Wildlife charity Born Free are fighting a battle against the poaching of endangered animals for the illegal bushmeat trade in Kenya. And their primary tool to win this fight? A mobile cinema unit…

By Zac Assemakis. Photographs by Marcus Bleasdale

The titles open, the movie rolls and each watching face slips into the trancelike state more normally induced by the latest Hollywood blockbuster. Like any other cinematic experience, the next hour is punctuated by first laughter and then gasps as the plot unfolds and the villains reveal themselves. But that is where the similarities to any typical cinema outing end.

Nestled some 7,500 feet above sea level in the small village of Sagana on the lower slopes of Mount Kenya, the Sagana Odeon (my name for it, not theirs) is the place to be on this particular Saturday night. In fact the ‘Odeon’ is a mobile cinema unit belonging to conservation charity the Born Free Foundation and it’s currently halfway through a tour of Kenya’s provincial towns.

The clue may be in the words ‘mobile’ and ‘cinema unit’, but things are certainly a little different at this particular picture house. Where you might expect to find four walls, a popcorn maker and a disinterested usher showing you to your seat, the Sagana Odeon boasts an al fresco viewing experience. There’s a scruffy patch of grass serving as an auditorium, the odd discarded chicken bone where you might ordinarily find sweet wrappers, and the side of a Land Rover Defender serving as a makeshift cinema screen. Meanwhile, its audience is totally captivated as the movie starts to unfold…

Set in a rural village bordering a Kenyan National Park, the film Mizoga (Kiswahili for ‘Carcasses’) dramatises the complex issues surrounding the illegal commercial trade in meat from wild animals, also known as bushmeat. Initially unsure whether they should help the Kenya Wildlife Service to protect the animals or side with the bushmeat traders, the villagers portrayed in the film soon realise the severity of the issue facing them when a devastating disease caused by the consumption of bushmeat breaks out in their community.

A lot of effort for a little Saturday night entertainment? Not according to Alice Owen, head of the Kenyan arm of the Born Free Foundation and the woman behind tonight’s programme of events. ‘This mobile cinema unit is a vital tool in the fight against poaching. Born Free commissioned the film because of the immense threat to wildlife posed by the poaching of animals for bushmeat. A film drama is one of the most effective ways to communicate the issues to a broad audience.’

In fact, this particular film has now been shown to several thousand people in villages throughout Kenya, and has proved so successful that plans are already afoot for a follow-up movie.

According to Owen, it’s down to a combination of political and economic circumstances that the situation has become so dire. ‘People are driven to these desperate measures because of their economic situation. They have turned to poaching because they need to feed their families. However, some have now taken things to another level and are selling the meat on for profit. The problem has been made worse by the civil unrest that consumed Kenya in 2007 and 2008, the subsequent collapse in tourism and the global credit crisis, all of which have contributed to a huge inflationary pressure on the price of food. The cost of staples like wheat, maize and flour have almost doubled in the past 12 months. Bushmeat is a cheap alternative.’

To put this into context, just one kilogram of beef or goat will cost about 160 Kenyan shillings (approximately £1.20) whereas a small dik-dik, easily poached from the bush, will yield about two to three kilograms of meat and would cost 40 Kenyan shillings (about 30p).

For the consumer, it’s meat at a bargain price, and for the poacher, it’s easy money. The consumption of bushmeat is now becoming so widespread that in some areas it’s estimated that it can make up to 80 per cent of the protein intake of a rural community.

While education through initiatives like the mobile cinema unit will help to provide a long-term solution to the problem of poaching, Born Free, in conjunction with the Kenyan Wildlife Service and other conservation groups, also operates on the front line. One of the areas most affected by the poaching epidemic lies on the Tsavo National Park border, near the town of Voi in the southeastern corner of the country.

The park (made up of Tsavo East and Tsavo West) covers an area the size of Wales and boasts 8,000 square miles of dry bush. Here, a combination of volunteers and armed rangers spend hours tracking through the scrub in pursuit of the poachers and their traps.

Elsie Kariuki is one such volunteer. ‘The snares are difficult to spot among the foliage so it’s painstaking work,’ she says. ‘Although hundreds of snares can be lifted in just a few days, it represents only a small proportion of the traps which have been set. It’s possible for one poacher to lay 40 or 50 snares in a day, and from these as many as six animals per day could be caught.’

The snares are made from fencing or cable wires and are laid along trails used by the animals. The wire gets caught around the animal’s neck, gradually tightening as the creature struggles, and it eventually results in a slow and painful death. Some poachers also head out into the bush at night and, using bright torches to startle the animals, hack them down with pangas (a type of machete), before butchering them.

