Cites boosts Kenya's elephants

2005-03-10 22:26

Nairobi - Kenya's elephant population has jumped by about 10% in the past three years due to a strict clampdown on poaching in the east African nation, the country's wildlife authority said on Thursday.

"In 2002, we estimated there were 27 000 elephants, now we estimate that the elephants have increased to about 30 000," Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) spokesperson Edward Indakwa said.

"Due to improved monitoring and surveillance, we have managed to cut down on poaching of elephants," he told AFP. "Poaching is no longer as serious a threat as it used to be, but we still have isolated incidents."

Despite an apparent surge in the illegal ivory trade and several nationally publicised poaching incidents, the KWS found elephants to be thriving in Kenya's 32 national parks and reserves.

In Tsavo National Park, home to the largest number of elephants in the country, the population has grown in three years by 1 297 animals to stand at 10 581, Indakwa said, citing an aerial survey carried out in February.

In conflict with humans

However, he stressed that elephants in Kenya were not entirely out of danger, noting that Tsavo, a 21 000-square-kilometre reserve, is a melting pot for human-wildlife conflict.

The KWS survey counted more than 90 000 livestock on farms encroaching on the edges of the park that could possibly affect the elephants living there, Indakwa said.

He attributed some of the elephants' success to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites), a 1989 treaty that regulates the wildlife trade, which has cooled the appetite for wildlife trophies, notably from elephants.

"Cites has also helped to regulate the trade, thus helping our elephant population to grow," Indakwa said.

In October, Kenya mounted an unsuccessful bid to impose a 20-year moratorium on commercial ivory trade at a meeting in Bangkok of Cites parties.

At the time, Kenya argued that the failure of the ban would encourage poaching in Africa, further endangering between 400 000 and 660 000 elephants.

Instead of a moratorium, several southern Africa countries - Botswana, Namibia and South Africa - got the go-ahead to begin commercial trade in elephant leather goods.

An international trade ban was agreed in 1989 after a massive illegal industry in ivory saw elephant populations plunge in the 1970s and 1980s.

But recovering numbers in Africa have prompted calls for some limited ivory exports in nations where populations have been well-managed.

Cites is the world's biggest treaty regulating trade in wildlife but conservationists complain that member states are not doing enough to enforce its rules.

- AFP