Many locals have lost their livelihoods and have started hunting for bushmeat and collecting charcoal for cooking—even though both are illegal.
"Poachers are very good at utilizing loopholes," he said."Add to that the fact that most of the people in outlying communities have lost their livelihood or source of income and would be looking up to anyone with real cash to profit -- so we are seriously concerned and we are not too surprised to see some increase in incidents of poaching."
One community in Northern Kenya"made close to $300,000 in 2019 but this year they're flagging that they may make zero revenue," O'Brien-Onyeka said."They have no money, tourism is shot down because of COVID, they can't pay their rangers -- it becomes a free-for-all."O'Brien-Onyeka emphasizes that he doesn't want to be alarmist."But it might get really worse," he said -- and now is the time to act.
"We need to find a way to support these communities so that they keep protecting these critical ecosystems that are very important here," he said."Places where there has been a ban on logging will say, 'We need more money, so we are going to allow logging for eight months just to make money to recover from this crisis,'" he said."We suspect that many communities and countries will suspend those cautionary decisions in order to make quick gains.
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