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The summary of Kenya’s Wildlife Conservation and Management Act

Davidokul — Mon, 31 Aug 2020 19:28:26 +0000

By David Okul

The act has 14 parts and 11 schedules

Part I: Preliminary

Part one of the act introduces the law and define some key terms including game ranching, game farming,

The Principles of the Act are cited to include devolution, effective public participation, ecosystem approach, recognition of wildlife conservation and management as a form of land use on public, community and private land, self-sustainability (benefits from wildlife offset costs), sustainable utilization and equitable benefit sharing.

Part II: Kenya Wildlife Service

Part 2 of the act deals with the establishment of Kenya Wildlife Service. Some of the functions for KWS include:

The conservation and management of national parks and sanctuaries in Kenya
Establishing wildlife conservation committees in each county
Developing the mechanisms of sharing benefits of wildlife conservation with communities
Advise in the preparation of management plans for conservancies

The act lists a total of 19 functions of KWS

The service is managed by a Board of Trustees that includes the

chairperson (appointed by the president),

Principle Secretaries of matters of wildlife, finance and devolution

Inspector general of police

Four people appointed by the Cabinet Secretary (one from NGO, two from community conservancies, and one from private conservancies)

Part III: Matters finance

The primary source of funding for KWS is the national government. Other sources include investments and joint partnerships. The Board or Trustees are mandated to prepare estimates of revenue or expenditure for each year.

Part IV: Wildlife Regulation Mechanism

It specifies that each county in Kenya should have a County Wildlife Conservation and Compensation Committee. Each of the committee will consist of:

a chairperson appointed by the Cabinet Secretary
a rep of the county government;
an agricultural officer
a land use planning officer
a livestock officer responsible
the officer of the Service for the county, who shall be the secretary;
four persons and nominated by the community wildlife associations
a medical officer
the officer in-charge (police)
the county environment officer

Among the functions of the CWCCC is the establishment of wildlife user rights. The committee also should ensure that benefits from wildlife resources are distributed.

The committee could also invite members who do not have the voting powers.

Under section VI, issues of bioprospecting are outlined. Bioprospecting refers to searching for plants and animal species where medicine and other valuable compounds can be extracted. A bioprospecting licence can only be issued by the service.

Part V: Wildlife Endowment Fund

KWS establishes an endowment fund that is vested in Board of Trustees. The endowment fund receives money from parliament, investments, grants, and payment for ecosystems services (PES) schemes.

The functions of the endowment fund include:

developing wildlife conservation initiative
managing and restoring protected areas
protecting threatened species and habitats
supporting wildlife security operations;
facilitating community-based wildlife initiatives

Under the section, the govern net of Kenya is supposed to establish a Wildlife Compensation Scheme. Funding sources for the scheme include the national government and other sources approved by the cabinet secretary.

The Wildlife Compensation Scheme covers human death or injury, or crop and property damage caused by livestock. The County Wildlife Conservation and Compensation Committee verifies the claims and submit recommendation to the cabinet secretary.

Death- KES 5,000,000
Injury causing permanent disability- KES 3,000,000
Other injuries- Maximum of KES 2,000,000
Damages to livestock and crops are paid at local market rates, as long as owner took reasonable measures to protect their livestock/crop

People unsatisfied with the award have 30 days to appeal to National Environment Tribunal and on a second appeal to the Environment and Land Court.

Part VI: Conservation Protection and Management

The section is consistent with the Environmental Management and Coordination Act and Water Act.

Sections 31 through to 38 define the procedures of declaring national parks, reserves, wetlands, marine conservation areas, and variation of boundaries.

Section 39 outlines the procedures of establishing community and private conservancies/sanctuaries. Any land with wildlife could establish a conservancy. Section 43 outlines the standards of management where the County Wildlife and Compensation Committees could submit recommendations to deregister conservancies.

Communities and individuals may establish community wildlife associations with blessings from County Wildlife Conservation and Compensation Committee. Associations work to facilitate conflict resolution and communal management of wildlife in a region.

Each national park, marine area, wildlife conservancy and sanctuary shall be managed according to a management plan. Developments shouldn’t be approved without the presence of a management plan.

