Association of Private Land Rhino Sanctuaries, Kenya

 

Species: Black (Diceros bicornis michaeli) and White (Ceratotherium simum simum)
Project leader: Geoffrey Chege, Association of Private Land Rhino Sanctuaries (APLRS)
Activities: Anti-poaching and monitoring

In April 2007, the EAZA Rhino Campaign awarded a grant of 15,000 euros to the APLRS for its Rhino Security and Intelligence Claim Scheme. This will allow the APLRS to publicise the Scheme more widely, providing funding for five years or more.

The aim of the Scheme is to enhance the security and monitoring of rhinos in Kenya’s private rhino sanctuaries by increasing the motivation and morale of security personnel through cash incentives. This is backed up by informer information that leads to arrests and the recovery of firearms and illegal equipment used to poach rhino. All APLRS members are located in security risk and banditry-prone areas, and hence they employ additional security personnel for extra vigilance, in order to offer maximum security and monitoring of black and white rhinos, to prevent poaching for their horn.

Since receiving the grant, considerable intelligence information has been gathered by credible informer networks and respective sanctuaries management, pointing to elaborate poaching plans by organised gangs targeting specific APLRS areas.

The general poaching threat was exacerbated by tension that gripped the entire country in the run-up to, and immediately after, the general election of December 2007. There was a lot of movement of firearms in the open by pastoralist communities that led to a number of bloody and fatal inter-tribal attacks among the warring communities. Unfortunately, most of the APLRS areas are located in the pastoralist strongholds and near to towns known to be transit routes for illegal horns and ivory. During this period, APLRS personnel had no alternative but to increase their patrol routines to secure their respective areas as well as intensify informer networks.

At the beginning of 2008, a new wave of rhino poaching incidences was witnessed; one black rhino was shot at night and horns removed in one member area. In February heightened intelligence gathering was instituted in collaboration with the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS). As a result of this intelligence network, combined with several covert manoeuvres, in March, four suspects believed to have been the culprits of the February poaching were arrested. They were later released on bail pending further investigation, in accordance with Kenyan law.

At the height of the post-election violence in March 2008, increased informer networks led to a night ambush resulting to the arrest of one poacher inside the fenceline of one member area. The second poacher managed to escape. The men had poisoned arrows, a pot of potent poison and six steel cable snares. Information gathered from the arrested poacher indicated that the poaching gang was the same as that targeting the Laikipia rhino sanctuaries, connected to one dealer who has for long been linked to poaching incidences in the region. This particular dealer had promised to pay each poacher a whopping KSh 200,000 (£1,600) for every horn delivered to him. If such information is true, then it explains the levels of risk that poachers go to, in order to poach rhinos in some of the most heavily guarded rhino sanctuaries in the country.

Other than the above few incidents, a lot of other intelligence information were gathered in the one year of this project all indicating the vulnerability of rhinos in the entire country.

Very recent information from proven informers shows that value of horn and ivory has increased dramatically. This has been indirectly linked to a company from the Far East that is currently constructing the highway from Isiolo to Marsabit, which may be creating a link in the chain from poacher to end user. To counter this, the informer network system has been extensively expanded, and the APLRS has been forced to revise upwards the value of intelligence claim payouts.

Nevertheless, in spite of these threats, APLRS areas have continued to play a significant role in rhino conservation in Kenya. 46% and 69% of black and white rhinos respectively are currently found on private land. This has been achieved over time through individual and collaborative institutionalisation of several counter-measures that fortunately were boosted by the grant from the EAZA Rhino Campaign.

Geoffrey Chege
Chairman
Association of Private Land Rhino Sanctuaries (APLRS), Kenya