Kenya’s wildlife and natural resources are key tourist attractions. Travellers visit our national parks, reserves, and conservancies to see wildlife in natural habitats. Without a doubt, Safari is and will continue to be one of our prime tourist offerings alongside the beach and other attractions and experiences.

Kenya was once again named the world’s leading Safari destination by the World Travel Awards (WTA) in 2020, cementing the fact that wildlife is a big part of our culture and heritage. This is a position we are keen on maintaining as a competitive edge over other destinations offering similar experiences. 

Towards this front, therefore, our key priority area under our National Wildlife Strategy 2030 is conservation. The strategy gives us a roadmap for transforming wildlife conservation. It has laid out opportunities and innovative approaches to address emerging challenges facing wildlife while ensuring benefits accrue to the millions of Kenyans who support wildlife on their land.

This is captured in our strategy and implementation framework that enhances communication, coordination, and collaboration to inspire engagement and participation as well as catalyse conservation actions with all stakeholders.

The country today boasts of 23 national parks, 26 conservancies, 26 game reserves, 160 community conservancies and over 150 NGOs that play a major role in ensuring that we protect our endangered species. The national wildlife census now gives us a clear picture of the wildlife resources we have.

This will help us to identify where resources are required going forward. That said, conservation highly depends on tourism for revenue which has been highly hindered by the low uptake of tourism in the last 18 months. The Covid-19 pandemic has greatly affected the tourism sector globally.

Due to this, we must look inwards for solutions to ensure that this model that sets us apart from the rest of the world is sustained. Initiatives to protect wildlife like the use of technology to monitor threatened wildlife populations must continue. Poachers are increasingly using technology to better their chances of success. To match and outdo them, we must embark on modernisation and embrace new technologies. This is now even more important with the reduced number of visitors in the parks due to restricted movement. 

Additionally, we are working on sensitising the public on the need to be part of the conservation efforts. Everyone has a role to play to ensure that future generations enjoy our wildlife resources. One of the initiatives that will in the long run play a great role in ensuring inclusion in conservation efforts as well raising funds for conservation is the annual Magical Kenya Tembo Naming Festival that was held for the first time in October this year. 

The festival has the potential to encourage Kenyans and the international community to engage in conservation efforts and also offers an opportunity to learn more about elephants, other wildlife and our heritage.

During the event, individuals had a chance to adopt an elephant after contributing funds towards their conservation. The foster parent (adopter) was given priority to choose the first name of the elephant. The second name will be a Maasai name based on the animal’s profile, history, role in the family and physical attributes like state of tusks.

According to the national wildlife census, Kenya boasts over 36,280 elephants. The number has been increasing at an annual rate of 2.8 per cent over the last three decades. Remarkably, there has been more than 96 per cent decline in poaching. Some 386 elephants were lost in 2013 compared to 11 elephants poached last year. 

This success is attributed to enhanced government initiatives to combat poaching and trafficking of ivory. With this increase in numbers comes in other challenges such as human-wildlife conflict as well as reduced elephant space within the parks. The festival will ensure that we have enough resources to mitigate against this as well as guarantee that the conservation of elephants is not affected by shocks and crises like the Covid-19 pandemic. By Najib Balala, The Standard. 

Mr Balala is Kenya’s Cabinet Secretary for Tourism and Wildlife

Photo The New Times

Rwanda National Police (RNP), on Sunday, November 7, rotated its Formed Police Unit Three (FPU-3) contingent serving in the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS).

Rwanda FPU-3 IV contingent of 160 female-dominated officers left Kigali International Airport (KIA) at about 10am under the command of Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Marie Grace Uwimana.

They replaced FPU-3 III commanded by SSP Jeannette Masozera, which also returned home later in the afternoon after a one-year successful tour-of-duty.

On arrival at KIA, the officers were taken through the Covid-19 prevention protocols before they join their respective families and resuming their policing duties back home.

Commissioner of Police (CP) George Rumanzi, Commissioner for Operations and Public Order in RNP, presided over the departure and arrival of the rotated contingents, on behalf of RNP leadership.

FPU-3, one of the two Rwandan Police contingents deployed in South Sudan, conducts its peace support operation duties in Central Equatorial State including the capital Juba.

Rwanda FPU-1 of 240 officers is deployed in Malakal, Upper Nile State.

