• Kenya hitting back against increasingly sophisticated poaching networks: more elephants and rhinos killed in Kenya in 2012 and 2013 than any other year in past two decades.
• More ivory shipped through Mombasa than any other trade route out of Africa; in 2013, Kenyan authorities seized more illegally-acquired animal parts in transit than ever before.
• Zero tolerance policy aims to stamp out the corruption that undermines law enforcement efforts.
• New legislation provides for high minimum penalties of KES20 million (>$200K) for wildlife crime.

Nairobi, 09 May, 2016 — Kenya is taking a bold stand against wildlife crime through improved enforcement action, higher penalties for wildlife criminals and last year it was the only African range State to report a significant fall in the numbers of rhinos poached.

Nevertheless, the country is highlighted as a key source and transit point for wildlife commodities exiting Africa while the firm actions taken to stem wildlife crime are at risk of being undermined by weaknesses in laws governing wildlife trafficking, corruption, weak capacity and high demand in Asian markets, according to a USAID-funded report launched today by TRAFFIC, the leading non-governmental organization working globally on trade in wild animals and plants, and the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS).

Dr Richard Leakey, Chairman of KWS said: “TRAFFIC’s report highlights the considerable progress made by the authorities in addressing wildlife poaching and trafficking in Kenya but does not shy away from acknowledging the considerable challenges that lie ahead: it is a blueprint for taking action against the organized criminal syndicates who undermine our society and rob us of our wildlife.”

Among other findings, the report highlights Kilindini Port in Mombasa and Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi as important exit points from Africa for illegally traded wildlife products from countries, including Tanzania, Mozambique, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, Zambia and South Sudan. Since 2009, more ivory has been shipped through Mombasa than any other trade route out of Africa.

“Corruption among government and private sector officials is a key enabling factor of the illegal wildlife trade,” states the report. “The fact that wildlife contraband, especially rhino horn and elephant ivory, has been exported from Kenya only to be seized in transit or in destination countries means that wildlife traffickers are able to exploit security loopholes in the country’s law enforcement network.”

The lack of regional and international co-operation in East Africa to address wildlife crime is also identified as a critical weakness, hindering efforts that would enable more emphasis to be placed on intelligence-based operations, making them more effective in targeting criminals higher up the trade chain.

“Future enforcement interventions in Kenya and elsewhere in the region need to be internationally co-ordinated and focus on targeting the middlemen and kingpins of large-scale trafficking, rather than easily replaceable low-level poachers and transport mules,” said Steven Broad, Executive Director of TRAFFIC.

Kenya’s wildlife has suffered at the hands of poachers. According to the report, after years of recovery, Kenya’s elephant population is undergoing a marginal decline, with around 32,500 animals left in the wild — still well below the estimated population of 167,000 in 1973. Similarly, since 1970, Kenya’s rhinoceros population has fallen from around 20,000 to just 650 black and 381 white rhinos in 2014, although this is still the third largest rhino population in Africa after South Africa and Namibia

In recent years, despite the valiant efforts of KWS and others, increasingly sophisticated poaching networks linked to organized crime have emerged, posing ever greater challenges to the security of wildlife and the people that manage and protect it. Corrupt security agents, porous borders, and endemic conflict among communities in northern Kenya facilitate the illicit flow of weapons used by local poachers.

In spite of these challenges and limited resources, Kenya has achieved tremendous improvements in tackling wildlife crime.   Under the new Constitution of 2010, the country has taken significant steps toward codifying conservation and wildlife protection into a wildlife policy and legal framework. The Wildlife Conservation and Management Act of 2013 (WCMA) provides very high minimum penalties of KES20 million (more than USD200,000) and/or life imprisonment for the killing of threatened species. Prior to the enactment of the WCMA, a study of wildlife crime cases prosecuted between 2008 and 2013 revealed only 4% of those convicted of wildlife crimes went to jail, and in relation to ivory and rhino horn cases, only 7% of offenders were incarcerated after conviction.

