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Fencing up wildlife in Kenya's forests
This week
rhino ark
FIELD NOTES Mount Kenya
issue here is conflicts between wildlife and communities,” says Simon Gitau, the warden of Mount Kenya National Park. “The fence will bring harmony, so I am in favour of it.” Local wardens say that reducing conflicts between farmers and animals encourages villagers to report poachers and the outsiders that recruit them, meaning fences may also help keep animals safer. And there are plans to create new migration corridors to other wildlife areas, which should alleviate problems such as inbreeding caused by isolating populations of large –Keeping them apart– animals. The next step will be to on the ideal of unspoiled and maintain the fences, says remote places, losing perspective Christian Lambrechts, who runs on what’s happening in humanRhino Ark. He is installing remote modified landscapes with intense monitors that can identify the land use pressures, Marion Pfeifer location of power outages. Often of Imperial College London told they can also indicate whether me. In fact, wildlife can thrive in the problem is a stray branch, praises. “Once this place was fenced areas: one study by Pfeifer which would cause a continuous dangerous; people were killed by and colleagues found that African outage, or a poacher, which would water buffalo and leopards ate lions had significantly denser cause a brief one. their livestock,” said village head populations in fenced reserves. “Once this place was Peter Kibuka. “We needed food aid The Aberdares fence was dangerous; people were because the animals trampled our initiated by a local charity, killed by water buffalo and crops. But now we are safe and can Rhino Ark, to protect rhinos on leopards ate the livestock” grow all our own food.” the mountain. The group is also This goes against the traditional largely funding and building view among conservation the fence around Mount Kenya. Not everybody is happy with scientists that fences damage Fence-building has now the fences, though. Members wildlife by isolating populations, been adopted by government of the Ogiek tribe traditionally preventing migration and causing agencies like the Kenya Wildlife lived in one newly fenced upland, inbreeding. But those who oppose Service, which approve and help the Eburu forest, west of the fences may be basing their views maintain the fences. “The big Aberdares. In a heavy-handed government operation, they were thrown out of the fenced area. But Locked up Locked up they are now negotiating, with the The world’s largest conservation fence will keep people and wildlife separate in help of Rhino Ark, to be given land The world’s largest conservation fence will keepreserve people surrounding and wildlife separate in Kenya. At 500km long, it will encircle the forest Mount Kenya Kenya. At 500km long, it will encircle the forest reserve surrounding Mount Kenya close to the fence that will allow Completed fence them access to their hundreds of Completed fence Planned fence forest beehives. Planned fence The last Ogiek still living in the forest with his family, Maseto MOUNT KENYA Mebarne, does so with the consent MOUNT KENYA NATIONAL PARK of local officials and now has a job KENYA NATIONAL PARK KENYA as a fence warden. “If it wasn’t for MOUNT KENYA us the forest wouldn’t be there. MOUNT KENYA But there are so many outsiders FOREST RESERVE round here today that we need the FOREST RESERVE 20 km fence to conserve the forest.” n
Fencing up wildlife in Kenya’s forests Fred Pearce
“WE REMEMBER the elephants. It was frightening,” 10-year-old Moses told me as we walked amid the tea gardens on the lower southern slopes of Mount Kenya, the second-highest mountain in Africa. “But they are locked up now. We are safe when we walk to school.” The first 70 kilometres or so of the world’s longest conservation fence has been completed in the area (see map, right). Stretching 500 kilometres when finished, and electrified to 8000 volts, it will surround the entire mountain – one of the world’s great refuges for wildlife – and keep animals away from villages. The rights and wrongs of electric fences that keep humans and wildlife apart have become a battleground in the debate about how best to preserve megafauna. A couple of hours’ drive to the west, beneath the Aberdare mountains, which have been encircled by a 400-kilometre fence since 2009, the people of Bondeni village sing the barrier’s 16 | NewScientist | 28 February 2015
