The Tourism and Wildlife Cabinet Secretary (CS), Najib Balala has launched a Task Force to come up with measures of mitigating compensations arising from human/wildlife conflicts.
The Task Force will be looking into ways in which the government and the private sector can collaborate in mitigating human/wildlife conflict through insurance schemes.
While launching the Task Force at his office on Monday, Balala said the government cannot single-handedly handle the huge number of compensation claims arising from human-wildlife conflict in the country.
He said, from 2013 to 2017, there were 14,000 claims, thereby stretching human-wildlife compensation to Ksh.10billion.
Currently, the government pays Ksh.5million for a single human death occasioned by wildlife, Ksh.3million for permanent injury that causes disability for life and a maximum of Ksh. 2million for any other compensation.
The CS said, the government was totally overwhelmed by the sheer number of claims because some people took advantage of the system to make fraudulent claims at the expense of the genuine cases, thereby, making it unmanageable and unsustainable.
The Terms of Reference for the Task Force include; providing recommendations on financing mechanism for suitable compensation schemes to include but not limited to government allocations.
It has also to recommend practical methods to mitigate human/wildlife conflict with a full 5-year financial plan, and explore ways of creating an independent human-wildlife Conflict Fund, among other recommendations.
All this, Balala said, was aimed at enabling co-existence between people and wildlife, particularly in free range wildlife areas.
“This was long overdue and I look forward to the completion of this work within the stipulated budget limits and time frame”, the CS said.
The 15- member Task Force, which is chaired by the Chief Administrative Secretary in the Ministry of Tourism and Wildlife, Joseph Boinett, has 30 working days to come up with the report and the implementation plan.
Other members of the Task Force include, Dr. Susan Koech, who is the Principal Secretary State Department for Wildlife and Dr. Julius Kipng’etich, a former director of Kenya Wildlife Service, among other members drawn from non-state conservationist organisations, Insurance Regulatory Authority, the insurance industry and the Ministry of Tourism and Wildlife.
By Kennedy Waziri
