Assesment Of The Factors That Have Led To Increased Poaching Activities In Kenya
Abstract
With the key focus on the case of Kenya‟s increased poaching activities, this study broadly
sought to examine the main factors that have exacerbated poaching. The study was guided by
three objectives namely: to investigate the catalysts to the increased poaching in Kenya, to
examine the effectiveness of multi-agencies strategies to counter poaching activities in Kenya
and to evaluate the implications of poaching activities in Kenya. The study has noted that the
most key catalyst to poaching is the presence of international market with a very high purchasing
power of poached wildlife products. The study noted that rhino horns and elephant horns fetch a
lot of money in the international black market. This is as a result high cultural value attached to
the usefulness of the rhino horns and ivory to the final consumer as well as the huge gap between
demand and supply of the poached products. Apart from the presence of international market,
other catalysts to poaching in Kenya include; socioeconomic factors such as poverty, corruption
and unemployment. The concept of multiagency is still new and due to multidisciplinary nature,
it has a lot of complexity especially due to different operating procedure of agencies. The study
has specifically noted that, there is poor coordination among the multi-agencies components
since they come from different units. For instance, the multi-agencies involve the KWS, (GSU),
(AP), regular police, (NIS) and criminal investigation department which have different doctrine
of operation and sometimes having different command. At strategic level, the multiagency has
clear operating procedure and guidelines, however, the problem is at tactical level because the
multiagency has not been well harmonized together to operate as one body. Based on the third
objective, the study has established that, poaching has far reaching implications that spread
across the nation, region and internationally. Among the implications to poaching, the study has
found that tourism sector is most affected sector by poaching of wildlife. This is because wildlife
stands out to be the single most tourist attraction factor, therefore, poaching means wildlife and
especially the big four which attract tourists will decrease and this will eventually decrease the
number of tourists in Kenya. Tourism contributes about 12% of GDP of Kenya and provides
employment to more than 500,000 people. This elevates tourism to one of the major economic
sectors in Kenya that contribute towards realization of vision 2030
Publisher
University of Nairobi
Rights
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United StatesUsage Rights
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/Collections
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