NOTES FROM THE FIELD - WILDLIFE
Greetings from Nairobi!
This month we celebrate World Wildlife Day and the important role that wildlife plays in East Africa's ecosystems and as a driver of economic growth through tourism. East Africa's tourism industry, which is dependent on wildlife, brings over $6 billion to the region each year. In Rwanda, tourism generates an estimated 13% of jobs in the country. In Tanzania job creation from tourism is similarly high at 12%. Uganda and Kenya are only slightly lower at 7% and 9% respectively.
Below, read about USAID's efforts to combat wildlife crime, the plight of t
he Grévy's
zebra, and safeguarding Kenya's elephants and communities.You'll also find the Northern Rangelands Trust's 2019 State of Conservancies Report and you'll find out more about how USAID and partners are supporting women at the forefront of conservation and wildlife protection.
Happy reading!
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Aurelia Micko
Environment Office Chief
USAID Kenya and East Africa
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CITIZEN SCIENTISTS RALLY FOR TH
E GREVY'S
ZEBRA
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More than 700 'citizen scientists' recently fanned out across a large swath of Kenya's central highlands in search of the Grévy's zebra. This is the largest and most endangered of the three zebra species. The citizen scientists were part of the
Great Grevy's Rall
y
, a collaborative effort between the
Grevy's Zebra Trus
t
, a local Kenyan organization, and the U.S. and Kenyan public and private sectors. The goal was to gauge the health and status of the Grévy's zebra population to inform conservation efforts.
The citizen scientists took geotagged photos of every Grévy's zebra they spotted. The photos were then fed into pattern recognition software developed by Princeton University for the purpose of cataloging individual members of the population. These efforts resulted in a census that can be used to inform policy going forward.
Once found across the scrublands and plains of East Africa, the Grévy's zebra is now confined to northern Kenya and small pockets of Ethiopia. The population has declined by 75% since the 1970s, dropping from approximately 15,000 to 3,000. They are one of Africa’s most endangered large mammals.
The Grévy's zebra is struggling to survive in the face of habitat loss, limited access to water, poaching, conflict with humans, and diseases.
[Read more
here
].
Conservation and management programs can help by protecting the territory in which the Grévy's zebras roam. The Great Grévy's Rally helps scientists and policy makers determine priority territories for protection.
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PHOTO CREDIT: SarahJean Harrison
Grévy's zebr
as are taller and have thinner strips than plains zebras. They also have Micky Mouse like ears and white tummies. They tend to prefer the shade of scrub and trees during midday, which makes an accurate aerial count of the population difficult.
An estimated 95% of the world's remaining Grévy's zebras live in just three counties of northern Kenya. Those counties now have community conservancies, supported by the Northern Rangelands Trust and USAID, that are important partners in helping to stabilize the Grévy's population.
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NORTHERN AND COASTAL KENYAN COMMUNITIES INITIATE ELEPHANT COLLARING TO INFORM PREVENTION OF HUMAN WILDLIFE CONFLICT
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Community conservancies in northern and coastal Kenya have witnessed -- and supported -- a tremendous drop in the number of elephants killed for ivory over the past eight years. In 2012, 103 elephants were killed for ivory. In 2018 that number dropped to three, and stayed at that level for 2019. Read more in the Northern Rangelands Trust (NRT) recently published
State of Conservancies 2019 report.
The 96% drop is phenomenal, and as a result of their new found safety, it seems that once separated groups of elephants may be roaming farther and intermingling again. This behavior could be good for breeding but could also present challenges for human wildlife conflict.
To ascertain the new roaming patterns of these northern and coastal elephants, communities in Marsabit, West Pokot and Tana River recently collared ten elephants in an operation supported by Kenya Wildlife Service, Save the Elephants, German Development Agency, GIZ, and NRT. USAID supports the overall NRT community conservancy program.
Soon, NRT community conservancies will have information on elephant movement that will help them prevent conflict through education, investment in crop protection, and strategic natural resource planning. Read more in NRT's
"By the Elephants, for the Elephants."
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By The Elephants, For The Elephants - Northern...
Ten elephants in Marsabit, West Pokot and Tana River counties have been fitted with satellite collars as the community conservancies they frequently explore more effective ways to protect them, and mitigate conflict with humans. Data from the...
Read more
www.nrt-kenya.org
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PUTTING WOMEN AT THE FOREFRONT OF CONSERVATION
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USAID believes that female leadership is fundamental to the realization of sustainable conservation. That’s why in mid-February USAID supported 20 women to attend “Pathways Africa 2020.” This three-day women’s conservation leadership training offered leadership identity development, mentorship training and conflict resolution skills, followed by a three-day conference with the theme “ Open the Door to Diverse Voices’. The women’s training created a women’s conservation network which is providing further support, encouragement, and collaboration among women to achieve greater conservation impact.
