Ladies and gentlemen,

Mabibi na mabwana,

Hamjambo!

Habari zenu!

I thank the Kenya Wildlife Service, Narok county government, and all the other conservation champions here today for inviting me to participate in this great occasion.  This is an extraordinary day because not only are we celebrating World Wildlife Day, but we are also celebrating Africa Environment Day and Wangari Maathai day.

World Wildlife Day is a day that calls for all of us to come together and celebrate our shared natural heritage.  During this one day every year the world takes pause to appreciate its magnificent animals.

Of course, Kenya celebrates Wildlife Day every day.  Kenyans are tied to their land and national heritage; both because of this country’s world famous wildlife that helps to drive the economy, and because of the thousands of citizens, households, and communities that depend on natural resources for their livelihoods.

But today we are also reminded of the needless slaughter of wildlife, particularly elephants and rhinos.  We are reminded of the rangers that risk their lives every day fighting to protect wildlife.

Nowhere is the theme of this year’s World Wildlife Day, “The future of wildlife is in our hands,” illustrated more vividly than here in Narok. We are at the gateway to one of the world’s most iconic wildlife refuges, the Maasai Mara. At the same time, this area faces many challenges in terms of human-wildlife conflict, wildlife poaching, and encroachment into protected areas.  In Narok, and all over Kenya, we can see that these are shared problems, and that solving this crisis requires coordinated action.

2015 was an incredible year for protecting wildlife and raising awareness around the world about the need to preserve and protect not just Kenya’s, but the world’s wildlife heritage.

For last year’s World Wildlife Day I was with many of you at the Ivory Burn site at Nairobi National Park and we all were inspired by President Kenyatta’s moving speech about the need to preserve wildlife and his commitment to burn Kenya’s remaining ivory stockpiles.

The eyes of the world were on Kenya, but they didn’t see all that we did in 2015 to protect Kenya’s wildlife, and for that, we all need to do a better job of getting the message out and I am confident that 2016 will be another amazing year of action to protect not just elephants and rhinos, but all of Kenya’s extraordinary animals, plants, and ecosystems.

And we’ve already started!  From the amazing visit of United States Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell to the Great Grevy’s Rally in northern Kenya to the new series of wildlife films being shown on Kenya TV, we are already off to a great start! This year, Kenya has already seen a remarkable reduction in poaching rates thanks to the strong action taken by the Government of Kenya and this country’s incredibly dynamic conservation community.

I am encouraged and excited to be participating in the Giants Club Summit at the Mount Kenya Safari Club in April, and to once again join President Kenyatta and all of you when Kenya again burns its ivory stockpiles.  The whole world will be watching and the message that ivory and rhino horn have no commercial value will be sent through a giant smoke signal for the entire world to see.

We all know that the Kenya Wildlife Service is entrusted to protect Kenya’s wildlife.  KWS’s brave rangers put their lives on the line every day and we recognize and applaud their efforts and the brave sacrifices that they make.  KWS will be the first to tell you that they cannot do the job alone.  And that is why we must work together to engage communities to see wildlife’s value, not just for themselves but for the world’s future generations.

What I am also looking forward to in 2016 is an even greater collaboration with KWS and the greater Kenya conservation community.  I am thrilled that my old friend, Kitili Mbathi, has been chosen to lead this great organization and I know that he has all of our support as he leads KWS into an exciting new phase under his leadership.

For over 20 years the U.S. government and the Kenya Wildlife Service have worked together on wildlife conservation.  We also have a long history of collaborating with civil society partners and engaging communities to protect their wildlife and reduce human-wildlife conflict.

Today I am pleased to announce a new suite of programs totaling close to $30 million that will take our support for wildlife conservation and community development to the next level.

We are building on our long standing support for the Northern Rangelands Trust with a new $20 million five-year cooperative agreement to accelerate the growth of community conservancies, support community development, and promote wildlife conservation across northern and coastal counties.

We are also expanding our support for conservancies with a $4.1 million award to The Nature Conservancy in partnership with the Maasai Mara Wildlife Conservancy Association to strengthen the community conservancy model in the Maasai Mara, a landscape vital to Kenyan tourism.

Community conservancies are now widely recognized as the best means of conserving wildlife outside of formal protected areas, but there are still many challenges to their future growth. Our new $2 million award to The Nature Conservancy, in partnership with the Kenya Wildlife Conservancies Association, will help identify those policy challenges and work to improve the policy environment for conservation.

Recently, the U.S. Secretary of the Interior, Sally Jewell visited this country to focus on conservation and combatting wildlife crime. Her visit highlighted the new interagency partnership between USAID and the U.S. Department of the Interior to End Wildlife Trafficking in East Africa, the first of its kind within the U.S. government to focus on wildlife issues.

I’d like to thank the Government of Kenya once again for hosting Secretary Jewell for an extraordinary and deeply impactful visit. While here, Secretary Jewell signed two new memorandums of understanding with the Government of Kenya and the Northern Rangelands Trust which will allow us to continue our dedicated partnership on wildlife issues.

In addition to community conservancies, USAID also supports research that will advance the protection of Kenya’s wildlife.  We have made five new research grants to Kenyan scientists from KWS and the National Museums of Kenya, among others, to advance the use of DNA analysis and molecular technology in the prosecution of wildlife crimes.

I am proud to say that the United States has played a role in preserving and protecting Kenya’s wildlife.  Our efforts have been focused on training rangers in life-saving skills that help them protect themselves and their fellow rangers, on how to engage with their communities to prevent wildlife crimes from happening, and how to investigate wildlife crimes when they happen.

We have also actively participated in raising awareness on the importance of wildlife.  Our #Tweet4Elephants event reached 36 million twitter accounts located throughout the world.  The response was amazing and shows that people do care about what happens in Kenya.

