The illegal ivory trade is mostly fuelled by demand in Asia and the Middle East, where elephant tusks and rhinoceros horns are used to make ornaments and in traditional medicine.
While southern African nations are pushing for the legalisation of regulated ivory sales, the prominent conservationist warns them that Kenya’s struggling herds are a grim example of what they could soon face.
“The southern African countries should know one thing, the only thing standing between poachers and their herds is our elephants,” he said. “If they go, poachers will head south next en masse.”
Turning poachers into gamekeepers helps protect the wildlife, but with little money in the task and few employment opportunities elsewhere, there is always the temptation to return.
Joining Lokoloi on his patrols is 20-year-old Nicodemus Sampeere, happily noting that in the past few months they have “saved a few elephants already from direct danger from poachers, as well as those caught in snares.”
But despite being one of the few people here to complete high school, Sampeere despairs of finding a job.
“I am among the few educated people in my community but I cannot get a job even at the wildlife conservancies,” Sampeere said. “From childhood, elders always tell us never to harm wild animals but what options for survival do I have?”
Lokoloi, fresh back from his patrol, must head out searching for manual work in exchange for food for his family.
“It is hard, but I am determined to give back to a world I have taken so much from,” said the former poacher, who gives his tally of elephants killed only as “many”.
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