New threat to Kenya hunt ban

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2010:
NAIROBI–A draft Wildlife Bill proposed to the Kenyan
parliament but not yet raised for debate would split the Kenya
Wildlife Service into three separate agencies–and ease the way for
reintroducing sport hunting to Kenya, after a 33-year hiatus,
charges African Network for Animal Welfare founder Josphat Ngonyo.
Kenyan wildlife policy formation would be done under the
Ministry for Wildlife, rather than within KWS under ministerial
authority. A new Kenya Wildlife Regulatory Authority would be
created to supervise wildlife management on private land. The
present Kenya Wildlife Service would contract to focus on managing
the 61 Kenyan national parks and wildlife reserves, conducting law
enforcement, and doing wildlife research.

The draft Wildlife Bill has received little media notice
since March 30, 2010, when Kenya Wildlife Service director Julius
Kpng’etich outlined the key provisions to The Nation, a leading
Nairobi newspaper. Efforts to repeal the sport hunting ban in effect
since 1977 have advanced by stealth before, backed by many of the
same private landholders.
In December 2004 a bill to revoke the hunting ban slipped
through the Kenyan parliament through a late night pre-holiday recess
voice vote. The bill was vetoed by Kenya president Mwai Kibaki
after Ngonyo, then heading Youth for Conservation, mobilized
last-minute opposition.
“The proposed Wildlife Regulatory Authority is another
consumptive utilization vehicle,” Ngonyo told ANIMAL PEOPLE. “One
of the ways it will raise funds for its operations is through issuing
licenses for wildlife harvesting and sale of game trophies. Of
course the more licenses they issue, the more the money they will
make! This regulatory authority came through back door,” Ngonyo
charged, “as it was not in the original document that the national
steering committee agreed upon. This was a committee of members
representing all stakeholders nationally, that I sat among,” Ngonyo
added.
“Local communities coexisting with wildlife in Kenya and
those of us in civil societies who speak for the animals and work
with those communities are immensely unhappy about this,” Ngonyo
continued. “Obviously our concerns have been ignored. We will be
consulting all the concerned stakeholders and the communities
involved to come up with a way forward.”