"With proper management of livestock and agriculture, there is no reason that humans and animals cannot co-exist. We have the tools through these methods to make informed decisions that can help reduce conflicts between humans and wildlife," he said.
Dozens of rhinoceros, an all-time high, have been poached in the last 4 years, and current poaching of elephants is documented to be the highest since the 1980s.
The illegal poaching of wildlife for commercial purposes is also decimating many more species.
KWS has listed elephants, lions, wild dogs, leopards, cheetah, hyenas, Sitatunga, Tana crested mangabey, and Tana red Columbus monkeys as some of the most endangered wildlife species in Kenya, where tourism makes up 7.3 billion U.S. dollars of the country's GDP.
The number of wild animals in Kenya has reduced drastically, threatening the existence of one of the country's major attraction to tourists –who bring most of foreign exchange, new data released by the KWS indicates.
Experts predict current levels of poaching and human-wildlife conflict will lead to the near extinction of lions in 15 years and the extinction of elephants in 20 years.
According to the scientists, offsetting the tourism revenue is the costs of wildlife to pastoral communities and ranches, which are so high that only properties with supplemental income can afford to tolerate wildlife.
For many of the communities in places like the Maasai Mara and around the Laikipia, the main source of income is livestock, which compete with wildlife for grazing lands.
The statement said the World Agroforestry Center has created a monitoring framework for measuring impacts on land health at a landscape scale, the Land Degradation Surveillance Framework (LDSF) , using sites that encompass 10,000 ha each.
In Laikipia, for example, four such sites have been established, covering conservation areas such as the sanctuary at Ol Lentille, in North Laikipia and Isiolo Counties, and group ranches in the county.
Historically, these areas were used for dry-season grazing by nomadic pastoralists, but in recent years, burgeoning population and government development policies have led to increasing permanent settlements in the area.
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