Governor Joseph Lenku has been irked by frequent jumbo attacks on humans and the invasion of farms in the Rombo area of Kajiado.
“I am deeply troubled by the continued destruction of food crops in farms and lose of human lives perpetrated by rogue jumbos in Rombo,” said Lenku.
For some years now, Lenku said on the telephone on Saturday from the United States of America, there has been an upsurge in human-wildlife conflict cases in the Kajiado South sub-county.
“The area has borne the brunt of countless invasions of farms by wildlife with rogue elephants destroying food crops and other private property,” he said.
Lenku was reacting to the killing of a two-year-old baby in Rombo eight days ago when Jumbos attacked a woman carrying the baby on her back.
After the attack, morans converged the following day on Saturday and killed three elephants in revenge.
Lenku told Kenya Wildlife Service to keep their animals in the parks to put a halt to the ongoing attacks on humans and the destruction of food crops.
“The loss of any human is truly heartbreaking. I feel the pain of my people. It is painful to lose human beings to wildlife in an area where we know the importance of the tourism sector in our county's economic well-being,” said the governor.
Lenku said incidents, like the jumbos killing people and destroying property, undermine all the conservation efforts that the county has made together with the people and disrupt the delicate balance of the region’s ecosystems.
“The devastation the attacks have left on their trail has, understandably so, irked the local community, which has been forced to express its anger through retaliation attacks,” he said.
This is yet another vote of no confidence in the way the KWS has handled the human-wildlife conflicts in the County, added Lenku.
He said despite the patience of his Kajiado people, hundreds of claims from human/wildlife conflicts worth millions of shillings lie unpaid at KWS.
“Regular engagements with the Ministry of Tourism and Wildlife have bore negligible results on this front,” said Lenku.
He called out the KWS for endangering the Kajiado people's lives by making the lives of the animals more important than those of human beings.
KWS must keep its animals away from our farms, he said, adding that his people should also restrain from killing elephants.
“We are working with the relevant authorities to find sustainable solutions that promote harmonious coexistence between humans and wildlife,” Lenku said.
In the meantime, Lenku said, he has asked the KWS to urgently work towards removing problematic elephants from the area and devise ways of responding on time whenever a distress call is made.
