By Lina Mwamachi

• Establishment of crime courts in Uganda has helped clump down on poaching cases.
• Several poaching cases have been dealt with in Kenya and Uganda.
• Relations between stakeholders, agencies, donors, governments, communities and courts will help tame poaching and other environmental atrocities on wildlife.

“In my first ever ill mission to poach, I killed 25 dik dik and hid them in a cave that served as my home while in the wild” says Moses Mulu.

Poaching is illegal in Kenya neither is it a sport or game but a heinous environmental crime that poses a major threat to the wild animals’ populations whereby the country’s growth income through tourists attraction depend on their existence. In Kenya, elephants, rhinos, giraffes and other wild animals have continually been poached.

Non- governmental Organizations such as African Wildlife Foundation are tirelessly working towards ensuring safety for wild animals, through funding wildlife rangers with incentives, surveillance items, uniforms, vehicles and other important gadgets to enable them work efficiently, since their lives matter too.

According to Wildeye East Africa Oxpeckers data, poachers have been killed, wounded and some arrested and charged with illegal poaching in Kenya due to its escalation. However, in East African countries some poachers are quitting and transforming to become protectors instead.

Kilometers away from Voi town I meet Moses Mulu a 42 year’s old reformed poacher who hails from Marungu, a remote village in Voi, Taita Taveta County at the Kenyan coast. 

For 11 years Mulu made his sustenance from selling bushmeat and living a very risky and dreadful life. The father of four and husband to one wife boldly proclaims that he was that steady, brutal and fearless wildlife enemy. 

He has been in this business from 2006, with the help of black magic powers, which he says he got from a magician from the neighboring country Tanzania.

“While using the magical charms I would become invisible once I speak to the charms, depending on what I wanted to do and the police would pass me and not see me, so this trend stretched for 10 years, until I made up my mind to abandon the vice,” adds Mulu. 

In his narration Mulu cites that he almost died after attempting to kill an Elephant with a calf, and the mother elephant charged at him, almost taking his life.

Additionally, Mulu said he feared being killed because some of his colleagues had been killed, worrying that that might become his fate too.

However, Mulu decided to quit the business after 11 years and transformed for good after he narrowly escaped death, while his friends died from bullets.  

Now being a reformed poacher and conservationist he says, he would be six feet under if hadn’t quit the dangerous wild animals killing affair, something he says torments his mind every time he reminisces about the gross occurrences.

Quitting the cruel act was a self-motivated move and a sober decision Mulu made, on realizing it was doing more harm to him than good, so he embarked on job searching when he presented himself to Marungu Hill Conservancy with his applications. After further scrutiny and investigations, he was trained on matters of conservation and got employment where he now serves as a ranger, helping in pursuing other environmental criminals along the Tsavo National Parks.

Mulu cites that, besides being free he is met with a nexus of challenges ranging from poachers wanting to kill him because he leads the conservancy team to disorient their snares and arrest them. According to Mulu, he is always on check whenever he walks around. 

“He was a very bright and smart boy in class, but due to lack of school fees, Mulu dropped out of school in class 5 and began doing blue-collar jobs to earn a living, by and by he had a nose for quick cash through poaching and that is how he began” says Mwakuleghwa Neverson an eye witness.

“I barely had enough sleep for 11 years, since my husband was away most of the nights to poaching errands, I would panic and wonder if he was okay or dead, I would lose appetite for food until when he returned home, I was a lonely frightened woman” Says Neema Baya,  Mulu’s wife.

Neema, a mother of four children, narrates that she would panic and her heartbeat move fast every time she spots a police or forest patrol cruiser, along their home wondering whether they were looking for her husband.

Poaching does not only happen in Kenya alone but in East African countries” where wildlife thrives” including Tanzania, Rwanda and Uganda. It’s a global menace that is denying governments and environmental stakeholders sleep, thinking of innovations, tactics and ways to be employed to curb it, because as one trap succeeds poachers emerge with new ones thus escalating the poaching trends.

Julius Tumushabe, a 42-year-old male from the neighboring country Uganda, began poaching at age 14 when his dad introduced him to the dirty game of poaching.

“Lack of school fees, poverty and high cost of living forced me to remain home, while my peers went to school, so my dad introduced me to poaching. I began poaching small animals like gazelles and slowly I graduated to killing big wild animals like buffalos, and it became my daily errand” says Tumushabe.

