Environment

Elephants threatened in Kenyan drought

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One of the worst droughts in living memory is taking its toll on both people and wildlife in Kenya. Clashes over land and water lead to the deaths of 32 people last week. Meanwhile, at least 24 elephants have either starved or been shot by poachers looking for food. The BBC’s Peter Greste has the story.

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MARCO WERMAN: One of the worst droughts in living memory is taking its toll in Kenya.  Clashes over land and water have turned deadly and community leaders are warning of more violence.  People aren’t the only victims.  In Kenya’s Samburu District, the BBC’s Peter Greste found one of the dozens of elephants that have either starved or been shot by poachers because of the drought.

PETER GRESTE:  Hoof, what a stench.  We are looking at a young dead elephant, apparently it’s been here about two or three days at the most but boy, it’s already starting to smell something horrible.  It was down here by the river, obviously trying to get food and water, but it must have laid down and was simply too weak to get back up again.  It obviously died where it lay.

GRESTE:  The death of the infant elephant is one of countless small tragedies happening across much of East Africa.

IAN DOUGLAS HAMILTON:  It’s desperate; it’s the worst that I’ve seen in the last twelve years.

GRESTE:  Ian Douglas Hamilton from the conservation agency, Save the Elephants.

HAMILTON:  If rains fail in October and November, we’ll go into a total crisis.  I can’t even imagine how awful that would be.

GRESTE:  This drought of course isn’t just about elephants but they are an indicator species.  What happens to them points to trouble right across the spectrum.  A few kilometers from the first dead elephant, a Save the Elephants researcher, David Dublin, guided us to another, this time the victim of human hunger.

DAVID DUBLIN:  I think what happened here is this elephant must have been shot, you know, just browsing here and just collapsed here and it looks like it’s from people.

HAMILTON:  And she’s missing all of her features.  She’s missing her trunk, she’s missing her tusks.

DUBLIN:  Yeah, a clear indication that it’s people who are involved in her death and that’s why we don’t see some of her, you know, patia like the feet and the trunk.

GRESTE:  Is this kind of poaching normal?

DUBLIN:  Not, but it looks like people are desperate and now they’re going for anything.

GRESTE:  Including the meat?  They wouldn’t normally eat elephant?

DUBLIN:  No, this is what I mean by saying you know, this is not quite normal for people to go, especially on the meat.

GRESTE:  Down in the middle of the Ewaso Ngiro River, we find a small herd of elephants trying to sip water from a muddy pit.  The river is a sea of bone dry sand but local herders have dug a well and the huge animals are helping themselves and in the process, they’re destroying the water hole.  Only once they’ve finished can the women help themselves.  If the rains fail, we’re in trouble the old woman told me.  It’s not just going to be the animals dying.  We’ll die too and it’s not going to take long.  The conflict isn’t just between wildlife and humans.  Like everyone in this region, the community of [SOUNDS LIKE] Kananpiro are nomadic herders.  Their survival depends on their animals. It’s that search for water and grazing that really runs these people’s lives.  Earlier this week, raiders from a neighboring community attacked them just before dawn, about five thirty in the morning.  And although the conflict has some very deep roots, fundamentally, this is about a struggle over land and water.  We weren’t expecting the middle, said one of the men, who fought off the attackers, but they were after our land and our water.  The drought has made the tensions between us much worse and I think we’ll have more fighting.  And just how serious is this struggle?  Well thirty two people died in the gun battle.  Eleven raiders and twenty one from [SOUNDS LIKE] Kananpiro, including women and children.  This drought has become a battle for life itself.  For the World, I’m Peter Greste, Samburu, northern Kenya.

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