Kenya

Nakuru Update The fungicide factory which has

threatened the habitat of more than one million flamingos at Lake Nakuru, Kenya is to be moved. The Kenyan Government has confirmed that a new site has been given to the firm in the "noxious area" of an industrial site at Chamgamwe, Mombasa. The factory has been told to move and it is antici- pated that this will take about 8 months.

As a result, the German Government has agreed to lift its suspension of a loan to Nakuru for the development of new sewage works.

The Kenyan Government is to com- pensate the factory for its move and a figure of approximately 4 million Kenyan shillings (U.S. $ 500,000) has been suggested. The amount of com- pensation is interesting considering that the company moved into its warehouse

Courtesy: WWF Switzerland Photo: Prof. U. Rahrn

Because the government has required a pesticide factory which could poison Lake Nakuru to move, these flamingos can return to their home in safety.

in Nakuru without declaring that it pro- posed to operate a munufacturing com- pany; that the company obtained a manufacturing licence after it had started business; the share capital of the company is two £ 1 (U.S. $ 2.50) shares

held by the two directors - the Kenyan Minister for Land and Settlement and the company's managing director; and that the original funding of £ 5,000 (U.S. $ 12,500) to operate the company was a loan from the bank. HM []

To ban hunting as a measure to conserve wildlife: Wisdom or Folly? by BERTRAND DES CLERS*

Children and sentimental old ladies have a. tendency to visualize nature as a sort of Disneyland where death and suffering have no place in a world of sweetness and innocence; such of course was Paradise, before Man's Sin brought about blood and murder; such would nature be again, if humans only left it alone.

Alas, the real world of nature is, like the human would, made up of life and death, and believe me, "natural" death is usually pretty horrible: the choice lies mainly between starving and being eaten alive; in this catalog, death by the hunter's gun appears as one of the most merciful alternatives.

But let us leave these philosophical considerations aside and take a hard look at the status of wildlife in the world today.

Talking in general terms, it can be said that wildlife and the wild places that support it are shrinking day by day,

*Director of the International Foundation for the Conservation of Game, based in Paris, France.

Environmental Policy and Law, 3 (1977)

as human pressure on the land is ever increasing. There are, however, two general exceptions in the developed world to this general decrease: both parasite and game species are increasing in number; the first category, because their habitat, which is made up of hu- mans' garbage dumps and other polluted and degraded ecosystems, is constantly broadening; the second category, be- cause hunters are constantly spending their time and contributing huge sums of money towards the management' of game populations.

In this day and age, the lesson is very clear indeed: humans' total dominance over nature and the ever increasing urge to improve for profit the productivity of the land leaves no room for "useless" wildlife or for "unproductive" wilder- ness areas; there are just luxuries for the very rich, provided they also still have vast unpopulated areas at their disposal.

In poor and developing countries, where demand for more land and more food is acute, the alternatives open to wildlife are clearcut: either be tolerated

because it provides meat or money to buy food for the local population...or... sooner lr later...go. All our noble speeches about our wildlife heritage, being kept intact for somebody's grand- children or for the world even, don't hold water to a man hungry for meat, which he just seeson the hoof, out of his reach; can we blame him ?

There are still a few African countries where poaching, at least in National Parks, is severely curtailed; there are many others where the central govern- ment does not have the strength, or the political will, to do much about it.

What about the impact of legitimate hunting ? What of the recent hunting ban decided by the Kenya authorities ? Will this measure help wildlife ?

These are the questions I will try to answer; but first a few words on the evolution of the status of wildlife in Kenya during the last few years.

When Kenya won its independence nearly fifteen years ago, the wealth of wildlife could be shown to the world as an example of what proper conservation

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