To Save Wildlife, and Tourism, Kenyans Take Up Arms
To save wildlife, and tourism, Kenyans take up arms. 'In a growing number of communities here, people are so eager, even desperate, to protect their wildlife that civilians with no military experience are banding together and risking their lives to confront heavily armed poaching gangs'. - Julius Lokinyi was one of the most notorious poachers in this part of Kenya, accused of single-handedly killing as many as 100 elephants and selling the tusks by the side of the road in the dead of night, pumping vast amounts of ivory into a shadowy global underground trade. But after being hounded, shamed, browbeaten and finally persuaded by his elders, he recently made a remarkable transformation. Elephants, he has come to believe, are actually worth more alive than dead, because of the tourists they attract. So Mr. Lokinyi stopped poaching and joined a grass-roots squad of rangers — essentially a conservation militia — to protect the wildlife he once slaughtered.