’Norsu!’, Mwadime
suddenly exclaimed, pointing his finger at the middle of the burning hot road
between Mwatate and Voi, where there were definitely no elephants. Actually, he
was pointing at the brown pile of waste on the middle of the road, which
testified that ‘norsu’ (or ndovu in Swahili) had been there that night, where it definitely should not have been.
In
the Taita Hills, wildlife is close by. The drier,
lowland part of Taita Hills around the town of Mwatate is surrounded by wildlife
parks. This is where the elephants should be spending their time, tranquilly
chewing away at trees and bushes. But drought affects everyone’s and
everything’s lives. When the parks are dry, the elephants are driven by
instinct out of them in order to survive. This is when they clash with humans.
Lots of people have lost whole harvests of maize and papaya because of the
famous beasts. In a situation where people are pushed to the edge of their
livelihood, it is quite normal that efforts by wildlife associations to protect
the culprits are
not always well understood or appreciated. In these circumstances, the rare act of actually
taking an elephant life has much more to it than being greedy poaching, as it is
often portrayed. Everyone understands the natural and even economical value of
having spectacular wildlife around, but this will not replace any harvests.
But even
the fact that the animals leave the parks cannot be attributed only to natural
factors. The first problem, I've understood, is bad surveillance. The local
wildlife service has proper funds and high quality equipment, but one local
noted that they still seem to be more interested in one daytime drink after another,
instead of actually steering animal movements. Whether this is a slight
exaggeration or not, they’re clearly generally not doing a good job.
Meanwhile,
a bit to the north, both even worse drought and a raging human conflict are
driving people, namely Somalis, south. Now, they’re here. All of these are not
the Somalis we tend to think of in Europe, poor and disadvantaged in many ways.
Some of the ones that have wandered south bring along great herds of livestock
with them and should therefore be considered notably wealthy. The institutions
managing the parks being what they are, that wealth means access to best
grazing lands, even within the national parks. These newcomers cause insecurity
and anxiousness among the elephants, adding to the pressure on them to leave
the park.
So: human
conflict far away causes pressures on human populations, leading to migration
into new areas. Weak institutions and corruption in these areas allow the new
populations to disturb the balance between human settlements and the
surrounding nature. This causes a new conflict, this time between man and
nature, generation pressure on and migration of animals, leading to one more
human-nature conflict between animals and the original population.
It’s a
great example of how many factors, both human and natural, mingle to form one
big problem, which no-one really knows how to solve. That’s a lot of components
of geography at work for you!
And of
course, there are people around that act as if having all the answers and too
often are listened to. Then there are people around that clearly have good
answers but are seldom asked for them. These are big contemporary issues
especially in lowland Mwatate, so I've come to talk about them with more than
just a few people. What many people note, is that the only ones to get along
with wildlife, living in balance with it and conserving it, are the ones that
have been doing so for no one knows how long: the Maasai, who apparently have always been stubborn enough
not to be influenced by anyone, keeping to their own, good ways. The nomadic lifestyle
probably isn't something for the most of us, but still, might there be any
lessons to learn there?
No comments:
Post a Comment