Kenyan farmer: ‘I’m afraid that elephants will kill me’

In our series of letters from African journalists, Ismail Einashe reflects on how Kenya’s changing climate is bringing animals and humans into greater conflict.

On a sweltering afternoon in the small Kenyan village of Njoro Mata, a farmer is desperately inspecting the damage caused to her smallholding by elephants.

Kenya’s famous giants have been invading Monicah Muthike Moki’s land in southern Kenya, overlooked by Mount Kilimanjaro.

The 48-year-old is a single mother of three whose livelihood depends on her hard work growing cassava, maize, bananas, sugarcane and mangos.

Her harvest had been increasing after employing new farming methods introduced with the help of the Kenya Red Cross Society, but in recent months, her precious crops have regularly been destroyed by elephants.

Ms Moki says elephants come every day from the nearby Tsavo national park, one of the world’s largest game sanctuaries, home to about 15,000 of the mammals.

According to her, herders have cut the fence to access pastures for their livestock in the park but elephants then cross the other way.

With consecutive years of failed rains, the pastoralists are desperate to feed their animals, while at the same time the elephants have started to roam further afield seeking sustenance.

The animals’ new behaviour patterns are driven by Kenya’s escalating climate crisis and drought, causing wildlife to conflict with people.

For Ms Moki, the elephant crop-raiding is “very painful” to see.

She says the elephants are “bold” and “not afraid”. They can come at any time but usually from around dusk, and they raid in herds, as pairs or sometimes lone elephants with their calves.

The elephants have recently eaten her entire maize, banana and cassava crops.

Currently, she should be harvesting five to six 90kg bags of maize she would sell in the local market in the nearby town of Taveta for 6,500 Kenyan shillings ($48;

£38).

Without her crops, Ms Moki cannot feed her family or sell her produce to pay the school fees for her 10-year-old daughter.

Farmers in her village also use the bags of maize they harvest as a security deposit or payment of school fees for their children to attend the local primary school. In turn, the schools use maize to serve children meals.

Now children as young as four years old are forced to walk up to 4km (2.5 miles) home from school for lunch before walking the same distance in the opposite direction in the afternoon.

The largest land animals in the world can consume 150kg of food per day, spending three-quarters of their day just eating. Ms Moki explains that they often leave nothing behind.

Elephants also gulp down 100 litres of water a day, so often drink the little water she gets supplied by the local authorities to use on the farm.

Source; BBC