For me personally, I also care what happens to Kenya’s wildlife.  I know that all of you feel the same.  There are many reasons why Kenya is a special place and Kenya’s wildlife is definitely one of them.  I congratulate the Government of Kenya for this bold step taken today.  Let us all continue to work together to preserve Kenya’s heritage, not just for Kenya, but for the world, because in Kenya, every day is World Wildlife Day.

Background:

World Wildlife Day

In 2013, the 68^th United Nations General Assembly proclaimed March 3 as World Wildlife Day. The date is significant because it is the day that the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) was adopted in 1973 by UNGA.  2016 marks the third annual World Wildlife Day. World Wildlife day focuses on raising awareness of the critical issues threatening the environment and wildlife. The biggest threats to wildlife, according to CITES, are habitat loss as well as overgrazing, farming and development. Poaching and trafficking in wildlife driven by transnational organized crime groups also pose the most immediate threat to many iconic species.  Elephants, pangolins, rhinoceros, sharks, tigers and precious tree species are among the most critically poached and trafficked species across the world.

In Kenya, the KWS is the lead government agency in wildlife conservation and the CITES management authority. The aim of this event is to campaign against wildlife poaching and to create awareness of wildlife conservation. The target audiences for the event are wildlife conservation NGOs, farmers, hoteliers and tour operators, Maasai Morans, wildlife conservation development partners, and the general public.

Narok County

Narok County was chosen as the site of this year’s event because of the prevalence of human-wildlife conflict. The area has experienced a high incidence of elephant and rhino poaching and major land use changes.

In January, there were fights between members of the the Kisii and Maasai communities over boundary issues, grazing, and other resource sharing concerns.  The skirmishes between residents of Bomachoge Borabu and Kilgoris constituencies erupted leaving one person dead and property worth millions of shillings destroyed.

Also in January, locals demonstrated against the Narok County leadership and closed the Narok-Masai Mara road, leaving tourists stranded.  While Narok County Governor Tunai claimed in court that the revenues from the Masai Mara were Ksh 2 billion ($21 million), many others operating in the area say the number is woefully underreported and that the Mara brings in closer to Ksh 4 billion ($44 million), which is approximately how much money KWS earns from all of its parks combined.  Clearly, the control of funds collected annually from the Maasai Mara is at the heart of the dispute with Narok County residents, with demonstrations demanding the removal of the governor.

USAID Background

The U.S. government was the first donor to pilot the community-conservancy model in Kenya. Its involvement began in the early 1980s, when the U.S. government and the Kenya Wildlife Service were instrumental in establishing the first participatory wildlife management programs (communities and private sector) in the country. Since then, with USAID steady support, community conservancies have been widely recognized by government, donors, and NGOs alike as the most successful model for rehabilitating wildlife habitats, protecting wildlife populations, reducing intercommunal conflict, and improving livelihoods. USAID is the largest donor to community conservancies in Kenya; its support to the Northern Rangelands Trust (NRT) has amounted to $7 million since 2008. The new USAID $20 million five-year award to NRT will expand its operations to new conservancies.

The USAID-DOI Participating Agency Partnership Agreement, established in July 2015, is the first U.S. interagency agreement in the world specifically focused on combatting wildlife trafficking. The Partnership will apply DOI expertise in law enforcement, investigations, ranger training, border inspections, land-use planning, and managing the Convention on the Illegal Trade of Endangered Species (CITES) to develop skills and create a strong network of actors to combat wildlife trafficking throughout the East African region. Several bilateral missions have bought into this Agreement, including Tanzania and Uganda, with expected buy-in from Mozambique and Zambia.

USAID has issued two new grants under an Annual Program Statement (APS) “Community Conservancies Support Program.” A $4.1 million seed grant has been awarded to The Nature Conservancy (TNC) in partnership with the Maasai Mara Wildlife Conservancies Association to expand the community conservancy model in the Mara ecosystem, a biodiversity hotspot that is critical to Kenya’s tourism industry. A second APS award of $2 million has been made to TNC in partnership with the Kenya Wildlife Conservancies Association to identify ways to overcome the legal and policy obstacles to establishing, operating, and expanding community conservancies nation-wide.

The Partnerships for Enhanced Engagement in Research (PEER) program is administered through the National Academy of Sciences and the USAID Global Development Lab. PEER partners host country scientists with American institutions to support local, development-focused researchers who generate knowledge to inform critical policies and provide evidence for program planning. Five new awards have been made to Kenyan scientists to advance research that will promote wildlife conservation and reduce wildlife poaching and trafficking. The five new awards are:

1.       “Enhancing Elephant Conservation & Protection in East Africa with Molecular Genetic Tools” Kenya Wildlife Service & Smithsonian Institution

2.       “DNA Barcoding to Combat Wildlife Crime” National Museums of Kenya & Smithsonian Institution
 

3.       “Enhancing Conservation of African Buffalo & Rangeland Habitat through Molecular Investigations of Foot-and-Mouth Disease at the Wildlife-livestock Interface” Kenya Wildlife Service & University of Minnesota
 

4.       “End of the Road for Illegal Bushmeat Trade in East Africa: Establishing Transboundary Surveillance by High Resolution Melting Analysis of Vertebrate Molecular Barcodes” International Center for Insect Physiology and Ecology & Smithsonian Institution
 

5.       “Use of DNA Technology in Combating Illegal Trade and Promoting Conservation & Sustainable Use of Plants in Kenya and Tanzania” National Museums of Kenya & Smithsonian Institution
 

6.       “Using integrated modeling framework to evaluate the impact of human-induced land use/land cover change on carbon dynamics in Upper Ewaso Ngiro River Basin, Kenya” Kenya Forestry Research Institute & The Woods Hole Research Center.