Activist says elephants face three threats

Elephant conservation activist Dr Jim Justus Nyamu has called for concerted efforts to ensure sustained conservation of elephants in the face of changes in the environment.Dr Nyamu said climate change, poaching and killings by human beings who see them as a menace are the biggest threats to the surviving elephants on the African continent.Dr Nyamu, who is well known by the moniker 'Elephant Man' was speaking to the media in Embu during a break in his elephant conservation awareness walk from Nairobi to Addis Ababa in Ethiopia.The jumbo activist together with the Kenya Forest Service's Embu Country Conservator, Miriam Kamau, led activists in planting trees at Camp Ndunda in the Njukiiri Forest to underscore the forest's importance in the conservation of elephants.Dr Nyamu said the elephant population had been negatively affected by people's demand for land which had led to encroachment on elephants' natural habitat while cutting off elephants' natural migratory corridors.He urged people living around Mt Kenya to help in the conservation of the forest which is also home to other species such as the Mountain Bongo.Nyamu said Kenya once boasted of 200, 000 elephants but this number had dwindled to only 20, 000 by 1989.As per the national wildlife census report of 2021, Kenya's elephant population stood at 36,280.Source: Kenya News Agency