• A joint surveillance team, founded in 2010, provides a platform where the local community is actively involved in conservation efforts.
• The unit patrols the forest and the 400 km fence, curbing illegal activities that threaten forest integrity, de-snaring and monitoring tree degeneration.
Illegal activities that once threatened the integrity of the Aberdare ecosystem have been thwarted by a large extent. https://bit.ly/3vVnLjb
Image: GILBERT KOECH
Illegal activities that once threatened the integrity of the Aberdare ecosystem have been thwarted by a large extent.
A joint surveillance team, founded in 2010, provides a platform where the local community is actively involved in conservation efforts.
The unit patrols the forest and the 400km fence, curbing illegal activities that threaten forest integrity, de-snaring and monitoring tree degeneration.
The Aberdare Joint Surveillance Unit is a partnership between Rhino Ark, the Kenya Wildlife Service and Kenya Forest Service.
Mercy Nyambura is the only woman in the seven member surveillance team.
She says her work is to protect. “I have worked here for 12 years. Conservation is a calling. You do not look at the amount you are earning.”
Image: GILBERT KOECH
Nyambura joined the team after undergoing interviews that tested her capabilities.
She says her work is not a friendly game as it has challenges.
Nyambura was born adjacent to the forest. Their crops used to be raided by wildlife.
Afterwards, a local conservation NGO, Rhino Ark, put up a 400km electric fence.
The fence is meant to help resolve multiple challenges facing the Aberdare Range ecosystem.
The challenges included poaching, bush-meat hunting, snaring, illegal logging, charcoal burning and encroachment.
These activities, by the 1980s had almost decimated the population of critically endangered black rhinos.
At the same time, regular crop damage by wildlife, especially elephant, was a major problem for farmers residing next to the Aberdare protected areas.
Encounters between farmers and wildlife occasionally led to human fatalities and served to heighten tensions between humans and wildlife.
The construction of the fence began in 1989 and was completed in August 2009.
Today, in spite of the dramatic decrease in black rhino numbers, the ecosystem still holds a small and genetically viable population of native black rhino. This is largely due to the fence.
To maintain the fence in good working condition, a team of fence scouts based in “Fence Energiser Stations” patrol the fence line daily to carry out maintenance work.
The project was funded by Rhino Ark and the Kenya government while KWS oversaw the construction work.
Nyambura says at one point during the elephant’s census, they noticed some smoke.
“We moved towards that direction and we found people cooking. They had dogs and the dogs came after us. The 15 dogs were killed but the criminals escaped,” she says.
Every time Nyambura and her team go out for patrols, they are accompanied by armed officers.
The patrols start at the wee hours, sometimes from 5am.
The troops are normally guided by coordinates sent by aerial teams detecting illegal activities.
When they get the coordinates, the surveillance team gets ready, armed with GPS.
However, the GPS sometimes places the point of illegal activities 20kms away. This means that they have to get prepared.
Image: GILBERT KOECH
Nyambura says there was an incident where suspects who were armed with spears, pangas and knives had slaughtered a buffalo.
She says natural resources do not belong to the government but Kenyans.
“If we continue destroying them, we will suffer the consequences, such as lack of water.”
She said magistrates should consider the challenges that those protecting natural resources go through, while dealing with cases.
“If they are told that the suspect was found with two logs of red cedar, to them that is not a big deal,” she says.
Nyambura says the magistrates should be taken for patrols so that they get firsthand experience of what they do and the criminal activities inside the forests.
“When one cuts red cedar, it will take several years for such species to mature,” she says.
Nyambura says suspects have been upping their game when it comes to use of technology.
She says they too have their informers. “They may sometimes change their timings when they get wind of our patrols.”
To beat the criminals in their own game, the surveillance team has enlisted the services of a former logger and poacher.
Before joining the surveillance team, John Mugo, used to give law enforcers sleepless nights.
Born and brought up in the Western side of Aberdare, Mugo knows the area inside out.
But when construction of the electric fence started, Mugo was part of the team that provided services.
He has since then been raising awareness on the need to jealously guard natural resources.
He is now part of the surveillance team and able to earn a decent livelihood.
During patrols, Mugo provides his team with the much needed insights on how they previously used to poach and the methods used.
They can for instance follow their foot prints to the point they find them flat footed.
Mugo has 12 years experience working with the surveillance team. He said illegal activities have reduced.
The Aberdare electric fence has also factored in a corridor to connect Aberdare and Kipipiri where the elephants come to give birth.
Some of the posts used to make the fence are made of plastics from green houses in Naivasha.
Plastic posts, unlike wooden ones, do not break when an elephant pushes. They bend before swinging back to its original position.
The power that runs through the fence is 5,900 volts, enough to repel elephants.
Rhino Ark fence and community manager Adam Mwangi says they provide the joint surveillance team with training, a patrol vehicle, cameras and hand-held GPS units to strengthen their field work.
Mwangi who is also in charge of all Rhino Ark activities in Aberdare ecosystem, says they have seen an increase in terms of number of arrests and discovery of tools used in undertaking illegal activities.
“By and large, the cases of illegal activities are going down because people know that there are so many eyes watching,” he says.
Mwangi says the team can remove more than 15 snares in a day. He says they have plans to broaden the team.
“We want to have two units of AJSCU operating in Aberdare. Those will be good opportunities for the selected few that will be successful,” he says.
Mwangi says his organisation has been keen to work with the community through organised groups such as Community Forest Association or Community Based Organisation.
When we are opening a new track in forest, we source labour from people who are friendly, he says.
Mwangi says the benefits of the electric fence have been immense.
He says the ecosystem must be protected at all costs as it provides immense opportunities such as sport fishing, hiking and waterfalls.
The water falls include Kina-ini (6 meters), Magura (25 meters) Chania (26 meters), Queens cave (23 meters) and Gura (30 meters).
Karuru waterfall is the longest (894 feet) occurring in three steps of 383 ft, 84 ft, and 427 ft (i.e. 273m long with steps of 116.74 m, 25.6 m and 130.15 m).
(Edited by Bilha Makokha)