Recent landmark rulings signal a clear departure from Kenya’s poor sentencing record: in January 2014, a Chinese ivory smuggler arrested in transit from Mozambique through Kenya with 3.4 kg of raw ivory received the minimum fine of KES20 million, while in May 2015 a magistrate in a rural town gave a woman found guilty of possessing five pieces of elephant tusks the choice of a KES40 million (USD412,056) fine or a four-year jail term.

Nevertheless, despite such rulings and legislative improvements, prosecuting wildlife crime in Kenya is still greatly hampered by an inadequate number of wildlife crime prosecutors as well as unclear laws, says the report, while the inclusion of high minimum penalties within the WCMA has resulted in an increase in “not guilty” pleas and a consequent rise in the number of trials in a system already suffering from a significant backlog of cases.

The report concludes that Kenya needs to mobilize human and financial resources to prevent the illegal killing of wildlife in addition to partnering with conservation NGOs, relevant international bodies and diplomatic missions in a targeted and continuous dialogue, aiming to reduce the appetites of wildlife consumers, particularly in Asia. Since the majority of Kenya’s wildlife lives outside formal protected areas, incentives for community-led conservation are also critical to the future of the nation’s natural heritage.

Failure to take timely conservation action will spell doom to Kenya’s iconic species. As U.S. Ambassador to Kenya Robert Godec said during his remarks at the Wildlife Trafficking Response, Assessment, and Priority Setting (Wildlife-TRAPS) Stakeholder Workshop which forms the basis of the report: “Put bluntly, we need to do more, do it better, and do it faster.”

“The US is firmly behind the international drive to curtail the poaching crisis that is decimating elephants, rhinos and other wildlife in Africa and its associated criminal activities that impact on broader issues, including rule of law, national security, rural livelihoods and economic development,” said USAID/Kenya and East Africa Mission Director, Karen Freeman. “USAID’s support for the production and writing of this TRAFFIC report is a small but essential component of our overall response to this ongoing crisis.”

NOTES
TRAFFIC’s assessment was carried out under the auspices of the USAID-funded Wildlife Trafficking Response, Assessment, and Priority Setting (Wildlife-TRAPS) Project, implemented by TRAFFIC and IUCN. Wildlife-TRAPS aims to increase understanding of the character and scale of the international response required to tackle wildlife crime between Africa and Eastern Asia, identify intervention points, test non-traditional approaches, and develop and deliver a suite of ground-breaking partnerships.

The basis of the report was the input by participants at a Kenya Wildlife Poaching and Trafficking Stakeholder Workshop held in Nairobi on April 14 and 15, 2015. Many others also contributed to the compilation of the information including individuals from group ranches around the Tsavo-Amboseli ecosystem; conservancy leaders; various conservation experts; the Kenya Wildlife Service; National Museums of Kenya; the Ministry of Water, Environment and Natural Resources; Isiolo County Government and the Environment Office, USAID Kenya and East Africa.

About TRAFFIC
TRAFFIC is a non-governmental organization working globally on trade in wild animals and plants in the context of both biodiversity conservation and sustainable development. TRAFFIC is a strategic alliance between WWF and IUCN, the International Union for Conservation of Nature. www.traffic.org

About Kenya Wildlife Service
Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) is the government agency responsible for all wildlife conservation and management in Kenya. It also has the sole jurisdiction over 27 national parks and an oversight role in the management of 34 national reserves and private sanctuaries in addition to 154 field stations for management of wildlife outside protected areas.

About USAID
USAID is the lead U.S. Government agency that works to end extreme global poverty and enable resilient, democratic societies to realize their potential. U.S. foreign assistance has always had the two-fold purpose of furthering America's interests while improving lives in the developing world. USAID carries out U.S. foreign policy by promoting broad-scale human progress at the same time it expands stable, free societies, creates markets and trade partners for the United States, and fosters good will abroad.

Spending less than 1 percent of the total federal budget, USAID works in over 100 countries to: Promote broadly shared economic prosperity; Strengthen democracy and good governance; Protect human rights; Improve global health; Advance food security and agriculture; Improve environmental sustainability; Further education; Help societies prevent and recover from conflicts; and Provide humanitarian assistance in the wake of natural and man-made disasters.