A grant of usd dollars 50,000 (ksh 3.3 million) is being provided by UNDP’s Global Environment Facility Small Grants Programme (GEF-SGP) to Rhino Ark.

The grant is to support Rhino Ark’s Bongo Surveillance Project initiated in the Aberdares and outreaching to Mt. Kenya and other mountain forests in which the project has identified remnant herds of wild Bongo.

The mountain Bongo (Tragelaphus eurycerus isaaci) is one of Kenya’s most rare and highly threatened forest antelopes.

Following the construction of Rhino Ark’s Aberdare fence and resultant improving management methods in the Aberdares, the opportunity to establish an accurate assessment of the Aberdare Bongo herds – the most illusive of forest antelope – is now proving possible.

The Bongo Surveillance Project was formed in 2003 using skilled trackers from the forest edge communities, some of whom were former trappers and even poachers of Bongo in the 1970s when the animals were in abundance and were licensed for export to foreign zoos.

Commenting on the project, Colin Church, Chairman of Rhino Ark’s Management Committee said: “Under the guidance of honorary wardens, Mike Prettejohn and Peter Mwangi and in partnership with the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) small teams of skilled trackers from Aberdare communities have identified stable herds of Bongo in the Aberdare mountain range from Rhino Gate in the North to the Kinangop peaks in the South.

“Rhino Ark in funding partnership with African Fund for Endangered Wildlife (AFEW Giraffe Centre) facilitated for a DNA testing of dung samples of the Aberdare herds as well as those in Mt Kenya, the Mau and Mt Eburu. Earlier this year the samples were tested at Cardiff University by a joint team from Nairobi University and Cardiff’s School of Biosciences. The DNA research confirmed sizeable groups of Bongo in the Aberdares and smaller isolated herds in severely threatened forests in Mt Kenya, the Mau and Mt Eburu.

Throughout the four year programme to date, there has been close collaboration with Kenya Wildlife Service which provides survey team security on the ground.

The UNDP funds will stabilise the programme which has relied to date on ad hoc donations from dedicated conservationists, and the Rare Species Conservatory Foundation of the USA.

Commented Mr. Church: “The monitoring of Bongo in the inaccessible high forests of the Aberdares has proven that with the use of small skilled teams and the latest GPS and laser camera trap monitoring processes, other endangered wildlife such as the black rhino in which current processes have not been able to contain poaching with snares by well funded and organized gangs, can be reversed. These gangs have successfully outmanoeuvred the current security umbrella systems”, he continued.

“In support of conventional KWS security operations, forest security adjacent to high population zones requires a two pronged approach: Firstly by a greatly accelerated community sensitization and intelligence support programme; and secondly, deployment of small highly specialized, and incentivised foot patrols linked to high tech monitoring systems. Throwing large numbers of standard trained rangers at this problem will not solve it”, he said.

Mr. Church said that the Bongo programme was ‘community focussed’ enlisting people who new forest lore and who, with training and leadership, had provided an essential ingredient to the Bongo project’s successes to date.

This year the coveted Michael Werikhe Award for Conservation provided by the East African Wildlife Society and awarded by Rhino Ark’s Rhino Charge Committee was made to the Bongo Surveillance Project team.

Commented Nancy Chege, National Co-ordinator of the GEF/Small Grants Programme: “The grant to Rhino Ark is for a two year implementation timetable.

“It is designed to mobilize community members to participate in the project as local collaborators and informers. It contains clear outreach objectives for communities and school children around Bongo prevalent areas to learn more about the importance of both bongo, indeed all indigenous forest habitat and the importance of developing new forest integrity agreements with forest edge communities,” Ms. Chege concluded.