To thank Kenyans for leaving wildlife safe amidst the nation's eruption of violence after the December 27 national elections, Kenya's national parks are offering free admission to children for the next month. The gesture is nice, but the more interesting question it raises is why wildlife preservation during wartime is noteworthy, or even the exception to the rule. In fact, in diverse war settings in places around the world, wildlife numbers have dwindled due to fighting. Animal casualties in these wars are understandably overshadowed by towering numbers of human deaths--in Kenya, more than 1,000 have died from the fighting. But for already endangered species, like Rwanda's mountain gorillas, the pressure of war can be a life or death situation.
The reasons animals are killed in conflict are various--from intentional to incidental, from pragmatic to purely sport. In Rwanda's civil war in the early 1990s, the battle zone extended into the mountains where the gorillas live, exposing the gorillas to land mines, gunfire, and human diseases. A different kind of seemingly incidental threat to wildlife occurred last month in Sri Lanka. The separatist Tamil Tigers, who have been warring against the Sri Lankan government for over 30 years, set off a grenade at the island's main zoo, though it's not clear if animals were injured.
Infrastructures Interrupted
Wildlife are also threatened by the upheaval and displacement of people in times of war. In Kenya, 600,000 have been displaced by the violence, about half of whom are now living in temporary camps. Similar camps for refugees from Rwanda, set up in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Zaire, were close to Virunga National Park, a world heritage site that housed half of the existing mountain gorilla population at that time. Under the pressure of so many refugees, deforestation in the park skyrocketed, whittling down the gorillas' habitat.
Social upheaval causes interruption in conservation efforts in countries like Rwanda and Kenya, which have made wildlife conservation a priority. In 1995, National Geographic said that two-thirds of Rwanda's park service staff was dead or in exile, and that only two of the park's vehicles out of 50 made it through the war (NG, "A Fragile Home Threatened by War," Oct 95). Conflict disrupted the patrols that monitored gorillas there, allowing rebels and poachers to move in.
Even when conservation plans aren't directly interrupted, basic societal infrastructure is essential for animals as well as citizens. The Kenya Wildlife Service has recently ordered new fire engines after the only one in a nearby town was burned by the public after the truck arrived late to an emergency call. One engine will be dedicated to the national park.
Intentional Violence
The kind of violence Kenya's government seems to be praising its people for avoiding isn't the incidental kind, however, but the intentional kind. In some cases, the slaughter is for practical purposes like food. During war, large mammal populations are often devastated by hunting. In Zaire in the 1990s, government soldiers machine-gunned hippos for meat just outside of the national park. Hippos weren't threatened in Zaire at that time, but have since been designated vulnerable by the IUCN. In Rwanda, poaching intensified in the early 1990s because livestock were lost during the war, and so buffalo, antelope, and other wild animals were killed to satisfy demand for meat.
In the absence of conservation enforcement, poaching of endangered species increases in times of conflict as well. When Rwanda's patrols were interrupted between 1997 and 1999, rebels killed six of the remaining 300 mountain gorillas in Central Africa (NG, "Still a War Zone for Gorillas," Feb 99).
Finally, in the emotional strain of war, animals become a target for violence and a tool for inflicting trauma. Serbian soldiers in Kosovo in the late 1990s shot farm animals and pets to intimidate people to leave their homes (Newsweek, "Pet Brutality," 8/9/99).
Need for Tourists
Ultimately, Kenya's gesture of thanks may be mostly self-interested, designed to bring people back to the parks. Various rankings put tourism as Kenya's second or third largest industry, but during the post-election violence tourist visits to Kenya dropped by 90 percent. The economic importance of wildlife tourism played a large role in protecting Central Africa's mountain gorillas from Rwanda's violence in the 1990s. But visitors frightened away by violence makes for a depressed postwar economy and an even more difficult recovery. So the Kenyan government hopes its promise of stability--and cheap park fees--can bring the public back to the parks.
Top photo by archival via Flickr
RELATED LINKS:
"The Impact of Civil War on the Conservation of Protected Areas in Rwanda"
EarthTrends
Kenya Country Profile: Biodiversity and Protected Areas
