The Kenyan government has approved a new Wildlife Act, ensuring harsher treatment of poachers and greater protection for the country’s elephants, lions, rhino, buffalo and leopards.
Speaking to Kenya’s Capital FM, President William Ruto explained that “Operationalisation of the Wildlife Act to make killing of the ‘Big Five’ a capital offence will be a deterrent, as it will attract more severe penalties to the poachers… Once operational, the act will attract life sentences for killing wildlife.”
Although trophy hunting has been banned in Kenya since 1977, poaching remains a problem. As many as 23 rhino are known to have been shot in the past five months. Internal corruption is considered partly to blame: just this week, 32 senior officials in the Kenya Wildlife Service were suspended on suspicion of collaborating with poachers.
There are clear economic incentives to the new legislation. Kenya’s services industry, which contributes about 60% of the GDP, is dominated by tourism, which is itself highly dependent on the preservation of the country’s wildlife resource.