Said one participant:
“This training has been life-changing. It is going to change everything in my life – personal and work life…how I treat others around me… the people I love and the people I work with. Organizers – know that this is going to have an effect; people in this room will have a huge impact on others. I have always felt so alone for the past 10 years – I am the only woman. I hope to have a long relationship with all women in the room. I have learned so much.”
First Lady of Kenya Margaret Kenyatta opened the Pathways conference by congratulating the organizers for bringing women to the forefront of conservation and by stressing that
"conservation requires collective and sustained efforts."
We, at USAID, couldn't agree more.
"I could see throughout the conference the strong bond between the women who had gone through the training,"
said USAID Senior Counter Wildlife Trafficking and Conservation Advisor Mikala Lauridsen.
"The future programs and polices that these women help design will shape the future of conservation and the sustainability of our natural resources,"
said USAID Environment Office Chief Aurelia Micko.
Find out more about the conference and training
here
.
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Meet three women from the Pathways conference
and learn what they are doing to save wildlife.
WATCH
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USAID'S SUPPORT TO COMBATING WILDLIFE CRIME IN EAST AFRICA
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USAID expends resources to combat wildlife crime with an understanding that wildlife is critical to East Africa's tourism industry which brings over $6 billion to the region each year, fueling economic growth. Reducing or eliminating illegal wildlife crime also contributes to supporting stronger cross-border security, stability, and resilience in the region.
Our activities extend from supporting strong conservation policy, landscape-level protection and enforcement, and the use of science and technology to improve investigation and prosecution. We also support intergovernmental partnerships to address transnational wildlife crime.
Find out more by reading our Combating Wildlife Crime
fact sheet
.
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NEW STUDY OFFERS APPROACHES TO SAVING CENTRAL KENYA'S WILD GRASS EATERS
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They also report that:
- Rangelands where pastoralism is practiced can support wildlife communities.
- Wild herbivore species richness decreases with increasing livestock abundance.
- Laikipia County is crucial for protecting several endangered species.
- It is important to account for detection probability in aerial-survey analysis.
Read more
in
"Spatiotemporal dynamics of wild herbivore species richness and occupancy across a savannah rangeland: Implications for conservation."
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Space and time dynamics of wild herbivore species...
Wildlife-friendly private properties are crucial for conservation in central Kenya.
Read more
www.sciencedirect.com
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NORTHERN RANGELANDS TRUST STATE OF CONSERVANCIES REPORT 2019
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The USAID-supported Northern Rangelands Trust recently released its 2019 State of Conservancies Report. It it, they report that "2019 has been a particularly triumphant year for community-led livelihoods development in conservancies."
Read
the report to find out why.
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ENVIRONMENT NEWS AND OPINION ROUNDUP
(Articles and headlines are taken directly from the sources cited)
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The week before Christmas, Richard Leakey, the Kenyan paleoanthropologist and conservationist, celebrated his seventy-fifth birthday. He is lucky to have reached the milestone. A tall man with the burned and scarred skin that results from a life lived outdoors, Leakey has survived two kidney transplants, one liver transplant, and a devastating airplane crash that cost him both of his legs below the knee. Source: The New Yorker.
Read more
.
Across Laikipia County in central Kenya, large wild herbivores, including endangered species like the reticulated giraffe, Grevy’s zebra and African wild dog, coexist alongside rapidly growing numbers of people and associated livestock. A
Biological Conservation
study published this month reveals that whether wild herbivore species thrive or decline in Laikipia is linked mainly to the abundance of livestock in the region. The results of this study have actionable implications for translating science into public and private land management to conserve wildlife and ecosystems in Laikipia and beyond. Source: African Conservation.
Read more
Each year, more than a million wildebeest migrate across the grassy plains of the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania into Kenya's Masai Mara National Reserve. But on the borders of these protected areas, human populations are increasing and wild ecosystems are struggling to survive in the face of development. Understanding these pressures is crucial for protecting people and wildlife, and to curb illegal activities such as poaching. Source: Phys Org.
Read more
.
Sightings of the iconic thin-stripe Grevy’s zebras in the grasslands and woodlands of Laikipia are very rare. The first three hours of our game drive across the 50,000-acre Mpala Research Centre and wildlife ranch last Saturday yielded a glimpse of just one lonely stallion holding a hopeful territory for a love date.
Gustavo Lozada wants to change your mind about using drones around wildlife. Lozada, technology manager for
The Nature Conservancy in Colorado
, knows that many people think that increasing drone use will only harass and terrify wild animals. He also knows it doesn’t have to be that way, and that drones can be a really important tool in wildlife research and protection. The videos in this blog, he hopes, will show that drones do not have to disturb the peace. Source: Cool Green Science.
Read more.
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USAID Kenya and East Africa Environment | www.usaid.gov/east-africa-regional/environment
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