burden, special Adviser on human-elephant conflict, EPIF, on his part, stressed the need to involve local communities when discussing long-term solutions for human-wildlife conflicts.
Additionally, director of Programme Development, EPIF, Greta Lori, reiterated how human, agricultural, industrial, and climatic change affect wildlife, and the need to define new ways that we can peacefully coexist with them.
Balala stressed the matter of closing Ivory markets in the European Union and Japan because saying the availability of these markets is the greatest threat to the conservation of elephants.
“In 2020, 0 rhinos and 9 elephants were poached in Kenya. This is a great step in conserving our wildlife. However, we are losing more animals to human-wildlife conflict than poaching. We, therefore, need to address the issue now or we will lose the goodwill of the people which would be disastrous to Elephants conservation,” added Balala.
According to Balala, when they lose the goodwill of the people, then the whole conservation agenda will be lost.
Further, he added that they need to protect the people and to invest in human-wildlife conflict mitigation measures that are long term and that makes people feel they are protected from wildlife.
