In Kenya’s sweltering northern Samburu county, a destructive drought exacerbated by climate change is wreaking havoc on people and wildlife.
After four consecutive years of failed rains causing some of the worst conditions in 40 years, wild animals have become commonplace in the county’s villages as they search for food. Many do not survive, providing herders an unfortunate lifeline as they cut chunks of meat from their carcasses.
“I have suffered from hunger for a long time,” 37-year-old Samburu resident Frank Aule said. “If I run into such a carcass, I would not think twice about eating it as I have to eat to survive.”
Photo: AFP
Kenyan authorities say that the drought has killed more than 200 elephants, nearly 400 common zebras and more than 500 wildebeests among several other species in the past nine months. Many of those that survive are starving, weak and frequently come into contact with people.
How to better protect fragile ecosystems from a warming climate, including Kenya’s savannah grasslands, is part of discussions at this week’s UN biodiversity conference — known as COP15 — in Montreal.
Governments are working to come up with a framework of how the world should protect nature and aim to set goals for the next decade. Conservation groups say current programs are not working.
The Kenyan government has provided some relief supplies, such as water, forage, hay and salt licks, for wildlife in the region, but animals are still forced to travel further into residential areas in their search for food and water.
“Elephants tend to be attracted to the trees that I planted in my homestead,” said David Lepeenoi, a 54-year-old resident of Samburu. “The trees and water points are the main source of conflict between elephants and the community.”
Climate change and poor conservation practices have degraded protected rangelands, reserves and national parks in recent years.
“Where we have reported cases of wildlife dying, it is not actually within the parks,” said Jim Nyamu, who helps run the Elephant Neighbors Center. “That tells you they were actually looking for where they used to forage: the corridors, migratory routes that have been blocked by the human interface.”
Records from conservation charity BirdLife Africa show that dozens of birds are also dying in northern Kenya, most likely from starvation.
“Carcasses of migratory birds, such the European roller, could be seen in the expansive dry landscapes,” the charity’s Alex Ngari said.
More than 300 bird species on the continent are already classed as globally threatened or critically endangered.
The drought has also devastated communities, and is leading to the loss of livelihoods, livestock deaths and failed crops.
Farmers are instead felling dried trees to produce and sell charcoal to make ends meet, leading to even more biodiversity loss in the region, said Paul Gacheru from the conservation group Nature Kenya.
“A concerted call toward supporting local communities to cope with the impacts of climate change is needed,” Gacheru said, adding that local people need less destructive ways to adapt to the warmer, drier climate.
Communities across the continent are facing similar losses. The Okavango Basin in southern Africa, which provides water for 1 million people and half the world’s elephant population, has suffered as climate change, urban development and deforestation deplete its resources.
“Putting important ecosystems and wildlife at risk is negatively impacting people’s lives and livelihoods,” said Vladimir Russo, an adviser for National Geographic’s Okavango Wilderness Project.
He said that poorly preserved ecosystems cause more human-wildlife conflict and can lead to a rise in poaching.
However, “local community members and policymakers are now engaging in discussions to safeguard this ecosystem,” said Bogolo Kenewendo, a UN high-level climate champion.
More of that participation is needed at the summit in Montreal to preserve the continent’s biodiversity, policy and nature experts said.
Protection of nature needs to “make it onto the policy agendas of heads of state as has increasingly become the norm with climate,” said Linda Kreuger, who heads biodiversity policy at The Nature Conservancy.
In Samburu, conservation charities said they are doing what they can as natural resources dry up. At one elephant sanctuary in Samburu, staff said that about 30 of 40 calves were rescued because of the prolonged lack of rain.
As well as the risk of starvation, drought “is a form of stress that makes the animals’ immunity to be lowered and this contributes to infections,” said veterinarian Isaiah Alolo, who works at the Reteti Elephant Sanctuary. “In most cases, you find that the animal will die,” leading to many orphaned animals that need rescue.
“That brings a lot of pressure” for those working to conserve species, he said.
Staff at the Reteti sanctuary bring food and supplements from about 50km away from grasslands around Mount Kenya, sanctuary caregiver Dorothy Lowakutuk said.
Those grasslands are also at risk of degrading if the drought continues.
“At least we ensure our elephants are recovering what they don’t get in their natural habitat,” Lowakutuk said.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not