Kajiado Governor Joseph Ole Lenku, together with county senator Samuel Seki, have urged Kajiado residents to stop killing elephants.
In his statement to the people after three elephants were killed in Rombo, Kajiado South, after one attacked a woman and killed her two-year-old baby, Ole Lenku said that he is engaging with the relevant authorities to find sustainable solutions that promote harmonious coexistence between humans and wildlife.
He said that through the killings, the people have made their point of anger at the negligence of Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) in protecting human lives, but they must also think of the consequences.
“In the meantime, we have asked the KWS to urgently work towards removing problematic elephants from the area and devise ways of responding on time whenever a distress call is made.” read part of the statement.
At the same time, the governor also called out KWS, saying that they have often endangered the lives of Kajiado residents by holding the lives of animals more important than those of human beings.
Ole Lenku noted that it is painful to lose human beings to wildlife, especially in Kajiado, where the importance of the tourism sector in the county’s economic wellbeing is well known.
He said that incidents involving human life undermine all the conservation efforts that the county has made together with the Tourism sector and disrupt the delicate balance of ecosystems.
He added that for some years now, there has been an upsurge in human-wildlife cases in Kajiado, where the area has borne the brunt of countless invasions of farms by wildlife where rogue elephants destroy food crops and other private properties and this has irked the local community, forcing them to express their anger through retaliation attacks.
“Despite the patience of our people, hundreds of claims worth millions of shillings lie unpaid at KWS and regular engagements with the Ministry of Tourism and Wildlife have borne negligible results on this front. We all need each other in this ecosystem. Our people must be protected and KWS must keep its animals away from our farms,” read his statement.
Senator Samuel Seki also reiterated Governor Lenku’s remarks and appealed to the people to stop killing wild animals as they organised meetings with all stakeholders in the conservation sector.
Seki added that the people are tired of the unending destruction and it is shameful that there are organisations collecting enormous funds from the wildlife resources from donors but doing nothing for the community.
By Diana Meneto
