NAIROBI, Kenya (PAMACC News) - The leopard population in Kenya’s Nairobi National Park is on the decline due to what scientists think is disturbance of their migratory corridors. A seven year study has found out that encroachment of the leopard’s migration corridor is restraining the female to venture out to look for a male. This disrupts their mating cycles.For instance, the study, conservation biology for the leopards in Kenya, says a male leopard needs to control a terrain of about 100 square kilometers.The Nairobi national park, which hosts about 17 leopards is 117 square kilometers big. This means only a single male can control this territory, explains Yumi Yamane, a guest researcher at Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS).“It can lead to violent confrontation for females and territory among the males leaving them severely wounded,” explains Yamane. “This can affect their mating ability.”But the leopard also likes to live in secrecy and explore its territory under the cover of the bush, she says.“This means the female leopard cannot go out to look for a mating partner because the migratory corridor has been disturbed by infrastructure development,” argues Yamane.According to the researcher, Nairobi national park is a very important habitat for the leopard because it likes to perch on trees.But huge infrastructural projects in road, railway and housing have led to the felling of trees within the leopards’ migratory corridor to pave way for construction.“Leopards like to perch and move around where there is plenty of tree cover,” argues Yumi. “If the migratory corridor is disturbed then their numbers will decline very soon.” KWS officials say they are trying to solve the problem by relocating the Nairobi leopard into other habitats like Meru national park.However, this is proving difficult because the newcomers must fight for acceptance in the new habitat.Oftentimes, the bullied cats stray into communities leading to increased human-wildlife conflict, argues Geoffrey Bundotich, an official at the Meru national park.“The communities are against the re-introduction of leopards from other parks because the cats often move and resettle outside the parks,” explains Bundotich.It is a challenge that KWS is grappling with, and according to Yamane, there is no solution in sight since the leopard is very difficult to monitor.However, Edin Kara, KWS officer in charge of parks and reserves, says the important thing is continued monitoring to find out how the re-introduced animals can be able to adopt.

NAKURU, Kenya (PAMACC News) – Many Counties in North Eastern Kenya, Eastern and Coastal region are currently staring at starvation right in the face, as residents drop dead due to famine caused by the ongoing dry spell.The country is already going through power rationing due to the reduced amount of water used for geothermal power generation, as the sun burns with vengeance across the entire country.It is for such reasons that Egerton University, one of the major training institutions in Africa has convened am international conference, and climate change and variations are to be among the main topics to be discussed. The conference that will run from 29th-31st March 2017 at the university’s main campus in Njoro-Nakuru County will also discuss natural resources as well as health and environment under a main theme “Knowledge and Innovation for Social and Economic Development.”The chair of the conference committee who is also the university’s Deputy Director in charge of Research and Extension says the above subthemes have been inspired by the need to address climate change as “a developmental threat that will affect agriculture and the economy.”While looking forward to presentations on climate change adaptation and mitigation during the conference, among others, Bockline Bebe, a Professor of Livestock Production says as that Kenya should lead the way in providing solutions to climate change, given that it hosts the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).This is not the first time that the University, known for agriculture, is including the above subthemes that directly touch on climate change in the conference. However, Dr. Gilbert Obwoyere the Dean Faculty of Environment and Natural Resource Development (FERD), enough attention has not been given to the phenomenon that has caused havoc in many parts of the world. Dr Obwoyere says, however, there is need to also focus on the positive attributes of climate change apart from just looking at it from a negative perspective.“For instance areas that had too much rainfall will receive little (or perhaps, manageable) rainfall,” he points out while citing out “food security, infrastructure and growing economies” and their relation to climate change as three of the most urgent areas that need to be researched on.Like Dr. Obwoyere, Peter Macharia a Nakuru based Consultant on environmental issues agrees that there exists a gap on climate change research.For him there is need to research on the relationship between economics and demographics on matters that influence climate change, among other issues.“What pushes people to subdivide land for example when it has a direct impact on climate change,” he points out.There has been an intensified debate at the international level on matters of climate change in the recent past. While Kenya has always been part of this debate it has gone ahead to even pass a specific law on climate change.The law, Climate Change Act (2016) “provides for a regulatoryframework for enhanced response to climatechange; to provide for mechanism and measures toachieve low carbon climate development.” It aims at integrating climate change response mechanisms at both the national and…

