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{
    "id": 358171,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/358171/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 104,
    "type": "other",
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    "speaker": null,
    "content": "Unless we change that perception that conservation is preservation; unless we stop funding and looking at conservation as making fences around our national parks and giving the best firearms to our rangers and ensuring that they are able to fight the poachers instead of engaging the communities to prevent that poaching, we will not able to make the progress that is required in that sector. Hon. Deputy Speaker, so, I want us, as Kenyans, and especially as hon. Members, to know that the Wildlife Bill is yet to come to this House. Many of you will be invited to stakeholder forums by interested parties who want us to remain a preservation conservation State instead of a sustainable use conservation State. So, hon. Members, I would like you to note that if somebody wants to help us and wants you to support a more retrogressive approach that involves doing fencing instead of increasing the number of penalties and the amount of compensation that KWS needs to pay the residents when their crops or animals are destroyed, then we will remain where we were in the 1960s. I am sure we will not go far and we will still have more poaching. We will not make progress, Hon. Deputy Speaker, so, as I support this Motion, I know that there is an amendment that is being sought by hon. Chachu Ganya to increase the penalties and which we will support. Of course, as noted by hon. Wario, we have now moved to allowing death penalty suspects to get bail. So, it will be impossible to do that but, more importantly, I would urge that we go into a comprehensive review of the wildlife sector rather than this piecemeal approach of just dealing with the penalties in the sector. That way, we will deal with this mindset issue of preservation and move it to conservation. That mindset issue is not only going to affect and improve our conservation of wildlife, but it will also go the same way to improve our conservation of water towers and the habitats where our wildlife lives. On that note, I am talking about the approach that previous governments have been taking towards the conservation of water towers such as the Mau. As we play hide and seek with our farmers in the Mau by removing them and allowing them back to the forest, we are basically playing the same preservation tactics that the forest should be there and no sustainable use should be done. No partnership should be there between the communities living around the forest and water towers. So, in essence, the conservation sector in Kenya needs to change to help the poor policies that encourage our population to conserve our natural resources without having to employ - as the hon. Chachu is demanding - more rangers and giving them more sophisticated equipment. If you went to hon. Wario’s constituency and allowed the communities around the Kora National Park to benefit financially from both the animals and the fees to the parks and be able to use resources in a sustainable manner and not be arrested kiholela holela as it is said, they will have more incentives to report the poachers. That is because the poachers in that region are their brothers and sisters. In all the national parks, you cannot access an area if the community around that area does not give you a blind eye. Having said that, I wish to support this Motion and assure the hon. Member that his amendment and any comprehensive action towards the Wildlife Bill will be supported by the Departmental Committee on Environment and Natural Resources. With those few remarks, I beg to support."
}