Started by arsonists, fires have swept through Kenya’s Great Rift valley, home to some of the world’s most treasured parks and millions of Kenyans already suffering from long-term drought.
According to the BBC, Kenya has mobilized 3,500 security personnel, including the national youth service, police, and forestry workers, to fight the fires. So far the government has announced that 11,370 acres of bush and forests have gone up in flames.
The fires have already had negative impacts on parks such as Masai Mara, Lake Nakuru, and even Serengetti National Park in Tanzania, expanding fears that the fires will greatly affect wildlife and endangered species. BBC reports that several marshbuck, or sitatunga antelope, have died due to the disaster.
Rangers have told media outlets that larger animals, like zebras, elephants, gazelles, giraffes, and buffaloes have been seen to outrun the fires, though they now face starvation. Furthermore, rangers fear that smaller species like rabbits, mongoose, baboons, and snakes will not be able to outrun the flames.
Recent reports from Reuters have focused on animals supposedly trapped in an extinct volcano crater by the fire on Mount Longmont.
The fire isn’t just affecting Kenyan wildlife: it has destroyed an estimated $800,000 US of crops like maize at a time when ten million Kenyan are at risk of hunger due to a prolonged drought.
Ten people have been arrested in connection with the arson. Though nothing is confirmed, it is thought that the fire may have been started by settlers upset with being removed from the Mau forest by the Kenyan government.
Related articles
Bushmeat hunting in Tanzania
(03/23/2009)
Bushmeat hunting constitutes the most immediate threat to wildlife populations in the Udzungwa Mountains of the Eastern Afromontane biodiversity hotspot in Tanzania. A new study, published in Tropical Conservation Science assesses the impact of hunting by comparing densities of mammalian species between the little hunted West Kilombero Scarp Forest Reserve, the medium-hunted Udzungwa Scarp Forest Reserve and the intensively hunted New Dabaga Ulangambi Forest Reserve.
Only one out of 91 antelope species is on the rise
(03/04/2009)
The springbok is the only antelope species whose population is on the rise, according to a new review by the Red List for the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). In addition, over a quarter of the antelopes, 25 species out of 91, are considered threatened with extinction. “Unsustainable harvesting, whether for food or traditional medicine, and human encroachment on their habitat are the main threats facing antelopes,” says Dr Philippe Chardonnet, Co-Chair of the IUCN Antelope Specialist Group.
How youth in Kenya’s largest slum created an organic farm
(12/09/2008)
Kibera is one of the world's largest slums, containing over a million people and 60 percent of Nairobi's population. With extremely crowded conditions, little sanitation, and an unemployment rate at 50 percent, residents of Kibera face not only abject poverty but also a large number of social ills, including drugs, alcoholism, rape, AIDS, water-borne diseases, and tensions between various Kenyan tribes.
Credits
