Posted on 19-1-2003
Electric
Fence To Encircle Kenyan Forest Reserve
By Jennifer Wanjiru
NAIROBI, Kenya, January 16, 2003 (ENS) - A multi-shilling fund
has been
launched in Kenya to put an electric fence around one of the
east African
nation's largest forest reserves to protect it from illegal
loggers,
poachers and general human encroachment.
When complete, tentatively by 2005, the ambitious electric fence
will seal
the more than 1,000 square kilometer (386 square mile) Aberdare
Forest
Reserve and secure its water catchment sources. Already, farmers
living
near the forest have pledged to contribute 2.3 million shillings
(US$1.8
million) towards the 140 million shilling project, while the
Kenya Wildlife
Service and Forestry Department have pledged to offer technical
support for
the project.
A new government with a fresh approach to environmental protection
makes
the Aberdare project possible. Kenyans went to the polls last
December 27
and elected a new government led by President Mwai Kibaki, a
72 year old
reformist. He replaced longtime leader Daniel arap Moi, who
was first
elected President of the Republic of Kenya on October 12, 1978.
Soaring to peaks of 13,000 feet, the Aberdare Mountain Ranges
are famous
for the deep V shaped valleys with streams and rivers cascading
over
spectacular waterfalls, including Kenya's longest fall of some
1,000 feet.
"The endangered black rhino and the elephants roaming the indigenous
forest
will be secured once the project comes to completion," said
Wilfred Kiboro,
the chief executive of Nation Media Group. "We want all Kenyans,
big or
small, to come forward and support this project," he said. Donations
for
the project are being solicited through regular radio and television
ads
and in local newspapers.
With a mixture of montane grasslands, forest and moorland, the
Aberdare
Forest is full of birds not seen in other parts of Kenya. The
birds common
here include the crowned eagle and the rufous-breasted sparrowhawk;
there
are also birds such as the African black duck, golden-winged
sunbird,
silvery-cheeked hornbill, Hartlaub's turaco and the white-eyed
slaty
flycatcher.
Environmentalists here have expressed hope that the new electric
fence will
control illegal logging and reduce the human wildlife conflict.
"This will
allow farmers to grow crops up to the boundary of the Aberdare
Forest
without worrying about destruction by wild animals," said Charles
Njonjo,
chairman of the Kenya Wildlife Service.
Kenya's new Environment Minister Dr. Newton Kulundu has said
that the
government will reforest all land that had been cleared in Kenya
forests by
illegal loggers and "politically-correct" companies. He was
referring to
friends of the previous government who are known to have benefited
from
their association when it came to the distribution of the right
to log
forested lands. Local corporations have shown interest in supporting
the
Aberdare initiative as a way of practicing social responsibility
and
preserving the tourist potential of the mountains.
The outlying Aberdare National Park, which rings the mountain,
is a tourist
attraction site and has earned 26 million shillings in revenue
every year
for the past two decades. Approximately 62,000 tourists visit
the park each
year. "The Aberdare National Park is spectacular and its vegetation
in the
forest belt contains some of Kenya's most ancient trees - cedar
and
hagenia," says Professor Wangari Maathai, the reknowned Kenyan
environmentalist who is now assistant environment minister in
the new
government. The Aberdares are an isolated volcanic mountain
range that
forms the eastern wall of the rift valley, running roughly 100
kilometers
(62 miles) north-south between Nairobi and Thomsons Falls.
The park has spectacular falls like the Gura Falls - the deepest
in Kenya -
which plummets more than 300 meters into an impenetrable ravine
opposite
the Karura Falls, which drops 275 meters. These waterfalls were
filmed for
the famous "Out of Africa" movie. "This is a great initiative
that touches
not only on the lives of the more than nine million people who
depend on
the forest, but also on the future of our children," Kiboro
said.
The Aberdare mountains, also known as the Nyandarua mountains,
are a
volcanic range, which include a national park and a number of
forest
reserves. It is an important water catchment area, and throughout
most of
the year it gets rain and mist. The Aberdare National Park is
mostly at a
higher altitude than the forest reserves, and between them they
provide a
habitat for a number of globally and regionally threatened species.
Some of
these, such as the African green ibis, Ayres's hawk eagle, crowned
eagle,
African grass owl, Cape eagle owl and long-tailed widowbird,
it has in
common with Mount Kenya, but unique to this region are the Aberdare
cisticola, Baillon's crake and the striped fluff-tail.
The idea to fence the Aberdare Forest was started some 14 years
ago by the
management of Rhino Ark, a tourist hotel at the Aberdares. The
Rhino Ark
Management Committee has been organizing an annual motor event,
The Rhino
Charge, to raise funds for the fencing of Aberdares. So far,
the charity
event, started with a meagre 200,000 shillings, has raised 160
million.
"The money has been used to construct half of the 320 kilometer
fence
around the forest," says Colin Church, the chair of Rhino Ark
Management
Committee.
Local environmentalists say that the Aberdare Forest Reserve
is important
to the residents of Nairobi and Nakuru, who depend on it for
its water
resources. For instance, the Kinangop Grasslands located on
a plateau to
the west of the Aberdares used to be an area of tussock bogs
and swampy
valleys, but these are dwindling fast in the face of small-scale
crop
cultivations. "Let us all join hands in building this fence
so that the
forest and the national park are preserved for posterity," says
Njonjo of
the Kenya Wildlife Service.
In terms of wildlife, some 200 recorded species of birds can
be found in
the park. The moorlands are inhabited by some rare melanistic
leopards,
serval cats and genets, their coats blackened by the high altitude
and
closeness to the Equator. The wildlife in the Aberdares is very
human shy,
and the lions have a reputation for ferocity. The Aberdares
forest is rich
with wildlife: elephant, rhino, warthog, bush pig, giant forest
hog,
waterbuck, duiker, suni, dikdik, bongo and reedbuck. One also
finds black
and white colobus monkeys, Sykes' monkeys and black-faced vervets
in the
forest canopy. "We have to protect all these species," says
Kiboro.
A protected area since 1950, the Aberdare Range National Park
covers 767
square kilometres and contains the country's two highest peaks
- Lesatima
at 13,120 feet and Kinangop at 12,816 feet
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