PAMACC News - Partners of the Congo Basin Forest, which holds the second-largest bank of rainforest on the planet after the Amazon in South America are seeking to make conservation activities generate income that will help protect forests, fight against climate change and poverty in the region amidst increasing threats.Experts say the use of conservation to create environment friendly investments that generate profit and ensure economic sustainability will help keep extractive industries and large scale palm oil plantations that threatens the Congo Basin Forest at bay.“If we want to protect the Congo Basin Forest, we must make conservation pay and generate the necessary income to put food on the table for our survival and for the future of our children,” says Praven Moman,founder and CEO of Volcanoes Safari, Rwanda.He said investing in tourism with conservation travel products, safari and ecotourism including hospiltality, accommodation, guiding and logistics activities around the Congo Basin Forest will keep the forest resources and ecosystem intact, fight against climate change while at the same time generating income through employment of the local forest communities.He cited the case of Gorilla Park of Virungas in Kahuzi Biega in DRC, Wester Forest Park and Gorrilas in Gabon, the Republic of Congo, Central Africa and Cameroon, the Forest elephants in Cameroon and the Ba’ka pygmies in the forest communities of Cameroon as concrete examples of tourist attractions beckoning for investors to sustain the economy of the Congo Basin region and protect the forest from destruction.According to the Congo Basin Forest Partnership, CBFP, only about 13 percent of the about 300 million hectares of the forest is protected leaving large spans of the rich forest vulnerable and threatened by invading agro-industries and mining investors.The partners also emphasized on the need to invest in the education of forest communities on the importance of conservation.The local forest communities are key drivers to protection of natural resources and thus the need to be empowered in readiness to conservation challenges says Manfred Epanda, AWF Coordinator in Cameroon.The forest expert say investment in educating the local communities on the importance of conservation was also key to drive the sustainable forest management agenda.In a paper presented at a side event at the Congo Basin Forest Partnership meeting in Kigali November 22, 2016, Epanda emphasised on the need to adequately sensitize and educate the local population on the importance of conservation to their wellbeing.“Studies by the AWF has shown the direct relationship between the level of education of the population and attitudes towards conservation and the fight against climate change,” he said.One of the major outcome of the Kigali Congo Basin Forest Partnership was the reinforcement of public/private partnerships to attract private investors into the conservation projects in the region. Government officials from Congo Basin countries who attended the high-level pannel and the CBFP council meeting admitted that working with the private sector to promote investments in the tourism sector with National Parks and wildlife conservation areas will give a big push to conservation efforts both at national…

NAIROBI, Kenya (PAMACC News) - Majority of Kenyans still prefer consuming ‘dirty’ fuel like charcoal and kerosene despite the country having made advances in clean energy access.A new report says clean fuel technologies like the energy saving cook stoves have been successfully taken up by Kenyans, but more than 84 per cent of households still cling to traditional biomass for cooking and heating.According to the 2016 poor people’s energy outlook report, 69 per cent of Kenyans use firewood, while 13 per cent prefer using charcoal.This is exposing Kenyans to poor health, where over 15,000 deaths have been linked to household air pollution annually, says the report by Practical Action, an international development agency that lobbies for universal energy access.“Women are the most affected by indoor pollution since they are responsible for domestic chores,” says Lydia Muchiri, the senior advisor on gender and energy at Practical Action, East Africa. Presently, about 2.25 million Kenyans own an improved cook stove, but the poorest segments of the community still prefer using the traditional three stones set and charcoal for cooking, the study found.It links this trend to inability of the poor to afford clean energy technologies, even when some like cook stoves are subsidized by NGOs and development agencies.“Fuel should be free, cheap or easy to obtain, while cooking solutions should not cause health problems,” says the report.The Advocacy for Gender and Energy in Kenya (AGEK) lobby says the government should concentrate in creating micro and mini energy grids in rural areas to enable the poor access.For instance, the report says focusing on traditional grids to power Kenya is a waste of time and money because these connections mostly serve factories and big enterprises. “Mini and micro energy grids provide more reliable power than national grids currently do, and would be speedily deployable, swinging the balance to favour rural economies,” argues Francis Muchiri, the communication and knowledge management officer at AGEK.They can also accelerate enterprises in rural areas if Kenyans can access energy to power businesses in telecommunications, construction and agriculture, adds Muchiri.Kenya has committed to reach the 80 per cent target for energy generation through renewables.The Kenya Country Action Plan (CAP) targets the adoption of five million cookstoves by 2020. It predicts that with the same level of uptake, 58 per cent of households will be using improved cookstoves by 2030.