Animals such as dik-dik, Grevy’s zebra, impala and kudu are most at risk, although larger animals such as elephants and giraffe also fall victim to the poachers. This in turn places huge pressure on big predators such as lions, leopards and cheetahs to find enough food to hunt. The result is a shocking 58 per cent reduction in the wildlife population in Kenya in the past 25 years.

‘The number of snares that we are collecting is increasing, and to remove them we need to be able to transport them out of some very remote areas,’ Owen explains. ‘Without a vehicle like a Land Rover we wouldn’t be able to cover nearly enough ground, or get to some of the more inaccessible areas.’

Today the patrol has been lucky – they come across a dik-dik that has been caught in a snare. Although the animal is clearly close to death, it makes another attempt to escape as the ranger approaches. The wire is now tight around its neck and the animal collapses back to the ground. It’s a disturbing sight to see a creature so comprehensively terrorised, but the ranger is immediately able to remove the snare. He then holds the animal tightly to calm it down before releasing it back into the bush.

‘We do have sympathy for many of the poachers and the circumstances in which they find themselves,’ explains Owen. ‘Many of these people are living in absolute poverty, but continued poaching is decimating the animal population. Ironically, it’s the very wildlife that is being killed that has the potential to lift these people out of poverty. If we can find a way to ensure that the community benefit from the revenue generated from safari tourism, then you give them an incentive to protect the animals.’

While it’s clear that economic help is needed for those who are subsistence poaching, Owen is also adamant that the courts need to be tougher on those who are poaching for profit. ‘At the moment the maximum sentence that can be given is three years in prison,’ she says. ‘However, poachers are often given just a small fine and released back into the community, so this lack of a credible deterrent means it’s easy to find bushmeat for sale in the many illegal drinking dens.’

I put this to the test when, with the help of an undercover Born Free volunteer, we try to purchase some bushmeat at a den at the side of the road. After a few minutes of negotiation with the owner, who is initially suspicious, the volunteer returns with two slabs of meat, which he thinks is possibly antelope or zebra.

Later DNA testing shows that the meat sold to us came from an East African oryx, one of Kenya’s rare and threatened species. It’s clear that purchasing bushmeat is no more difficult than buying a piece of steak from the supermarket.

In these communities, the difference between poaching for poverty and poaching for profit is controversial and hard to prove. Geoffrey Mtima is a case in point. Currently on remand in the local Voi prison, he was arrested by rangers along with an accomplice as they hunted through the night with machetes and torches.

Caught red-handed with kudu and dik-dik, he is accused by the rangers of being a persistent offender and poaching for economic gain. But he maintains that he has only been poaching for a short time, and that he is simply trying to survive. ‘I have no money,’ he says. ‘I lost my job, and I am trying to keep my son in school. I cannot farm anything from the land, so I have to hunt to eat. What other choice do I have?’

In Kenya, unemployment is currently running at 40 per cent and this is expected to rise further in the current economic climate. So would anything stop Mtima from going back to a life of poaching? He barely pauses for thought. ‘Find me a job with a wage that is good enough to feed my family and then I will stop poaching,’ is his definitive reply. I ask him how his family will cope if he is given a custodial sentence by the court. ‘I don’t know. I will have to pray.’

Although as an outsider I find it hard not to feel sympathy for the plight of poachers like Mtima, one man who takes a hardline approach is head of Kenya Wildlife Service, Julius Kipng’etich: he believes that when it comes to the issue of poaching, it’s irrelevant whether the motive is one of profit or poverty.

‘The killing of wildlife is by criminals. People often cite poverty as the reason, but that is not sufficient. The government has mechanisms in place to help people who can’t feed themselves. What we are really dealing with here are criminal gangs who are taking many animals at a time. These are not poor people.’

I ask him what it will mean for Kenya if the country fails to tackle the problem of illegal poaching. ‘Kenya’s health and economic growth is eternally linked with the health and prosperity of our wildlife.’

It sounds like a bleak prognosis, but already the work of conservation groups like Born Free is beginning to make a positive impact. In addition to the work on the ground, the organisation is also lobbying the government to introduce tougher punishments in the courts and to devote more resources to the protection of wildlife.

Owen is clear, however, that this is not the solution. ‘Yes we need the courts to take this problem seriously,’ she says, ‘but in the long-term we need to educate the younger generations and we need to ensure that these people reap the benefits from tourism. These animals need to be worth more to the local communities alive than dead.

‘It will be a long process,’ she continues, ‘but I have no doubt that things will improve and these animals will be around for many years to come.’ A happy ending, it would seem, is still part of the script.

Click here to see Born Free’s short film of this story.