Mining and quarrying in national parks is prohibited unless they are given consent by the state and the area does not contain endangered species, is not a critical wildlife habitat or an important water catchment.

A person may not carry out activity on a listed species (sixth Schedule) without the permit from the service.

Section 49 outlines how KWS can develop species recovery plans for listed species.

Part VII: Establishment of Wildlife Research and Training Institute

The act asserts that there should be a corporate institute called the Wildlife Research and Training Institute. The major purpose of the institute is to coordinate wildlife research in the country.

The institute is located in Naivasha and offers various diploma and certificate courses.

Any person undertaking research on wildlife in Kenya should obtain a permit from the institute. When a researcher is outside the country, they should have a sponsoring institution from the home country.

The institute is also tasked with developing an elaborative wildlife database according to the act. The database will use info from universities, research institutions and Kenya National Bureau of Statistics. The data should be made available to stakeholders and the general public. Section 62 further mentions that someone will require to pay a prescribed fee to access the data.

Part VIII: Conservation Orders Easement and Incentives

Part IX

Part X

Part XI

Part XII

Part XIII

Part XIV

Schedules

Schedule 1

Schedule 2

Schedule

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David Okul is an environmental management professional with over 10 years experience on donor projects, conservation, forestry, ecotourism, and community-based natural resources management. When not working on active environmental management projects, I spend my time writing for Silvica on a variety of topics. The views on this blog post are personal.

The post The summary of Kenya’s Wildlife Conservation and Management Act appeared first on Silvica: Blog for Sustainable Development .

The Environmental Issues of Overpopulation

Davidokul — Sun, 07 Jun 2020 19:11:18 +0000

By David Okul

In June 2020, the world population is at approximately 7.8 billion people. By 2050, there will be about 10 billion people on the planet. As populations grow, the natural environment feels the impact of the overconsumption. We have identified nine environmental issues of overpopulation.

1. Exhaustion of natural resources

With a surging population, natural resources such as fossil fuels, coral reefs, natural forests, and arable land diminish. This consumption brings competition for life-sustaining resources, eventually resulting in a reduced quality of life. Overpopulation places a strain on the available natural resources. The increased human population now requires a third more infinite natural resource to supply it with its basic needs. Unfortunately, the planet can’t provide such an amount of resources.

2. Deforestation as an environmental issue of overpopulation

Forests are part of natural resources. As such, this is an extension of the first point.

A surging population means more food, more wood, more land, and more wood products. This demand leads to deforestation as humans clear natural forests to meet such needs. In turn, deforestation leads to increased carbon emissions, since there are no trees to trap the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Deforestation exasperates the greenhouse gas menace.

For instance, South America’s tropical rainforests have been eradicated, thanks to overpopulation. These forests, which have historically been producing about 20% of the global oxygen can’t effectively trap carbon dioxide. The other adverse implications of deforestation are the extinctions and loss of species. Agricultural activities are on the rise, thanks to overpopulation. These activities have caused 80% of world deforestation, as humans encroach natural forests to meet the increased demand for food.

3. Environmental degradation increases with more people

Overpopulation translates into the overuse of natural gas, oil, and coal. This overuse produces severe environmental effects over time. Overpopulation has occasioned an increase in industries and the number of cars on the roads, ultimately affecting air quality. Overpopulation alone contributes significantly to rising carbon emissions, which results in global warming. Changing climate patterns and melting of ice caps courtesy of overpopulation, are just a couple of adverse consequences which the earth has to confront today due to environmental degradation.

Land degradation is also prevalent due to overpopulation. An increase in the global population means excessive use of pesticides and fertilizers and intensive farming. Such activities are to blame for land degradation, which is evident from salination, waterlogging, and soil erosion. The impact of overpopulation on marine and terrestrial natural resources is palpable. Coastal degradation is visible in areas where large human populations live near the coast. In such places, increased human activities lead to massive degradation of the available marine habitats. Worse still, it leads to the loss of species that depend on marine habitats for their survival.

