Rupi Mangat
14 July 2008
Nairobi — WHEN I VISITED MERU NATIONAL Park for the first time at the turn of the new millennium, it seemed like a ghost town - if the expression can be used for one of Kenya's premier parks today.
It had gone through a devastating era of poaching that was evidence of a complete breakdown of law and order in the area. The only animals remaining were a few herds of frightened elephants that hid at the slightest sound, antelopes and the elusive cats that had somehow managed to escape the bullets. Only one black rhino remained - Makora - who passed away last year due to old age. He became the flagship for peace after he was brought back from the private ranch where he was taken for safety.
Not only were there scarcely any animals left but the infrastructure was in complete shambles. The park headquarters was in ruins, the patrol vehicles were either bullet ridden or unroadworthy, the roads barely passable and just a handful of rangers with little more than a gun to guard the park. The only lodge in the park at that time, Meru Mulika, shut down, bringing tourism to a grinding halt. Meru National Park seemed to have become the poachers' playground.
Yet, this is the park that was immortalised in the Born Free series shown on TV and the film screened across the globe. It was safe enough in the sixties for the legendary Joy Adamson to bring Elsa the lioness and later Pippa the cheetah to the wild because it had the space and a diverse landscape full of rivers, grass plains, woodlands and rock kopjes. Tourists went there to see Elsa's home and the big game country where elephants, rhinos and the big cats were in plenty.
But then came the poaching era in the seventies, which was to last for almost two decades before any semblance of law and order returned. The demand for ivory and rhino horn soared, mainly because the Middle East was experiencing an oil boom. The demand for daggers with rhino horn handles soared as the disposable income increased in these countries. Traditionally, the dagger worn by men of means as a sign of prestige was more accessible.
And in the Far East, the use of rhino horn to make medicine increased - claims of its valuable properties for curing anything from fever to being used as an aphrodisiac made it a much sought after commodity. Ivory or white gold has always been popular for carvings and other uses in Eastern countries. With such lucrative markets internationally, men in the remote drylands found it easier to become poachers. Conservation had no value.
The alarm call came when 10 of the 12 black rhinos in the park were shot by poachers in just one incident. Something had to be done. Worldwide, conservationists were alarmed at the fast rate of the demise of the black rhino and the African elephants - both mega-herbivores populations were dangerously low - the total population of black rhinos in Kenya was less than 300 from a high of 20,000 two decades ago. The elephant population was below 20,000 from a high of 100,000 in that time span. Without them, there would be no tourist industry to speak of - one of Kenya's top foreign-exchange earners.
FORTUNATELY, WITH FUNDING FROM DOnors such as the International Fund for Animal Welfare and Born Free Kenya Wildlife Service, the custodians of the country's wildlife, began work in earnest to revamp the forgotten park.
Today, the tarmac ends at the park's entrance through the newly built Murera gate. The gate office is modern and bigger, fitted with communication gadgets and a secure environment for rangers to work in. The main roads in the park have been graded smooth and the main ones fitted with signposts.
Within a few minutes of entry into the park, we come across a herd of elephants close to the road with little ones suckling. On my first visit almost a decade ago, we had spotted a frightened herd of elephants, which quickly scampered back into the bushes. That was the only sighting of them for the next two days. Apart from elephants, I saw one male Greater Kudu, a few antelopes on the plains and no cats. But I got to visit Makora in the newly established rhino sanctuary.
Next on the list is a beautiful herd of reticulated giraffes wearing their finely-patterned coats from which comes their name. By the time we arrive at the recently renovated Kinna Bandas by the river that carries the same name, it is already dark. The caretaker brings out the lanterns and we have the log fire on. He has just one warning - not to stray off the pathways or walk in the dark. There are lions around. And to prove it, although we don't see them, we hear them roar every night.
"Meru National Park has had the largest translocation of animals in the world," explains senior warden Robert Njue sitting by the Kinna River. "Over a period of five years, 1,750 animals were translocated here.
"The park is thriving and in the next three years, we want to see the same number of tourists who visit Maasai Mara coming here because this park has more to offer. We have night game drives, catch and release fishing, nature walks, visits to the neighbouring communities and more. Visitors will be able to go to the other national parks and reserves bordering Meru National Park (870 square kilometres) such as Kora National Park (1,787 square kilometres), Bisanadi National Reserve (606 square kilometres) and Mwingi National Reserve (745 square kilometres). They will also visit the diverse communities living around it such as the Borana, Orma, Meru and the Tharaka. Adamson's Falls on the border of Kora and Meru is also a good sight to visit.
"When the park collapsed in the eighties, the woodland vegetation increased because there were no elephants to open it," Njue adds.
In the absence of the elephants, which open forest and bush for the smaller animals like the Thomson Gazelles and impalas, much of the land had reverted to forest and bushland.
