KWS - The Kenya Wildlife Service

A WWF partner on the ground

One night in 1999 some TransMara elephants entered the town of Kilgoris for the first time in 30 years. Kilgoris is home to the TransMara headquarters of the Kenya Wildlife Service. The morning after the elephants foray into town, residents awoke to find that the elephants had deposited most of their droppings in front of the KWS HQ . More on the KWS (external link)>>

The Kenya Wildlife Service is the Kenyan government's "police force" for matters concerning the protection of the state's valuable natural assets (tourism earns the country roughly US$200 million each year).

Under funded and underestimated

Even though tourism is Kenya's largest export earner, the KWS is badly under funded. To compound this problem, little of the revenue which come from tourism is filtered down to those who live near or next to wildlife. These people, who are on the front line of human-animal conflict situations, or who may even find themselves displaced by laws protecting wildlife, often view the KWS Rangers unfavourably.

Vital to resolving conflict situations

Usually, if there is a problem animal, it is the KWS Rangers who are called out to move the wildlife on (it is illegal to kill most of the large fauna in Kenya). If the KWS Rangers are not there, then often local villagers have little choice, or are panicked into killing the native wildlife.

An emergency call can take days to answer

As in many places in Kenya, the KWS offices in TransMara are poorly funded. Even though there are several offices in the region, and 18 Rangers, they have to cover an area of over 2000km², and they have only one vehicle

Given the distances involved in the TransMara region, this means there can often be a long time delay between a situation being reported and a ranger being able to get to the scene.

KWS rangers are also vital for their role in patrolling the TransMara region for poachers - an activity which is still prevalent despite best efforts.

Vital to the future

KWS Rangers are ill equipped to carry out their work even though they are vital to diffusing conflict situations that will still occur in the future.

To this end, Noah, the Executant for TransMara Human Elephant Conflict project, is hoping that before his final phase finishes, he can provide some of the rangers with bicycles or motorbikes.

How the KWS is involved in the Human Elephant Conflict (HEC) Project

From the project's documents:

KWS should work with communities in a combined strategy for mitigating HEC.
KWS should increase its deployment of field staff in the area.
KWS stations should be moved to high conflict zones.
A mobile HEC mitigation unit should be established, that could be deployed to front line areas in high conflict seasons for rapid response. The unit should be provided with a bikes, radios and thunder flashes.
KWS should train a local community rapid response unit, equipped with bicycles and watchtowers, to augment official units.
A joint KWS/community HEC board should be established to plan and manage local mitigation activities.
KWS should assist the community to establish a HEC insurance scheme in which all farmers would have a stake.
If compensation can be shown to be effective and workable, it should be administered by and through KWS rather than government ministries less connected with wildlife.