Poaching drops 50 pct in Kenyan national parks

Poaching of wildlife in Kenya has reduced by 50 percent in the past three years, a Kenyan senior official said on Monday.

Cabinet Secretary for Environment and Natural Resources Professor Judy Wakhungu said the decline is as a result of the adoption of the use of open source land mapping tools that enable better use of freely available satellite information for natural habitat conservation assessment.

"Kenya Wildlife Services (KWS) is now capable of getting a snapshot of satellite images of the protected areas on a single page," Wakhungu said on Monday while opening the first international forum on Monitoring for Environment and Security in Africa (MESA) that is being attended by delegates from 48 countries.

Wakungu said Kenya has faced an increase in poaching and deforestation but the collaboration with the development partners, MESA and Intergovernmental Agency for Development IGAD), has helped reduced poaching activity in the country.

"Before the use of the digital technology, government officials and security agencies had to travel physically to protected areas hence taking several days and incurring huge costs," she noted.

She observed that the funds saved from conducting manual surveillance are now channeled by Government to further research and innovation towards safeguarding our environment.

Wakhungu noted that MESA products and services are capable of helping curb widespread illegal, unregulated and unreported activities adding that the dedication of scientists to using earth observation data through the MESA project has not only supported policy but allowed governments through various arms to make decisions that impact on the lives of the citizens.

"Africa is vulnerable to climate change and requires African own policies and strategies to help uplift the economies to cater for the growing population," the head of cooperation at the European Union delegation to the African Union Anna Burylo said.

She said that there is need to provide relevant information to public and private organizations in fishing, agriculture and also wildlife conservation.

The Secretary General of the Indian Ocean Commission (IOC) Jean-Claude de I'Estrac challenged African countries to train more personnel to be able to man the technical equipments that are being installed in the continent to help in observing the earth.

"The governments must retain staffs by ensuring that they are well paid to avoid the exodus to other continents adding that many facilities in the continent are underutilized due to lack of technical staff," he noted.

MESA project is to support African decision-makers and planers in designing and implementing national, regional and continental policies and development plans towards sustainable development, thereby advancing the socioeconomic progress and well-being of African populations. Endit