HOWEVER, WITH A TOTAL population of 700 elephants in Meru currently and with a huge area to roam, the sequence of forest, bush and grasslands will be re-established, giving the smaller cats like the cheetah space to hunt in the open plains. Elephants cannot be fenced into a small area because it means that eventually the area will become degraded because they need to eat throughout the day to maintain their body mass.
The other option is to either shoot excess numbers or translocate them elsewhere. However, both are impractical as elephant family herds are as complex as human family structures and getting rid of some of the family members contributes to dysfunctional families.
Translocation is also a dangerous and expensive operation and for it to succeed, it requires looking for a place with the space and conditions for the elephants, whether moving the old solitary bull or the entire herd, Njue explains.
For the moment, the woodlands have to be manipulated by fire to open them for the grazers.
"But we're building water dams by the woodlands because elephants are attracted to water and so they will begin the process of opening up the woodlands.
"We have several monitoring programmes in place now," continues Njue. "There's the monitoring of translocated elephants, managing the densities of tsetse flies so that they do not affect the rhinos, and a lion study to establish the predator-prey relationships. We know that there are 13 prides of lions in Meru National Park and 30 lions have been positively identified."
It is a bit of a management concern that with the new arrivals such as the impalas and the gazelles, the lions may be having a feeding bonanza and hence the need to monitor them in case they overhunt the new stock.
"We have put in a proposal for a full fledged research centre in the park," Njue explains after a brief pause. "We need a water quality laboratory, GIS station and a herbarium."
At this point, there is an environmental centre for schools and other visitors by the main gate complete with a library, audio-visual equipment, an amphitheatre in the shade of the raffia trees and the Murera River flowing past. Bus loads of school groups visit the park on a weekly basis from towns and villages close to the park.
Meru conservation area is one of the most diverse in Kenya not only in terms of wildlife - we saw a cheetah on the morning game drive, leopard and many more smaller wild cats and hyenas on the night game drive - but also in terms of landscapes and people.
There are more than 14 rivers - mostly originating from the Nyambene hills in the distance - which flow through the park. They include Kenya's longest river, the Tana, which forms the boundary between Kora and Meru National Parks and where the Adamson Falls are. Wide stretches of grasslands interspersed with tall doum palms reach the woodlands thick with scrub and trees of the drylands like the gigantic tamarind, baobab and paper bark trees.
Surrounding the Meru conservation area are diverse communities like the agro-pastoralist Borana and Orma as well as farmers like the Meru and Tharaka.
Ironically, security in the region has brought in dilemmas such as increased settlements by the water sources. The present water levels in the rivers are the lowest since the bad bandit days. The rivers are now monitored and community projects established to sustain the rivers.
"We have community projects like agro-forestry that involve the local people in planting trees in the water catchment areas and fencing them off keeping away livestock. This is a project that the communities identified. Basically, the message we are putting across is that the environment can offer a future through tourism. There is no need to destroy it. It is a market for ventures like culture," observes the senior warden.
Later in the day, we drive to Gabo Dida, a small Borana village five kilometres from the park's boundary.
The Borana are agro-pastorlaists who move with their livestock in search of greener pastures. The Malka Cultural Group entertains us with folk songs depicting their way of life, such as the wedding song, the elephant song, the ostrich song and a game played by the men to battle the cattle and the camels.
The Borana, just like the Orma, are Cushitic, having come from the East, down through Somalia and into Kenya. I can't help but notice how their features are so Asiatic and their sense of dressing too with the men wearing turbans. In the livestock game, the loser has to take off his turban and hand it over to the opponent, just like in Eastern tradition. The dances could be straight from the villages in north India.
"2007 was our most successful year," says the man at the helm proudly. "We had four white rhinos who gave birth. One of them is named after my daughter Britany. Another one is named after KWS director Dr Julius Kipng'etich and people who have adopted the rhinos by giving a donation. We have 17 black rhinos and the rest are white. We are now in the process of expanding the rhino sanctuary to three times its present range, which will make it 120 square kilometres."
AT 140 SQUARE KILOMETR-es, it will be just a little smaller than the Nairobi National Park.
"We have not had a poaching incident in the past six years," says Njue. "We have regular training programmes and security in the park. Even the communities bordering the park have radio communication with us.
"We have 120 new staff quarters at the Murera gate and six at every other gate. With the improved infrastructure we are able to cover a larger area than before. Even with the instability in Somalia we have had no incident."
Later in the day we make our way to Elsa's to see the secret grave where Joy Adamson's ashes were scattered. It is at the far reaches of the Ura River bordering the Tharaka community. The neat rows of farmed land on the other side of the river are in stark contrast to the park's wild vegetation.
Meru National Park as a whole seems to attract few visitors; for three days we only came across one tourist van. We lost our way to the camp but close to 8 pm, we were rescued by rangers flashing their torches very close to the Adamson Falls on the Tana.
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