HELL FOR VULTURES IN HELLS GATE NATIONAL PARK

Last year I made a personal decision to focus on positive conservation stories and to tell them through my the Wildlife Warriors TV series that I create and host. I went to a community that lives atop a cloud forest clad mountain and swam in pristine waters and laughed out loud when tiny fish tickled my feet with their teethy nibbling. I waked with elephants through the thorn bush and over rocky outcrops with an extraordinary Samburu woman, Dorothy, who gave up a job in the city to be a baby elephant nanny. In Loisaba I visited the home of a grandmother and watched her welcome home her grandson with a gourd of smoke flavoured milk. She never liked his conservation career, after all her husband was killed by an elephant. But he has become Kenya’s top leopard researcher who discovered the black panther two years before photos released by a British photographer became world-wide sensation. I rode a motorbike holding a bag of snakes, milked a camel, dived with turtles in the warm Indian Ocean, and I hiked with warriors to find lions. I want to give my fellow Kenyans and Africans, a sense of awe and wonder at our magnificent wildlife heritage that we have inherited. After screening the series in classrooms across the country, I camped for 6 days with 116 school children and introduced them to the heroes of the films, then let them loose to explore, discover and experience nature for themselves.

The need for positive storytelling about wildlife was initially because the press were consistently presenting wildlife in a negative light, as threats, killers, a menace or pest. But now, a year later, after more than 25 million Kenyans have watched the series, the importance of conservation awareness has been taken to a whole new level.

On February 14th, 2020, a music festival, dubbed Koroga Love Festival, is planned for one of Kenya’s smallest and most fragile national Parks, the Hells Gate National Park. Located near Naivasha town in the Great Rift Valley, Hells Gate is renowned for majestic scenery, and towering cliffs which are the homes for critically endangered vultures. More recently, it has been in the news for tragedies, the deaths of tourists hiking in the canyons who were carried away by a flash flood.

Hells gate has been on the receiving end of a lot of abuse lately. In 2018 a developer began constructing a massive amusement park, right below the vulture colony on the main wall, though with the full knowledge of the Kenya Wildlife Service, who manage the park, the development was being conducted with apparently no permits. It took the new Cabinet Secretary for Tourism and wildlife, Hon. Najib Balala to fly in by helicopter to shut it down. I tipped him off. As questions were asked and the sh*t hit the fan, a senior officer in KWS threatened me for exposing the development (did they really think that nobody would notice??). Anyway, some staff at KWS were interdicted, some were transferred and the half built project was abandoned, nothing was done to the developer who was clearly doing an illegal construction. It looks like there were no real consequences. I thin that this is why people keep pushing the limits on conservation areas.

The Hells Gate has also been at the center of the development of geothermal energy – on the one hand Kenya has proclaimed this the source of pride in green energy – but it has come at the expense of the conservation objectives – especially where it concerns the vultures. Four of five species breeding there have already been extirpated, abandoning their nests due to noise, disturbance, and water that occasionally gets poured, boiling hot, over the cliffs and onto nests that are estimated to be hundreds of years old (vultures continue breeding in the same nests for generations). Now, these cliffs are home to the only breeding colony of the critically endangered Ruppells Vulture, the Hells Gate National Park could not be more important to Kenya’s vulture conservation efforts. 

Hells Gate is also the end point of the new Standard Guaged Railway – which famously ploughed deliberately through Tsavo East and Nairobi National Parks, despite alternative routes being possible, sending a blindingly clear message that conservation has no fundamental value in Kenya.