While welcoming the replaced contingent back home, Rumanzi thanked them for representing their country ably.

He commended the contingent for their professional conduct in fulfilling their duties.

‪Senior Superintendent of Police Gaston Nsanzimana, who guided the replaced contingent back home, thanked all officers for their discipline, which played a great part in the successful tour-of-duty.

"We assumed varied responsibilities related to the UN mandate to support the people of South Sudan, mainly protection of civilians, supporting the revitalized peace agreement and humanitarian assistance," Nsanzimana

The contingent, he added, conducted patrol and escort duties, capacity building to train the local police and other community policing groups, and social responsibility in sanitation and hygiene at police stations as well as supporting the conflict-affected groups such as women and students living in IDP camps. - The New Times

Image by chenspec from Pixabay

By PHOEBE RUGURU

Paid corporate work in the past decades has had many faces. At some point it was something that only men did, at another, it was done wearing suit and tie or shoulder padded jackets. At another point, one had to tap in and out at the start and end of day, in others, work was more than 8 hours in a 24-hour economy. The face of what paid work looks like has evolved in multiple ways for multiple reasons. But very little has had the same universal impact as the global pandemic of Covid-19.

The lockdowns and the tight regulations limiting movement to and from home, as well as domestic and international travel have meant that many workers and companies have had to adapt to the new conditions whilst still scrambling to keep their companies alive and their workers productive.

And some of these adaptation mechanisms have not only changed the face of work today but probably for years to come. One of the fundamental changes is Remote Working. For years, very few corporates imagined that their workers would be efficient and productive if they weren’t doing it from their desktop cubicle, and if they couldn’t physically see them. But with working regulations changed, they have had no choice but to surrender their control and wait to see the results of remote working.

For many businesses, this is not something that would come without its fear or doubts. One of the biggest fears for corporates is the lack of control and visual aesthetic of seeing their workers physically at work. Many business owners or managers have mutely expressed doubt that perhaps their workers would not be able to continue working outside of supervised office conditions. And who can blame them? For a long time, many managers have felt that helicopter managing is the only way to ensure that performance is ensured.

After all, are you really working if you are not seen working? This expectation that the amount of time spend by the desk equates to the depth of productivity and performance that is optimum has been challenged by the levels of productivity that workers feel they have when they are left to allocate time and resources for their own working systems, a freedom that has come with working from home.

In a research study in China, it was found that home working improved productivity by 20 percent. In other cases, several workers have claimed that working away from the glaring eye of Human Resources or their boss a few desks away, has given them the relaxation that fuels them to work without pressure which fundamentally improves focus and diverts anxiety.

Many workers have also cited that one of the benefits of working from home is being to work in an environment that feels comfortable for their own personal and unique needs. Not all corporate spaces are functional for productivity, even if they are expected to be. Some spaces are open, designed for more extraverted personalities who would enjoy the vibrancy of different people engaging through open spaces. Such spaces, for example, do not always create the ideal space for introverts who perhaps don’t thrive from verbal interactions with co-workers, and for whom this might even be distracting. In other spaces, there lacks openness and transparency which can make some people feel alienated and detached from others and consequently, to their work.

With workers performing their tasks at home, there remains a task for the corporate structure in maintaining the work community and collaboration between workers, something supposed to ensure that the company is still united, wherever it is. Some companies have done this with Zoom hangouts for either book clubs or quizzes from home, enabling people to still connect, albeit be virtually.

To some company’s surprise, especially smaller businesses, allowing workers to work from home has financially enabled them to reduce spending on office rent spaces, and machines without anyone to occupy or use them, further enabling managers to focus on maintaining their workers.

As covid regulations continue to relax, due to the increase in vaccinations, most companies are looking to either continue with remote working or return to the office. Interestingly, too, some want to do both in what is called the Hybrid model, allowing flexibility for workers to perform both working from home and remotely.

This perhaps opens more opportunities for proper work conditions as in a study from earlier in the year stated that 70% of workers have expressed that while working from home is good, it is better when they are equipped with the choice of when those days would be.

The pandemic has at the very least presented questions that challenge the meaning of productivity, the importance of the office, and the wellbeing of workers, whether at home or abroad. Without a doubt, for many corporates and workers, where and how they work matters more than ever, as covid-19 changed more than the technology, more than the offices, it has also fundamentally changed how we work, and where.