communications between Kenyans, elephants reach a low point

"Elephant handlers at the Daphne Sheldrick Elephant Orphanage walk animals to their bath." [Photo by Nick Wadhams, special to the Chronicle]


In Kenya, elephants are hated
As people move closer to wildlife, clashes increase
by Nicholas Wadhams, San Francisco Chronicle Foreign Service
Sunday, January 28, 2007

(01-28) 04:00 PST Narok, Kenya -- Mary Sinigi hates elephants.

In December, an elephant terrorized her village, chased her husband down a dirt path and ripped the roof off her home while she and her five children cowered inside.

"Because of elephants, we never rest," Sinigi said, recalling the predawn invasion. "When the kids leave in the morning to go out to school, we are not certain they will come back until we see them again."

Most Kenyans do not share the common Western belief that the elephant is a lovable beast in desperate need of protection and worth the several thousand dollars' cost of a safari vacation. To them, the elephant is a 6-ton garden pest, a wrecking ball that kills, tramples and terrifies.

That anger reflects what conservationists say is a worrisome trend: Conflict between humans and wildlife -- and particularly elephants -- is on the rise, sparking a backlash among Kenyans against the very animals that are considered treasured assets.

[...] "The problem is, of course, expanding human population that's taking up a lot of the space that elephants traditionally use on their migratory travels," said Daphne Sheldrick, a conservationist who runs an elephant sanctuary outside Nairobi. "Where elephants come into conflict with humans, those elephants will have to disappear or be moved."

Newspapers across East and southern Africa are filled with stories about elephants destroying crops, killing farmers, wandering into slums where they've never appeared before. In 2005, an elephant trampled an old man and then crashed his funeral -- spurring irate mourners to block a road and pelt passing cars with rocks in frustration.

Anecdotal evidence points to a rise in the illegal trade of bush meat, and poaching continues to be a problem in many parks. Statistics show that some 90 percent of Kenyans value wildlife in the abstract -- but only 5 percent value wildlife on their own land.

Current laws have stripped people of the right to kill problem animals themselves, and punishment for doing so can include prison time. Yet if an elephant, a lion or a buffalo kills a person, the victim's relatives receive just 30,000 Kenyan shillings -- about $400 -- if they get anything at all. There is no compensation for destruction of livestock or crops.

"If I'm not getting benefit, I would rather kill the animal than have my brother or sister killed," said Yusuf Ole Petenya, a Maasai who works with the African Conservation Centre, a Nairobi-based research group. "Of course, we have an interest in wildlife, but I'm also interested in seeing my brother or my sister alive. How can I have happiness if I wake up in the morning and my brother is dead because he's been mauled by a lion next door?"

The resentment toward the rules on wild animals was evident at a mid-December meeting to discuss the national review in Narok, a town outside the renowned Masai Mara game reserve. This is a place where everyone knows someone who has been killed by a charging buffalo. A nearby orphanage is populated by children who lost their parents to two main killers: HIV/AIDS and animals.

[...] The new elephant problem is gripping much of Africa, not just Kenya. In Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Tanzania, elephant populations stabilized at about 600,000 -- down from 1.5 million in the 1970s -- and are beginning to rise.

Capable of consuming several hundred pounds of food and at least 30 gallons of water a day, elephants have the capacity to turn heavily vegetated ecosystems into near desert. They also kill other species that crowd them.

Villagers say any policy change will have to address not only the changes in Kenya, but also the changes in the wildlife that surrounds them.

In the Rift Valley south of Nairobi, a flash point in the conflict between humans and elephants, the once-skittish beasts seem to have figured out that the laws are working in their favor.

"The elephants are very polite," said Steven Nteetu, a cattle owner and farmer near the village of Olkirimatian. "Even if they come here to the farms, you can shout and shout, but they can look at you and continue with eating. What we have seen now is that the animals are not wild. They are coming nearby. They are not afraid of the human being."

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