4. Global warming and climate change are also an environmental issue of overpopulation

Although population expansion doesn’t lead to global warming directly, global warming and overpopulation are closely related. Global warming is attributed to surging greenhouse gasses. These gases are human-generated to no small extent. The larger the global population is, the higher the levels of greenhouse gasses will be emitted. The reliance on fossil fuels such as oil and coal due to population expansion has been cited as the primary contributor to global warming. As long as the global population continues to soar, global warming will remain a critical environmental concern. A recent environmental report cites global warming as the biggest threat to biodiversity and ecology.

5. Animal and plant extinction

The rising human populations worldwide leave the planet with few available resources. Both animal and plant species depend on these resources for their survival. Global warming, which is an environmental implication attributed to population expansion, is responsible for mass fauna and flora extinctions. There are predictions from scientists across the globe that, over half of the planet’s animal and plant species face possible extinction by 2050. E.O Wilson, an American biologist, predicts that over 30,000 animal species are being exposed to possible extinction each year thanks to population expansion

Anyone who concerned about overpopulation should advocate for rapid economic development and education to drive GDP up and birthrates down. Global population growth could be a thing of the past soon depending on the economic development in Africa. Source: https://t.co/bZ5uiL33hM pic.twitter.com/ZlZXjZ3Oiq
— Simon Kuestenmacher (@simongerman600) June 28, 2019

6. Loss of ecosystems

Overpopulation is the crucial cause of the massive loss of ecosystems currently being experienced globally. Ecosystem loss is evident from the loss of coral reefs, rainforests, arctic ice, and wetlands. For instance, rainforests initially covered about 14% of the world’s land surface. Presently, they cover a meager 6%, and pundits predict that the remaining rainforests face possible extinction 40 years from now. Surging the human population has led to the mass loss of reefs since 1980. The United States has lost over half of its wetlands in less than a century because of population growth. Similarly, Europe ha lost over 70% of the wetlands due to rising human activities. Again, habit loss is singlehandedly responsible for wildlife extinction.

7. Loss of water resources

Water covers 75% of the world. The most significant percentage of water resources is in oceans, although there are 2.5 % global freshwater resources. Over 70% of global freshwater is ice caps and glaciers. The other 30% is in rivers, ponds, groundwater, and lakes. Nevertheless, population expansion is solely to blame for the diminishing quantities of global freshwater. Even the available freshwater resources are either too polluted or unreachable. This leaves the world with just 1 % of freshwater.

The UN estimates that over half of the planet’s population will face water-based vulnerability by 2025. The human population has led to a massive loss of freshwater ecosystems. Furthermore, the species prevalent in freshwater ecosystems have diminished dramatically due to a rising human population that depends on these species primarily for food. Simply put, the availability of freshwater globally has been jeopardized by rising human populations.

8. Rising urban population

Rising urban population is a menace that stems directly from overpopulation. Today, over 50% of the global population resides in urban areas. In 2050, an additional 2.5 billion people are estimated to live in the already overcrowded cities. Increased urbanization poses adverse environmental effects. For instance, it leads to an increase in automobiles and industries, which negatively impacts the environment by growing toxic substances in the atmosphere and increasing carbon emissions. Sewage menace is also created by urbanization. The danger puts humans at high risk for cholera, dysentery, typhoid, and other ailments linked with poor sanitation. Furthermore, urbanization disrupts ecosystems as humans search for land for buildings, roads, and other infrastructure. Huge volumes of waste in populated cities also lead to multiple health hazards.

9. Eutrophication

Eutrophication refers to the accumulation of nutrients in large water bodies. The nutrients cause uncontrolled growth of plant materials in the oceans. As the plants prosper, lesser oxygen is left for other species leading to a decline in aquatic biodiversity.

The significant sources of eutrophication include agricultural wastes, industrial wastes, and sewerage. All the wastes arise because of population growth.

How can we mitigate the environmental issues of overpopulation?

The increasing numbers of humans are having an unprecedented effect on the environment. It is no wonder that some people are frantically looking for other inhabitable planets outside there. Regardless, we should think of how to address the environmental issue of overpopulation. Population control is such a thorny issue in many cultures. However, we should be brave enough to address the issue of overpopulation and the environment. The mitigating strategies can include educating people, use of birth controls, and reducing our consumption rates.