Abstract:
The rise in wildlife trafficking and trade is an alarming issue which has seen poaching of endangered species escalate. The black market in consumer countries like China, Japan and Thailand require urgent and immediate intervention since with the current levels of trade attracting lucrative prizes the local people will endeavor to do much illegality or abet the indiscriminately killing of the elephants and rhinos. Insecurity has thus heightened the challenges facing wildlife with militia groups like Al-Shabaab and al-Qaida taking control of the trade to fund their agendas. The study sought to examine the current status of elephant poaching and challenges facing implementation process of the three-prong initiative. The study adopted a survey research design technique. Hereby the population was divided into several strata based on the existing political boundaries and the administrative locations of the respondents. For each location, respondents were sampled randomly. The number of respondents selected were 102. For nonprobability sample, purposive sampling was used to select conservation officer that were interviewed. The research used questionnaires, interviews and observations as tools of extracting primary information. Quantitative data were analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS Version 20) and presented through bar charts, pie charts and tables. From the findings ,30.4% supported the use of increased surveillance has the most effective strategy towards the elephant conservation. However, more is needed to include the local people in implementation process. 31% also suggested that wildlife and livestock were having unfavorable competition. The study concludes that since elephants are keystone species, their conservation is imperative to all sectors of the economy more so to tourism industry. It therefore recommends that, the NGOs and other conservation agencies to do more in empowering communities’ socio-economically through development projects, more collaboration between Kenya and Tanzania within the Mara-Serengeti ecosystem that harbors transboundary resources, firm implementation of international conservation treaties, and enforcement relevant articles the Wildlife Conservation and management Act 2013.
