Environment CS Judi Wakhungu has said the ministry may not be able to pay snakebite victims Sh1.5 billion compensation.
She said loopholes in the Wildlife Act have made it difficult to compensate victims of wildlife attacks and amendments are long overdue.
"The issue of injury by wildlife is in the law but we want to remove snakebites because many people get bitten by snakes, even from their own compounds or houses," she said on Friday.
"If you look at the schedule of the number of claims, the highest number is for snakebites. Somebody can say they have been bitten by a snake; how do you prove it?"
She spoke at KWS headquarters during the launch of a report titled 'State of Wildlife Conservation Kenya 2016'.
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The CS said of the Sh1.5 billion, the ministry has only received Sh250 million since 2015 for compensation.
"I have only ever received Sh250 million from the [National] Treasury. We paid Sh5 million for loss of lives for each case."
Wakhungu said the ministry has concentrated on compensation for lives lost in human-wildlife conflicts, adding that she doubts it will be allocated more funds.
"We need to amend the law because of the realities. We do not want to give communities the false impression that they are going to be paid," she added.
Director of wildlife conservation Stephen Manengene said 62 per cent of claims received between 2014 and 2016 have arisen from snakebites.
He said 274 cases were approved, with each taking Sh5 million.
Section 25 of the Wildlife Management and Conservation Act, 2013 stipulated that in the case of death, Sh5 million is paid to beneficiaries.
Cases of injury resulting in permanent disability will be compensated Sh3 million according to the Act.
Other injuries receive a maximum of Sh2 million depending on their extent.
Previously, compensation for deaths was Sh200,000 while a maximum of Sh50,000 was given to injured persons.
To date, the ministry has received 13,000 general claims from across the country.
Wakhungu said that currently, the ministry is unable to compensate for crop damage. But in proposed amendments to the law, communities may be compensated with grain.
"Instead of communities coming to us and saying 'I have lost maize worth Sh 2 million', we will do the analysis and see how much maize they have lost and compensate them with grain," she said.
"So if I come to your farm and see you have two acres, we will
assess the size of the crop to know what you lost and we give you the equivalent. We are calling this the 'crop for crop' approach," she said.
Wakhungu said they were also trying to come up with an insurance scheme for people living with wildlife.
"It is an experiment but other parts of the world have done it. We are currently studying the concept to see how we can adopt it."