LAIKIPIA WILDLIFE FORUM

West Laikipia Fence Project

Monthly Report
October 2008

Nyumba T O
LAIKIPIA WILDLIFE FORUM

ROYAL NETHERLANDS EMBASSY

LAIKIPIA ELEPHANT PROJECT

Contents
Introduction........................................................................................................................................................1
Fence sections and committees..........................................................................................................................1
Ex-Erok..........................................................................................................................................................1
Mutara............................................................................................................................................................1
Laikipia West Nature Conservancy ...............................................................................................................2
Lombala, Ngorare and Kifuko .......................................................................................................................3
Fence monitoring and data collection.................................................................................................................3
Monitoring data .............................................................................................................................................3
TXT group SMS system.................................................................................................................................3
Data enumeration...........................................................................................................................................4
Fence breakage data.......................................................................................................................................4
Challenges..........................................................................................................................................................7
Ngorare..........................................................................................................................................................7
Mutara, Pesi, Ex-Rok.....................................................................................................................................7
Recommendations..............................................................................................................................................7

List of Tables
Table 1: Porcelain end connector requirements by property..............................................................................3
Table 2: Fence breakages and crop raids............................................................................................................4

List of Figures
Figure 1: Distribution of fence breakage incidents.............................................................................................5

Introduction
This report is based on the field work carried out in October 2008. During the month, the following
sites were visited Mutara, Ex-rok, Pesi, Lariak, Mwenje, Olmoran, Kifuko, Lombala, Ngorare,
Rumuruti and Marmanet some of which already have fences up and running to deter elephants. Each
of these sites had unique HEC issues that extended to human-human conflicts in a few areas.
During the fieldwork it was noted that the KWS was instrumental in HEC response especially in
Mutara Pesi and Ex-rok areas but ignored Lariak area. Some farmers were oblivious of their roles
and responsibilities in the fence project while those who did, lacked critical knowledge and
information in the fence and its management. The fencers in Mutara are improving on data
collection but still require constant re training and supervision. Fence upgrade in Mutara and
Mwenje (LNC) is frustratingly slow.
Overall the fence committees are not fully cohesive with members from the communities feeling
disempowered to comment or enforce maintenance. The private properties are keen on the success of
the fence project but some are reluctant to engage the community in the management process.
Generally, there is a shift in HEC occurrence to the Ex-rok and Pesi fence sections. The management
of the HEC situation require concerted efforts from all stakeholders in the District.
Fence sections and committees
Ex-Erok
The Ex-rok fence section is continuously breached by elephants along the Nyaguthi and Military
sections. This is attributed to:
1. Shorting of the fence by herders claimed to be complete outsiders but with the consent of
ADC employees. ADC management have yet to respond to this allegation. The herders do
not bother to replace the widened sections and the fence remains without current allowing the
elephants to break through at night.
2. Lack of cooperation between the fencers and the community members living along the fence.
This is reflected in the poor response of fencers to community reports of fence breakages.
The community feel they have little stake in enforcing fence maintenance.
3. Shorting by the overgrown vegetation especially on the ADC side of the fence line. This,
from a discussion with the fencers, is attributed to lack of adequate labour. The fencers are
only two on each 20km section (see map below) of the fence and are expected to do fence
maintenance (replacing posts and breached fences, clearing the vegetation and patrolling the
fence). While the community is willing to do the work, access to the ADC side of the fence is
restricted by the fence itself and the management regulations. The ADC is stretched in terms
of labour provision and hence unable to assign more personnel to the fence maintenance.

Mutara
The upgrade on the 5 kilometre fence section between the danglers on the Rumuruti-Nanyuki road
and Mutara HQ gate at ADC is progressing at a snails pace but the workmanship is up to the
standard. The major concern is that the number of persons assigned the work is too few (3-4 persons/

day) which has lead to the slow pace. Following a meeting between the LWF Fence Officer and the
ADC fence officer Mr. Mark Chepkwony, the number of the persons to the fence upgrade work
would be increased as from Monday 21st, October, 2008 to six persons/day. It is envisaged this will
ensure the fence is finished by the end of October 2008 up to the Lower danglers.
The fencers are unanimous on the need to reconfigure pressure points along the fence especially at
the Pesi and Ex-rok sections to reduce breakages. Based on the experiences with the 5km section
from the ADC main gate to the lower danglers, they hope the outriggers are likely to reduce the
frequent breakages along the above areas.

