Kenya: The Association of Private and community Land Rhino Sanctuaries

The APLRS’s main roles are to coordinate security (anti-poaching) efforts between the Members, and to provide biological management of Laikipia County’s rhino population to achieve maximum growth and genetic diversity, thus contributing to the Recovery & Action Plan for the Black Rhino in Kenya 2022-26.

The APLRS has the following objectives:

• Conserve and manage all rhino on private and community lands in consultation and collaboration with the KWS
• Represent the private sector involved in the conservation and management of all rhinos on private and community land
• Provide secure land and offer security to all rhinos held on private and community land
• Fundraise, in consultation with KWS, for rhino management on private and community land
• Build capacity for rhino monitoring and security teams
• Offer advice on issues relating to rhino conservation and management to members of the Association
• Share logistical support among members
• Coordinate channelling of specific issues relating to rhino on private and community land to the Rhino Steering Committee

All APLRS areas are in insecure and banditry-prone areas where rhino poaching attempts had skyrocketed since 2009. This indiscriminate poaching was facilitated by excessive infiltration of ammunition from the neighbouring Somalia and intensified due to the increase in global demand for rhino horn to supply the demands in China and Viet Nam. This led to significant prices being paid to poachers to obtain the horn illegally. To curb poaching, each rhino sanctuary (and Kenyan national parks in general) has deployed additional resources, most notable being the employment of more rhino security and monitoring personnel, supply of vital equipment, machinery including vehicles and aircraft. They have also acquired tracker dogs to assist in the follow up of poachers.

More recently, the national rhino database, known as Kifaru (Swahili for ‘rhino’), has been overhauled to create useful reports at population and metapopulation level. Kifaru can generate monthly and annual status reports automatically, summarising the rhino populations’ growth rates, population structures, inter-calving intervals, male-female ratios, and animal body conditions. To maintain the data in Kifaru successfully and efficiently so that it can generate the correct data for managerial decisions, as well as to coordinate efforts across APLRS Members to implement the Recovery & Action Plan for the Black Rhino, an Administrator was hired. John Gitonga has undergone a series of on-the-job training courses and is now embarking on a Masters in data science at Strathmore University.

For the Recovery & Action Plan for the Black Rhino to be implemented successfully, effective partnerships between state, private and community sectors are essential. The Association itself is a mechanism that enables discussion and cooperation between various Kenyan rhino stakeholders, including sites, such as Loisaba and Segera Conservancies, that are in the process of applying to host rhinos on their land. Under the guidance of existing APLRS Members, these new guardians are required to improve their infrastructure and documentation to ensure that stringent site-selection criteria are met before any rhinos are translocated.

Thanks to funding from Save the Rhino’s donors, the APLRS also oversees a Black Rhino Emergency Fund, which reimburses APLRS Members with 50% of the costs incurred by a black rhino requiring emergency veterinary interventions. Such scenarios include treatment of individuals injured by poaching attempts or those inflicted during fights with dominant bulls; translocations of aggressive bulls to new areas; and recapturing individuals that have damaged a fence and escaped. At the end of December 2021, for example, a male black rhino needed to be sedated to treat an injured front limb suspected to have been inflicted in a fight with another rhino. Following treatment, the rhino made a full recovery.