The ViewFinder [WORST DROUGHT IN 70 YEARS][FILMING FEES IN THE MARA][FILM INCENTIVES IN THE BUDGET][HISTORY OF WILDLIFE FILM IN KENYA][CONNECTION] The drought continues to bite, hard. Hydro electric dams are the lowest they have been since 1949, before most of Kenya’s people were even born. Laikipia and all areas north have still received no rainfall, and most areas to the east and the whole of the rift valley are the same. Crops have failed, food is being imported and enormous numbers of people (now 10 million) are on famine relief. Recently there have been some showers in the west of the country, including some storms in the Mara, but the river is very low indeed and the spectacular wildebeest crossings have been a disappointment. There have been many reports of smaller animals such as Thomson’s Gazelle just walking across the river, hardly getting their feet wet. In Tsavo we are told there are only four hippo left in Mzima springs, normally home to a pod of about 16 animals. KWS have been feeding them with grass and molasses for six months, but animals are still dying in numbers. At last the government has woken up to the fact that the massive destruction of the Mau forest, the Aberdares forest, and the Mt Kenya forest can no longer be ignored. The three main water towers of the country are in serious trouble. Seven of the rivers in the Aberdares have dried up, four of the rivers feeding Lake Nakuru are dry. KWS have been bringing in water to troughs in Nakuru for five years, and yet no-one seemed to see this coming. No water is entering Lake Naivasha at all and we are told the lake will die within two months if rain does not fall. It has been easy to blame ‘climate change’ but the reality is that huge deforestation has caused this situation. Names of people with land in the Mau forest have been published, and the task now is to get everyone out, uproot the tea plantations, demolish the buildings, and effect a major tree-planting exercise. There are many political implications, and this will not be an easy exercise. But if it fails, the Mara
Wildebeest crossing the Mara river, which is barely a foot deep, photo by Sean Hartley, 2009 The country is being seriously rationed: in Nairobi we are without electricity for 12 hours, three days a week, and we only receive water two days a week. The government’s answer to this situation has been to drill 50 boreholes into the city’s dwindling water table, and – in a rare instance of “looking ahead” – to launch a major irrigation scheme. With little or no water in any of the rivers, it is hard to imagine the results being noticeable for some time. Following the Ministry of Local Government’s gazettement (putting into law) of new filming fees for the Narok County Council in June, we have consistently refused to pay US$3,000, $6,000 or $10,000 per week for film crews of 1-5, 6-20 and over 20 people. Our film crews over the last three months have been working on the other side of the reserve, or in the conservancies around it, where the filming fees range from Sh 15,000 to 20,000 per week for a crew of five. Long negotiations resulted in a one-off reduction for the Big Cat Ltd. film crew who are filming in the Mara until the end of 2010. This was a major step, and also created a precedent. Further negotiations have now resulted in written agreement that the same rate will be applied to small wildlife crews on the Narok side of the reserve. The agreed rate is higher than that charged by the surrounding areas, and we have pointed out that no documentary crew can afford to pay any more. The new rate for a crew of 1-5 is therefore KSh 30,000 per week, which at current exchange rates equates to US$400. In June we mentioned the Minister for Finance’s announcement that all camera and filming equipment entering Kenya would cease to attract Customs duty and VAT. You may remember the headline had a question mark at the end. We regret that the KRA are still charging 1% or Sh 30,000 on each crew’s equipment. It seems that Parliament has still not approved the Act, being otherwise occupied with the intense politics of sorting out the Mau forest, resettling people who are still displaced and living in tents, making a show of dealing with last years violence, pretending to deal with corruption, etc. We are trying to push for this incentive to be put into place as soon as possible. HISTORY OF WILDLIFE FILM IN KENYA Jean would like to thank all the many people all over the world who are trawling through their memories, books, collections of films and the internet to provide information for her book, whose working title is “Africa’s Big Five and other film makers”. The aim is to cover 100 years of wildlife films in Kenya, from 1909. Previous histories have been solid, academic works, and while these are very valuable indeed, Jean feels that a slightly lighter treatment of the subject is needed. Casting her critical eye over what has been written before, examining very old footage in detail, as well as delving into the lives of Kenya residents over the century, she feels that she can throw new light on those early days, and produce something that is different. Many hundreds of wildlife films have been made in this part of the world, probably more than in any other African country. Getting at old records is proving a problem, as many of them do not appear to have gone to the National Archive, but rather ‘disappeared’ or even destroyed. Progress is not as rapid as she would like, but that is because 78 film crews in 2008 and 50 so far in 2009 continue to demand constant attention. After all, Viewfinders are fixers, and fixing must come first. Please be patient. The long awaited fibre optic cable has arrived, and most internet servers in the country are now connected. The price has yet to go down, but the speeds are noticeably faster, though still not as good as we would like. There have been a few glitches during the switchover, but things are improving.
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