The Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) has been accused of harassing co-petitioners in a case challenging the relocation of the Nairobi Animal Orphanage to make it part of the larger Bomas International Conference Complex. The proposal would carve out between 76 and 89 acres inside Nairobi National Park for upgrades to wildlife rescue and rehabilitation facilities. Conservationists are concerned that the facility, which will include parking for 1,300 vehicles, poses threats to a protected indigenous forest and habitat for the critically endangered black rhino.
On July 16, the Environment and Land Court in Nairobi ordered its deputy registrar Vincent Kiplagat to visit the park in the presence of all parties to prepare and file a report about the proposed facility.
The Nairobi-based NGO Save the Nairobi National Park (SaveNNP) said it was denied court-ordered access to the site. In a statement sent to Mongabay, SaveNNP condemned “threats and intimidation” by KWS personnel.
In the same statement, SaveNNP and JustAct, another Nairobi-based NGO, accused the KWS of planning to “control the narrative and ensure the voice of Kenyans was not heard by the courts or the media while on site.” Similar claims were made by Friends of Nairobi National Park.
Mongabay asked KWS spokesperson Duncan Wanyama for a comment and was referred to a local media report in which Wanyama said the visitors were not obstructed and that rangers were just enforcing standard protocols within the park.
The activists said they were later allowed in, but “only once the court officers, KWS representatives, members of the media, and the sole legal representative of the co-petitioners who they allowed to enter the park, had completed the site visit.”
The KWS has defended the project, saying it will include better facilities, such as a wildlife hospital, visitor amenities and more space for wildlife rescue cases. It will also be an economic boon to the region and employ roughly 500 people, KWS has said.
At least 4,642 Kenyans have since signed a petition asking the court to determine if the orphanage construction can legally proceed. Nairobi National Park is the only national park in the world located within a capital city. It’s home to iconic wildlife including lions, leopards and rhinos.
The current Nairobi National Orphanage was established in 1964. KWS Director General Erastus Kanja has said the upgrades to the park will improve capacity for wildlife rescue, rehabilitation and conservation education. The new facility will “enable us to give a more or less semi-wild area where we can start reintroducing the animals,” he said.
Last month, Kenya’s former Chief Justice David Maraga was arrested during a protest of the proposed relocation of the orphanage. The Law Society of Kenya described his arrest as “a direct assault on the civic space guaranteed under Article 37 of the Constitution. National heritage sites are not state property to barter behind closed doors.”
Banner image: Lions relax inside the Nairobi National Park. Photo courtesy of SaveNNP.
This story first appeared on Mongabay
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