A courtesy call to Mr. Kitili Mbathi KWS Director General in his office, we also discussed the upcoming “ East Africa Ivory belongs to elephants campaign walk “ scheduled for May 2016- August covering 3450km in 130 days. ENC plans to collaborate with KWS, Tanzania Wildlife Authority and Uganda Wildlife Authority, this walk aims at raising awareness in grass root communities on importance of wildlife conservation against the rapidly growing negative attitude of these communities toward wildlife that is in turn fueling human wildlife conflict, additionally engage the three countries through stakeholders in an attempt to establish an integrated wildlife anti-poaching and trafficking strategy.
The East Africa walk is a continuation of previous walks that I have headed since 2013 with support of KWS among other organizations, raising awareness on the elephants and rhino poaching while educating and engaging local communities to participate in wildlife conservation agendas. I have now walked 5261km both in Kenya and in the USA under the banner of “ Ivory belongs to elephants” .
As a result of limited multilectal and bilateral integration and policies frameworks against poaching acts and crimes despite the cross-border elephant conservation agreements, not any of these three broader countries is safe working independently considering naturally or exotically caused cross-border elephant migrations. The East African Walk will hopefully chart a short-term, medium-term and long-term plans to ensure the East African Community proactively engage in bilateral and multilateral collaborations identifying effective integrated anti-poaching mechanism and strategies.
The outcomes of this walk as identified and collected from opinions, perceptions, demands and solutions people in grass root will be shared with wildlife management government entities and other conservation stakeholders to streamline existing systems and frameworks in elephant conservation.
Jim Justus Nyamu
Executive Director Elephant Neighbors Center & Honorary Warden