Pesi
The Pesi fence section is under threat both from the pastoralist community and the farmers
themselves both directly and indirectly. In addition, members of the fence committee do not live
close to the fence and therefore are not able to monitor the status of the fence on a daily basis. In
contrast, the Mutara fence committee is representative and includes individuals within close
proximity to the fence. The following issues have emerged along the Pesi section that undermines
fence performance:
1. The committee members are unaware of the performance of the fence and members have no
idea who else sits in that committee.
2. The pastoralist community is not represented in the fence committee and are actively
opposed to modifications to the fence that would ensure limited access to the ADC pasture.
Similarly, where they have access, the pastoralists do not care to use the right entry places
hence continued breaching of the fence and viewing the fence as a barrier to their activities.
It is possible that their inclusion in the committee will provide a platform to actively engage
them in the process of fence maintenance through awareness creation.
3. It is surprising that a few months after the fence is up and working, many farmers in Pesi
have tremendously expanded their farms to as close as 1metre away from the fence line. This
has offered attraction to elephants, further causing breakages to the fence.
Laikipia West Nature Conservancy
As previously planned, the LNC neighbouring community (Mwenje) have cleared the whole fence
section marked for upgrade. However, the LNC management has not made meaningful progress on
the fence upgrade. During a telephone meeting with Mike, I learnt that they were overwhelmed by
the fact that crops in the neighbouring farms were ready for harvesting and offered great attraction to
elephants and hence extensive damage to the newly erected fences. He thus suggested continued
patrol to deter elephants until the crops are out of the way, then they will ensure the section is
completed before the next season. A meeting is tentatively scheduled for 14th November to include,
The LWF CLO, LEP scout and the LNC representative to discuss this in depth and get the famers
aware of this strategy.

Lombala, Ngorare and Kifuko

Lombala, Ngorare and ADC ranches have run out of porcelain end connectors (table 1). It is
important that these are provided to ensure fences adhere to the required standards. However, Kifuko
ranch has actively taken up fence maintenance activities a notch higher by adding an extra energizer
and maximizing the power output on the original energizer. The Kifuko section of the fence now has
an output of 10Kv and is 7 Stranded. It is important to note that the management plans to extend the
existing fence line to enclose Kifuko Ranch entirely with a view to excluding all wildlife, including
elephants. .
Property

Quantity required

ADC Mutara

400

Lombala

200

Ngorare

200

Table 1: Porcelain end connector requirements by property.

Ngurare Farm has a major constraint in dealing with the pastoralist community. This was witnessed
by the way pastoralists cut the plastic insulators to release the wires which they then widen to allow
access into the ranch. Secondly, the ranch is concerned about the escalating insecurity which inhibits
fence patrols as it is now common to encounter armed herdsmen along the fence who tend to
violently resist attempts to stop any fence breaching. This calls for a wider consultation and perhaps
involvement of the provincial administration since the local community may not be able to handle
the pastoralists effectively.
Fence monitoring and data collection
Monitoring data
The post labelling system has greatly improved fence monitoring as both the fencer and scouts are
able to exactly record the breached location or fence section (ref; August/July report). It is envisaged
that this will greatly enhance the response of the KWS in cases where fences are/about to be broken
by elephants. At Kifuko, The management has embarked on the labelling expected to be finished by
the end of October, 2008.
TXT group SMS system
Two mobile phones were handed to the ADC management for distribution to the fencers to improve
communication between the energizer house, fence patrols, the KWS and the LEP scouts. However,
ADC is yet to sign a commitment to provide calling credit, supervise the use and maintenance to the
phones hence they are yet to be released to the fencers. So far a group SMS for the team of mobile
phone users has been set up as LEP1 which includes the LWF fence officer, Ex-erok Scout, Mutara
Scout, Pesi Scout, two ADC fencer teams and the KWS at Mutara. It is envisaged the new tXt
(GroupSMS) system will improve response and communication along the fence line. In the long
term, the SMS system will be integrated with the Frontline SMS programme to archive the SMS
communication and allow for analysis. Training and pre-testing of this data collection system is
planned for November-December 2008.
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Data enumeration
To ensure high quality and accurate data on crop raids, fence breakages and voltages, the fence
monitoring scouts, especially in ADC Mutara, were retrained in a meeting on 12th October, 2008 at
Mutara. The following people attended; Life, Githaiga and Wachira (ADC Mutara) and Wanjau,
Wahome and Mbuguru (LEP Scouts). One way to ensure consistency is to provide the responsible
elephant scouts with voltmeters to carry out [discreet] back up/follow-up measurements during daily
HEC monitoring. This has been discussed with Anthony King and an LPO will be prepared through
the LWF office to purchase five (5) voltmeters to supply the fence officer and the following scouts:
David Wanjau-Mutara
Joseph Wahome- Ex.erok
Nelson Mbuguru-Pesi
James Lobenyoi-Lombala/Ngurare.
Fence breakage data
The charts, tables and figures below illustrate the distribution and intensity of fence breakage
incidents between August and September.
Fence Section
Ex-erok
Mutara
Pesi
Kifuko
Lombala
Ngurare
Mwenje
Olmoran

