The first regional workshop by various wildlife stakeholders aimed at forming Kenya National Association of Conservancies to curb human-wildlife conflict was held at Nanyuki, Laikipia County.
This comes after a National workshop was held in Nairobi on August 23 this year which also drew various wildlife community conservancies and Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS).
The workshop’s agenda held at Sportsman Arms Hotel in Nanyuki town was to articulate wildlife policies in order to sensitize the community conservancies to manage wildlife in a better way.
According to Mrs. Munira Bashir, KWS Assistant Director for Community Enterprise Development, other East African countries like Tanzania and Uganda have no wildlife conservancies and Kenya is miles ahead as far as capacity building in wildlife conservation is concerned.
"This association will be geared towards solving issues of human-wildlife conflict and I urge the communitis living with wildlife to look at wildlife as an important asset but not a menace", said Mrs. Bashir.
She continued that more than 100 conservancies are involved in the workshop which is still expected to take place in other areas like Voi, Nakuru and Eldoret.
A wildlife conservationist based in Nakuru, Mr. Allan Earnshaw, said that there in need for uniformed high quality tourism in Kenya since tourism industry is one of the key pillars of vision 2030.
The wildlife managers said that after the regional workshops, a national one wil be held again in Nairobi so as to come up with an organised platform in wildlife conservation.
The Nature Conservancy Director Fred Kihara said that the association’s board members will be the community, adding that it will effectively perform its mandate in the forthcoming devolved government.
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