1995 Annual Report

A MESSAGE FROM THE DIRECTOR

Dr. David Western
the Director,
Kenya Wildlife Service.

The year 1994 was a watershed for the Kenya Wildlife Service. Our mandate from the government was to conserve wildlife, preserving its economic, educational, scientific and cultural benefits for the country and its citizens. But with uncertainty over our role and future, a demoralized staff, reluctant donors and jittery tourist industry, the future seemed bleak.

In putting together this first formal annual report of the Kenya Wildlife Service, I was struck by how much teamwork and effort has gone into achieving the encouraging results of the last twelve months.

Last year we implemented a parallel strategy to strengthen KWS as an institution and restore donor confidence-not just in projects and our overall mission, but in us, the KWS team. Every member of our team is now aware of his or her role and accountable for every action.

Thanks to the dedication of our staff and each individual's concentration on important issues, fears for our future now have been allayed. Donors, in particular, renewed their confidence as they witnessed our programmes in action.

Building up our senior management team, supporting it with workable management tools and encouraging greater decision making in the field, has contributed to a tremendous turnaround in morale and a surge of involvement and activity throughout the service.

Security was paramount once more. In continuation of our record of no harassment within Kenya's parks since 1991, the safety of tourists entrusted to us last year was absolute. Poaching has been all but eradicated in the parks, thanks to the vigilance of our wildlife officers, Security Department and Airwing Unit.

Community involvement is key to all our operations. Statistics indicate that 75% of Kenya's wildlife lives outside parks and reserves, resulting in two major difficulties: First, Kenya's parks are not big enough to sustain all of the country's wildlife, so we must resolve conflict in the traditional migration and dispersal areas outside parks. Second, the human-wildlife conflict in Kenya is growing, with fifty human deaths attributed to wildlife in 1993, plus loss of livestock, crops and livelihood. Persuading communities to accept and protect wildlife when it derives them of their only income and endangers their lives has been a fundamental problem.

The communities around the parks came into their own last year as joint custodians of wildlife, and their trust, support and active participation made our role and operations significantly easier. Our goal was to educate and co-operate with landowners around parks and reserves to get them literally "buy in" to conservation by demonstrating the economic benefits of wildlife on their lands.

In intensively farmed areas, KWS took action to safeguard communities and their harvests with better patrolling, fencing and monitoring of wildlife movements and trends. To address the economic issue, we focused on tourism development by encouraging and implementing ecotourism activities inside and outside the parks and reserves in conjunction with local landowners.

The introduction of the new parks ticketing system, successfully developed by our Commercial Department, showed immediate results through better and more efficient revenue collection.

This freed up our park teams to improve visitor facilities and communications, patrol and enforce wildlife regulations, and work more closely with the Community Wildlife Service to activate hundreds of vital, community-based social, economic and tourism projects throughout Kenya.

To assist donors and our own management, we set up a donor liaison office to improve communications and co-ordination. As a result, information on specific projects has become easier to access and evaluate, ensuring greater efficiency in programme implementation.

Since its inception in 1990, the Kenya Wildlife Service's priorities have shifted slightly each year, reflecting the success and commitment of the KWS team in tackling major issues such as security, poaching, the human-wildlife conflict, donor collaboration and community involvement. No issue ever disappears from our agenda, but as each threat recedes, we refocus our efforts and endeavour to do a better job of conserving Kenya's wildlife.

Looking back over KWS's achievements during the last year-reflected, in part, in the pages of this annual report - we anticipate that the continued support of of government, donors, NGOs and our own staff will mean further improvements for many years to come for the wildlife and communities living side by side in Kenya.

Dr David Western