In 2005, officers from Uganda Wildlife Authority UWA, issued a warning to poachers in Kasese to refrain from poaching or they would be gunned down. 

Thoughtfully and undecided, Tumushabe thought it was time to drop off the gloves from poaching, bearing in mind how his colleagues mercilessly suffered under the hands of wildlife officers. 

However, his change took long and in the midst, he got injured in the dirty duty, after he was neglected by his fellow poachers. Luckily, strange poachers unknown to him rescued him and that was his turning point.

Tumushabe is now a focal person for UWA together with others helping the authority to conserve animals and their environment from poachers and other crimes, as well as sensitizing the community through the Kameme Reformed Poachers group where he is a lead member on the importance of conservation.

The manager of Marungu Hill Sanctuary Taita Taveta County, Benard Mwakina, says that they have put working measures in place to tackle the poaching menace with the help of Mulu.

“Since Mulu joined us we have been able to arrest four poachers, rescued wild animals, and disintegrated snares in different sites. We are now looking forward to ending this menace” adds Mwakina.

Africa Wildlife Foundation AWF, is at the forefront of championing conservation efforts to save wild animals as well as fight poaching at the Tsavo National Parks in Taita Taveta – Kenya and Mkomazi in Tanzania. 

Amos Chege, a species Conservation officer at the AWF, says they are sensitizing communities to refrain from consuming bush meat and avoid poaching of animals, since it poses a lot of dangers despite the numerous challenges they are faced with.

“Poaching trends are attributed also to climate change, which leads to fighting for little available resources, like wild meat and trophies, for humans and water and other resources as food for the wild”, adds Chege.  

According to Traffic International East Africa, a leading non-governmental organization working on wildlife trade in both biodiversity conservation and sustainable development, in Arusha Tanzania, sensitizing communities on wildlife atrocities, will aid in transforming their behaviors in matters of conservation. 

Jane Shuma, a Behavior Change Manager at TRAFFIC, it’s very essential to engage communities in talks on wildlife poaching, bush meat, and diseases as well as indulging them in best ways of sustainable survival in these hard climate-changing and unpredictable times.

Benson Kasyoki, a Legal Officer overseeing AWF’s court monitoring program at the African Wildlife Foundation says lack of jobs, climate change and people seeking for fast cash, has stirred up poaching trends in Tsavo National parks.

Kasyoki also argues that poaching has escalated because poachers have scaled up their game with new technologies and tactics. Despite that, he also applauded efforts put by the judiciary along the Tsavo areas including Voi, Wundanyi, Taveta and others as well as the Mkomazi area to combat poaching.

AWF data shows that poaching has rocketed from 2020 till now while attributing climate change to the shoot-up. 

Kasyoki says 11 cases have been recorded in different courts from 2019 to 2022, while only 10 cases have been handled to the end, although many poaching cases are never recorded and reported.

“Nine percent of poaching cases were recorded in 2019, 61% in 2020 but, in 2021 the cases were reduced to 18% and the cases stand at 20% in 2022, with bush meat crimes on the rise” adds Kasyoki.

Read Also; Post Lockdown Poaching: A Threat to Conservation in Endowed Pearl of Africa

Data from Oxpeckers tool #WildEye East Africa, shows the trends on poaching cases, how and where arrests were made, which year and how did the cases push through, be it convictions, arrests, charges and more in different courts in the Tsavo National parks area in Taita Taveta and its environs.

Further, Data from Oxpeckers states that a special court established in Uganda, called the Standards, Utilities and Wildlife Court, was vital to the country’s economic development.

Nevertheless, in July 2020 and June 2021, the court handled 468 wildlife crime cases. According to information from the legal and corporate affairs department at the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA), 230 cases were concluded with 207 convictions, 20 dismissals, one acquittal, and two suspects were released on police bond (bail). However, 238 cases remained pending, with 179 due for further hearings.

Every single day poachers are indulging in new techniques which are escalating the vice while the culprits remain at large, mostly those poaching animals for bush meat.

However, coordination between community, conservation stakeholders, governments, judiciary and donors is much needed now, in order to stop the poaching menace in East Africa and globally.

This story was done by Lina Mwamachi with support from Internews Earth Journalism Network East Africa.