Now, the train will ferry thousands of revelers, to Hells gate for a music festival to be hosted on Valentines Day. The Koroga Love Festival will host 15,000 revelers in what has become a notoriously noisy, drunken event. From a Kenyan perspective, a nature park, owned and respected by the people of Kenya, is being abused by a private company, Capital FM, that stands to make a lot of money, in partnership with an agency, KWS, whose primary job is to protect nature (!). It is wrong on so many levels. Not only did KWS endorse the crazy idea, but they have issued a statement stating, Why would KWS

So, much as I want to celebrate the amazing wild heritage of my country, I find myself fighting for it. There are many tweeps who either don’t understand or don’t care about Hells Gate and just want a big party. I understand that. But the fact is, the party does not need to be in the park. It’s still a party when it’s anywhere else. Most people however, have only just discovered how important Hells Gate is as a result of this controversy. In a poll only 16 percent of people think the festival should go on in Hells Gate. Eighty percent say move the venue. Many people are very angry, not only because they felt duped, of all people, KWS should not have allowed the festival to take place in the park, they are even angrier that KWS is fighting to defend that position by stating that they have held other events with not impact. Well it is true that they have held other events, but it is not true that these events have had no impact. Four species of vultures have abandoned breeding at Hells Gate. This is the only protected breeding site of the Ruppells Vulture - All efforts should be redoubled to secure the breeding of these vultures and that means leaving them in peace.

I’ve written a polite note to the DG of KWS to beg him to change the venue. Here’s my letter.

Brig. John Waweru

Director General

Kenya Wildlife Service

Nairobi

Kenya

29 December 2019

Dear Sir

CONCERNS ABOUT HOLDING KOROGA FESTIVAL IN HELLS GATE NATIONAL PARK

I am writing out of grave concern, having learned about the planned Karoga Festival that is scheduled to take place in Hell’s Gate National Park on February 14th of 2020 – in two months time. As you may know, Hell’s Gate was initially gazetted as a National Park for two reasons - spectacular geological scenery, and more significantly, it’s high density and diversity of birds of prey:

-         Hell’s Gate contains the only protected breeding colony of Critically Endangered (IUCN) Ruppell’s Vultures in Kenya, numbering between 20-25 cliff nest ledges. This species has declined by 80% over the last 20 years, and only nests on cliffs. Vultures are the most threatened group of vertebrates on the planet.

-         The longest known nest site of Verreauxs’ Eagles in Central Kenya.

-         A major foraging area for migrant raptors coming from the Palaearctic.

-         Several nesting pairs of Lanner Falcons, Augur Buzzards, African Harrier Hawks – which all use the cliffs to nest on.

-         A foraging area for endangered or threatened resident raptors like Martial Eagles, African Hawk Eagles, Secretary Birds amongst others.

-         A key stronghold for regionally declining Mackinder’s Eagle Owls, an afro-alpine cliff specialist.

-         The cliffs also provide nesting crags for millions of swifts of several species, as well as specialised birds that are only found on or near such cliffs.

It has been said that expected attendance will be at least 15,000 people over the course of two days, multiple stages and DJs with loud music throughout the night for 2 nights, and the production of significant litter, as well as potential fire risks.  Our concerns over the potential disturbance that will be caused by this festival regarding these sensitive species’ is well founded – human activity can and does result in nest site abandonment, and a reduction in annual offspring produced per nest rates. Plains game such as zebras, warthog and giraffe will temporarily relocate, but a nesting raptor cannot move an active nest site, especially if on a cliff face. They must constantly be attended to ensure the survival of any eggs and chicks. The anticipated noise level can result in substantial long-term negative effects on the now fragile raptor community within the park. A EIA with raptor experts input should reveal this effectively.

Alternative sites are very possible – only 11% of the country’s land area is protected, and this begs the question why such destructive activities are allowed in our smallest, most specialised park. There are ample hotels, campsites and ranches around Naivasha that can adequately host such an event, whilst still generating income for KWS and their management budget.

We implore you to consider moving this festival to a more suitable venue that will not result in further damaging our already stressed and declining wildlife. Hell’s Gate has weathered much abuse over the past decade – weddings, concerts, jazz festivals, wheelbarrow races, and geothermal activity expansion. Its value is misunderstood and underappreciated, and such abuse must to stop.

On behalf of thousands of Kenyan Wildlife Warriors, and the staff of WildlifeDirect

Yours sincerely,

Dr. Paula Kahumbu - CEO-WildlifeDirect (Kenya)

[email protected]