August
Fence breakages
17
6
13
4
1
1
14
10

Crop raids
56
14
11
0
0
0
36
60

September
Breakages
Crop raids
17
14
10
0
1
1
2
0

Table 2: Fence breakages and crop raids

a) August incidents

b) September incidents

Chart 1: Fence breakages and crop raids

47
7
36
0
0
0
6
0

a) September incidents

b) August incidents

Figure 1: Distribution of fence breakage incidents

Challenges
Ngorare
Lying in the out spans between farmers and pastoralists, Ngorare Ranch fence section is
greatly threatened by conflicting interest groups, this is further exacerbated by the rising
insecurity and availability of arms among the pastoralists. Indeed as Mr. David (of Ngorare)
observes, it is even more risky now to confront the herders than to stop the elephants from
breaking through. He further cites lack of interest by the local administration in handling the
security situation. Mr. David has suggested a community meeting to reintroduce the idea to
the farmers and reengage them in the process. He is concerned that the long delay of the
phase two may result in lack of interest by the initially formed committee. The LWF CLO,
Mr. Kahindi has been instrumental in encouraging community interest, however he cites the
low population of permanent residents as a problem because it is not clear who can be
encouraged to be permanently engaged in fence management.
Mutara, Pesi, Ex-Rok
Due to lack of night fence patrols in this area, many farmers have resorted to self servicing of
the fence whenever they are broken and the fencers are out of sight. Famers in Pesi have
expanded their crop areas to very close to the fence without any buffer vegetation which
could encourage fence-breaking behaviour among the resident elephants.
While ADC management have made commitments on paper to support fence maintenance,
they are at times slow to respond to shortage of materials reported by their own fencers. In
the course of this month for example, the Mutara-Pesi river fence section remained without
post replacements for more than two weeks despite the KWS Rumuruti waiting for the posts
to be collected. Similarly, there seems to be a shortage of fencers and no backups during
employee leaves resulting in an inability to complete the breached fence sections in time.
Recommendations
1. Regular training should be provided to all the technical individuals engaged in fence
monitoring and maintenance to ensure they are adapting to new challenges and
opportunities in relation to the fence management.
2. Similarly, there is need to provide some basic training on the fence maintenance and
temporary replacement in lieu of the fencers notice, to the front line farmers along the
fence line. This should be well planned to include follow-ups and continued
engagement and participation in regular community awareness meetings. It is
envisaged that this will eventually bridge the gap between participation, ownership
and management of the fence.
3. Engage the LEP drama group in community meetings and awareness campaigns to
enhance awareness. The drama group should however be transformed to be more
strategic, relevant and exiting as opposed to being a routine event. It is envisaged that
the drama has the potential to challenge widely held beliefs and hard positions of
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stakeholders through satire and sarcasm without raising tempers especially where
conflicting interest persists along the fences.
4. Kifuko Ranch needs to be encouraged to embrace the need to strengthen communityranch relationship for the longer-term success of the fencing project.
5. There is need to encourage exchange between fence committees, scouts and fencers
through exchange visits and meetings to share experiences, challenges and
opportunities aimed at enhancing cohesion, understanding and effectiveness.
6. I have noted with concern that LWF CLOs have criticised the fence project design,
implementation and monitoring during meetings with local communities and
important LWF stakeholders. This is undermining the west Laikipia fence project in a
number of ways and needs to be addressed at a senior management level.
7. The LWF should ensure CLOs avoid sending mixed signals to the project
beneficiaries. There is a clear need to ensure that criticisms/concerns over the west
Laikipia fence are directed to the relevant project officers for action and where
possible any action taken by the CLOs should be documented for follow ups. It is
envisaged, this will ensure the LWF is not seen as taking sides but fostering unity
among all stake holders while observing its principles and policies.