THE VIEWFINDER

NEWSLETTER: ISSUE NO 32, JUNE 2003

[New Website] [New Hope for Kenya] [KWS News] [New STD area codes] [Weather] [Work Front]

 

KENYA'S AFFAIRS

Poor Kenya. We really do not deserve such bad press. In May the Minister for Internal Security told the world that it was thought that a suspected Al Qaeda terrorist might be hiding in Kenya, and that there was therefore a possible threat of terror attacks. This caused major panic worldwide, with British Airways immediately stopping all flights to Kenya. They were followed by the Israeli airline, El Al, and several countries issued travel warnings to their citizens, including Germany and Australia. As a result, many tourists cancelled their holidays and others postponed their visits. One coast hotel alone has received cancellations up to September worth US$500,000. It is calculated that the country is losing over a million US dollars a day in tourist and cargo revenue. Filmmakers are not normally of a nervous disposition, and our clients have continued to trickle in, though very slowly. One or two postponed their trips by a few days because of uncertainties raised by their insurance companies, but we have not received any outright cancellations. Business has picked up very slightly in May, but we are still down on previous years by something like 60%, which is very worrying. We have, however, just about managed to keep afloat with the arrival of a film crew from China. Six people arrived initially, and were joined by another fourteen from other countries all over Africa. The cultural and linguistic challenges presented by these people caused many headaches and much laughter, but they survived - and so did we. There has been a lot of press coverage about the first circumnavigation of the world by a Chinese eunuch in the 15th Century, so we are now receiving enquiries about a possible group of people on the coast who claim to be descended from shipwrecked Chinese sailors. Apparently they weren't all eunuchs…

OBITUARIES

PAUL KABOCHI, the well-known Kenyan naturalist and small animal handler, was tragically trampled to death by an elephant in the Taita area in February. He was working for a film crew at the time, as he had done many times before. Steve Turner, Paul's employer for the last seventeen years once said, "Paul's intuitive understanding of the natural world really was extraordinary", and there are many filmmakers who would agree with that. The accident happened on Paul's 61st birthday.

MICHAELA DENIS, or rather Lady Michaela Denis Lindsay, passed away on 4th May at the age of 89 at her home in Nairobi. To film historians, she and her late husband Armand were pioneers in wildlife filming even before television came into vogue in the 1950s. Their programmes "On Safari" started some of today's wildlife cameramen on their road into the business. Des & Jen Bartlett, Alan Root, Simon Trevor, Bob Campbell and the late Hugo van Lawick started their filming careers working with Armand and Michaela.

DARWIN SCHOLARSHIP

It has been announced that the filmmakers' favourite Warden, William Kimosop of Lake Bogoria, has won a top UK scholarship for conservation. Run by the UK Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the scholarship is funded by the Darwin Initiative, and will give William access to facilities and expertise in British institutions for up to a year. The course will include researching forest elephants in Gabon and endangered plants on the Galapagos Islands. Other winners are from Gabon, Colombia, Ecuador and Ethiopia. We congratulate William on this very well deserved award. He will start in September 2003.

William Kimosop

MAJOR CHANGES IN KENYA WILDLIFE SERVICE

Towards the end of May, the conservation world was shaken by an announcement that the popular Director of KWS, Michael Wamithi, had been suspended. It was announced that John Waithaka would take over in an acting capacity. The next day it was announced that yet another person, Joseph Mutie, from the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources had been installed as acting director, and the whereabouts of John Waithaka were unknown. It was also stated that Michael and an Assistant Director for Security, Mr Bashir, had been sent on compulsory leave. During the same week Richard Leakey and the Chairman of the EA Wildlife Society, Ali Kaka, spoke to the press about a major conservation fund that they are trying to organise for the entire region. It seems that the Government thinks such a fund should be organised by them rather than by private enterprise. Another former director of KWS, David Western, also made a statement saying that the idea of the fund was not new, and had originally been intended to benefit KWS rather than all the East African states. Statements from the new Chairman of KWS, Colin Church seem to have been ignored by the Ministry, and at the time of writing the state of impasse continues.

NAIROBI NATIONAL PARK IN TROUBLE

An alarm call for one of the country's oldest national parks is being sounded. We attach a somewhat graphic description of the situation, and think you will agree that the situation is tragic. One suggestion that has come up is that the park should be fenced, to keep both the lions and their prey inside the boundaries, but this is an extremely expensive option. Until now, a corridor on the southern boundary has been kept open to allow for natural migration, but the animals are straying out and coming into conflict with the ever-increasing number of people who live just outside the park. It has also been suggested that additional supplies of prey animals should be imported from other areas, so that the lions have plenty to eat without having to search further afield.

Click City's Lions face extermination

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