20 km
Rhino Ark funded Fred Pearce’s trip
rhino ark
FIELD NOTES Mount Kenya
issue here is conflicts between wildlife and communities,” says Simon Gitau, the warden of Mount Kenya National Park. “The fence will bring harmony, so I am in favour of it.” Local wardens say that reducing conflicts between farmers and animals encourages villagers to report poachers and the outsiders that recruit them, meaning fences may also help keep animals safer. And there are plans to create new migration corridors to other wildlife areas, which should alleviate problems such as inbreeding caused by isolating populations of large –Keeping them apart– animals. The next step will be to on the ideal of unspoiled and maintain the fences, says remote places, losing perspective Christian Lambrechts, who runs on what’s happening in humanRhino Ark. He is installing remote modified landscapes with intense monitors that can identify the land use pressures, Marion Pfeifer location of power outages. Often of Imperial College London told they can also indicate whether me. In fact, wildlife can thrive in the problem is a stray branch, praises. “Once this place was fenced areas: one study by Pfeifer which would cause a continuous dangerous; people were killed by and colleagues found that African outage, or a poacher, which would water buffalo and leopards ate lions had significantly denser cause a brief one. their livestock,” said village head populations in fenced reserves. “Once this place was Peter Kibuka. “We needed food aid The Aberdares fence was dangerous; people were because the animals trampled our initiated by a local charity, killed by water buffalo and crops. But now we are safe and can Rhino Ark, to protect rhinos on leopards ate the livestock” grow all our own food.” the mountain. The group is also This goes against the traditional largely funding and building view among conservation the fence around Mount Kenya. Not everybody is happy with scientists that fences damage Fence-building has now the fences, though. Members wildlife by isolating populations, been adopted by government of the Ogiek tribe traditionally preventing migration and causing agencies like the Kenya Wildlife lived in one newly fenced upland, inbreeding. But those who oppose Service, which approve and help the Eburu forest, west of the fences may be basing their views maintain the fences. “The big Aberdares. In a heavy-handed government operation, they were thrown out of the fenced area. But Locked up Locked up they are now negotiating, with the The world’s largest conservation fence will keep people and wildlife separate in help of Rhino Ark, to be given land The world’s largest conservation fence will keepreserve people surrounding and wildlife separate in Kenya. At 500km long, it will encircle the forest Mount Kenya Kenya. At 500km long, it will encircle the forest reserve surrounding Mount Kenya close to the fence that will allow Completed fence them access to their hundreds of Completed fence Planned fence forest beehives. Planned fence The last Ogiek still living in the forest with his family, Maseto MOUNT KENYA Mebarne, does so with the consent MOUNT KENYA NATIONAL PARK of local officials and now has a job KENYA NATIONAL PARK KENYA as a fence warden. “If it wasn’t for MOUNT KENYA us the forest wouldn’t be there. MOUNT KENYA But there are so many outsiders FOREST RESERVE round here today that we need the FOREST RESERVE 20 km fence to conserve the forest.” n
Fencing up wildlife in Kenya’s forests Fred Pearce
“WE REMEMBER the elephants. It was frightening,” 10-year-old Moses told me as we walked amid the tea gardens on the lower southern slopes of Mount Kenya, the second-highest mountain in Africa. “But they are locked up now. We are safe when we walk to school.” The first 70 kilometres or so of the world’s longest conservation fence has been completed in the area (see map, right). Stretching 500 kilometres when finished, and electrified to 8000 volts, it will surround the entire mountain – one of the world’s great refuges for wildlife – and keep animals away from villages. The rights and wrongs of electric fences that keep humans and wildlife apart have become a battleground in the debate about how best to preserve megafauna. A couple of hours’ drive to the west, beneath the Aberdare mountains, which have been encircled by a 400-kilometre fence since 2009, the people of Bondeni village sing the barrier’s 16 | NewScientist | 28 February 2015
20 km
Rhino Ark funded Fred Pearce’s trip