Pass wildlife bill before December, parliament urged

Attorney general Githu Muigai (left), INTERPOL police services executive director Jean Michel Louboutin (centre) and UN under-secretary general and UNEP executive director Achim Steiner during a press conference on international environmental compliance and enforcement at the UN complex on November 06 2013. Photo/ PHOEBE OKALL  

In Summary

• Kenya has lost more than 190 elephants to poachers since January 2012 and 29 rhinos have also been killed for their horn.
• Prof Muigai was speaking ahead of the International Environmental Compliance and Enforcement meeting at UNEP in Nairobi.
• UNEP will now be cooperating with the International Police (Interpol) to help share information on wildlife crimes.

 

 

By AGGREY MUTAMBO
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Attorney General Githu Muigai says Parliament should pass the new wildlife Bill before it goes on December holidays as a way of addressing “the unprecedented” levels of poaching in the country.

In a joint press conference with wildlife campaigners in Nairobi, Prof Muigai told reporters that Kenya’s rising number of environmental and wildlife crimes can only be addressed if courts are given powers to give heavy punishments.

“It is a great step forward in tightening the regulatory framework and in empowering the courts to give stiffer sentences than before. It represents to a greater extend a policy shift, a recognition that this problem does require a more serious approach from the criminal justice system.

“We are urging Parliament to enact it before it breaks for Christmas holidays which is sometime by mid next month,” he told journalists at the United Nations Environmental Programme offices in Nairobi.

“Kenya currently stands at the crossroads as far as environmental criminal activities are concerned. We have seen in the recent months, the one-ton destruction of illegal ivory. I think for us, this is a crisis of unprecedented proportions.”

Kenya has lost more than 190 elephants to poachers since January 2012 and 29 rhinos have also been killed for their horn. Although many poachers and traffickers of wildlife trophy have been arrested and charged, the penalties meted to them have been lenient.

STIFFENING PENALTIES

 The Wildlife Management and Conservation Bill 2013, according to Prof Muigai, would handle this gap by stiffening the penalties.

For example, Section 79 of the Bill which is due for tabling in Parliament for the Second Reading says that, offences relating to “endangered and threatened species” would attract a fine of not less than 10 million shillings, 15 years imprisonment or both.

Some wildlife conservationists though have written to the Parliamentary Committee looking at the Bill to suggest the fine be increased to more than Sh20 million.

Prof Muigai was speaking ahead of the International Environmental Compliance and Enforcement meeting at UNEP in Nairobi. Various conservationists, government officials and activists are gathering in the Kenyan capital to look at ways in which they could cooperate on the enforcement of the endangered species treaty, CITES.

Many of the trafficked ivory and rhino horn ends up in Far East countries even though many of them like China, Malaysia and Thailand are also signatories of CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora).

Now delegates meeting in Nairobi, who include those from China and Malaysia, say enforcement of these laws can be futile if locals are now aware of the dangers of poaching.

“Enforcement can only do so much. The fact is; market demands very often exceed the capacity of law enforcements.

And remember in countries such as china, there are tens of thousands of containers being loaded and unloaded every day and that is the enormity of the challenge of dealing with illegal trade,” said Achim Steiner, UNEP Executive Director.

“There is seriousness in terms of engagement of these countries, we mustn’t forget however that these countries have a large population, growing economies and the challenges facing them are challenges that can face any other country.

The treaty aims at ensuring governments do not allow trade that would threaten the survival of animals such as rhinos, elephants, leopards and a number of plants the treaty has listed as endangered.

Trade in wildlife products, according to CITEs is worth between 15 and 20 billion dollars a year and involves “hundreds of millions of plant and animal specimens.”

“The world recognises that in Africa, particularly in eastern and southern Africa, this has reached crisis levels. Crime will always be ahead of us.

Our challenge is to always be ahead of poachers and traffickers,” said Sheldon Jordan, the Chairman of the Wildlife Working Group.

UNEP will now be cooperating with the International Police (Interpol) to help share information on wildlife crimes