Wildlife protection („elephant project“) in the Masai veld Sinya
A very high number of wildlife is being poached every single day in the Sinya veld (e.g. over 200 giraffes were poached between Feb and Dec.'07 - there is a strong belief that making a soup out of the bone marrow of a giraffe cures HIV). Amongst the threatened animals the African elephants have also become victims of poaching in the Sinya region. The elephants migrate regularly through the veld on traditional elephant paths. In the same area legal and illegal farmland was established during the last decades. The proximity of game and human beings leads to conflicts.
Due to the poor financial resources of the country Tanzania the budgets for environment and wildlife protection are also not sufficient. The gamekeepers in the veld work scientifically for the African Wildlife Foundation (AWF) – which researches on elephant behaviour and also buys back farmland to re-establish elephant paths – but they hardly have any budget at their disposal for anti-poaching activities.
The anti-poaching activities are continually under-financed. Project leader Alfred Kikoti has approx. 300 U.S. dollars per month for them altogether. Sustainable wildlife protection is not possible with this amount of money.
p(e)d supports the rangers with equipment and cars in the short-term. In the mid-term perspective a monthly program "Fund-a-Ranger" is set up funding approx. 5 further rangers (about U.S.$ 200/month/ranger) as well as their additional cars, running costs and equipment.
With a trip to the nearby located Kilimanjaro safari camp one can observe the elephants together with the rangers and speak about the projects´ progress.
Alfred Kikoti (Ph.D. University of Massachusetts), Projektkoordinator und Wissenschaftler, West Kilimanjaro, Tansania, führt derzeit 24 Ranger in der Region  Armed with a radio receiver, some tents, a team of trusty game scouts, and a bullish truck with thick tires, Alfred tracks elephants through the savannahs as part of AWF’s Kilimanjaro Elephant Research & Conservation Project. Not always glamorous – but always adventurous – Alfred’s research is informing conservation strategies by gaining a greater understanding of elephant populations in the West Kilimanjaro of Tanzania. The project has recruited and trained 24 game scouts from 12 villages to record elephant behavior, human-elephant conflicts, and poaching activities in the region. Alfred is also chasing text books while he is earning his Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. His most recent achievement was to collar – with a team of conservationists – 10 wide-ranging elephants with GPS collars. He is now collecting data to develop conservation strategies in the region. Alfred's work has also enabled Kenyan and Tanzanian wildlife officials to begin sharing knowledge and resources to better mitigate conflicts between the region's people and the elephants Kikoti affectionately calls 'my guys.' |