Poaching :Who will blow the whistle?

One evening, as I routinely watched news at 9, among the headlines was "Poaching". Yet other four jumbos had been killed by poachers it the Tsavo Conservancy Area. The poachers had used poisoned arrows instead of riffles to avoid detection by the Conservancy rangers who were on heavy surveillance. TCA Assistant Director Robert Obrein disclosed that poachers were now hiring professional hunters to kill wildlife along the Voi River. I was taken aback by the news. The particular news piece stirred deep interest in me, having an understanding and interest in the tourism industry.

Meibae, Kenya - "The shooter had laid
up atop a flat , house-sized boulder -
no more than 10 metres from the
elephant - and blasted a bullet
down through the animal' s head.
The poachers set to work , hacking off
the tusks under a setting sun before
scurrying up a rocky ridge , trekking
off into the night . The slain
elephant was around 25 years old ,
its tusks weighing five kilograms
apiece .
Nearby , a herder grazing livestock
heard the shot echo and began
running for his manyatta settlement .
Within three hours, 14 armed
rangers converged at the nearest
road access - an eight kilometre hike
from where the elephant 's carcass
lay .
The rangers were each of them
Samburu tribesmen . Tracking is in
their blood. But you can 't track
without light. They waited until
dawn . By the time they reached the
carcass , the poachers had 10 hours
on them .
" They were very clever, " said Chris
Lentaam , a ranger, pointing at the
rocky ridge beside the stinking
carcass as he clutched his
antiquated rifle. "They jumped
between boulders so we couldn 't
follow their footprints easily."
This is a recent news article from Aljazeera that is yet another evidence of the act.

" Right now the demand for ivory is
very high. When that happens , the
price rises and suppliers go into
over- drive ," says Paul Mbugua ,
spokesman for the state- run Kenya Wildlife Services. "While there is
demand for ivory, nothing will stop these poachers . "

That demand is seen as coming from China - projecting influence across the continent and with a growing
middle class - and other Asian end-
markets, prompting World Wildlife
Fund International Director Jim
Leape to recently issue an appeal , as a team of 17 poachers were spotted
headed towards a herd of 200
elephants in CAR .

Recently, there have been sprawling cases and concerns of poaching in the East African game Parks, especially of elephant tusks and rhino horn. Never had the poaching be so severe than in the 1980's that saw the elephant population dwindle fast from 165,000 to 16,000 with tens of thousands of elephants being slain every year. In the neighbouring country, The Republic of Congo where the trade isn't banned yet, poachers hunt from helicopters packing a heavy load of gun fire.

Looking at it in context, the whole act looks more malicious as it would superficially seem. Imagine felling a massive elephant or rhinoceros
weighing tonnes,heartlessly passing heavy saws through their horns for just about a maximum of 10kg tusk or horn. Sad,
isn't it? In my perspective, it's not any different from the case of
several inhumane and malicious individuals hunting down our albino brothers and sisters for their skin, or is it?  

Questions need to be asked and honestly, the trigger should be from within. Light should be shed upon this outrageous scandal before it gets out of hand.
It's well known that wildlife is a natural resource,isn't it?

The long term implications of the trade are way far serious. If the trade continues, it means millions of shillings in revenue are lost every year in the
tourism business; both private and public sectors. It means that in future we have no wildlife
that we currently boast and showcase to the tourist. In the long run, the currently second richest source of Kenya's revenue will die. Is this the Kenya we want?

I understand that measures have been taken to counter this ugly act. Sanctuaries have been
set up to protect these endangered species , bans were set on poaching in Kenya back in 1989, rangers among communities have been
deployed. We've witnessed former Kenyan presidents Mr. Daniel Moi and Mr Mwai Kibaki burn truckloads of illegal hoards as to impose the ban, among other measures but is it all?

Well, apparently, at the moment a kilogram of elephant tusk
costs a mind blowing $64000 in the current illegal 'market'. That explains the thirst it is creating. A price like that gets money-thirsty suppliers on their toes for the illegal trade simply because they are too lazy to work as hard as any other hardworking citizen.

" The criminal justice systems
throughout the region are not at the
level they could be . They are dealing
with transnational organisations, so
there needs to be greater cross -
border cooperation between relevant
agencies ," said Gerhard von Rooyen ,
of the UNODC's Nairobi office . " If
not , it makes it extremely difficult to
stop them ."
Says an excerpt from
Aljazeera.
The government should swing fast and create public awareness, regions joining and working
in cooperation to stop the legal act. Harsher sentences on anyone facilitating the trade should be imposed, otherwise, in a decade the population of elephants will grow extinct. Otherwise, the East and China could cooperate and curb the problem from their side.

Who are the individual masterminds of this illegal trade? Why do we continuously catch the hoarders when we simply know they are agents? Who will blow the whistle? Will we ever get to know?

Photo credits and news exerpts by :Aljazeera & Standard media group.