Kenya and Costa Rica - Comparing Environmental Policies in 16 Countries - page 199

Narok Country Council or the national government have skimmed the
revenue. People are also concerned that non-Maasai have moved in, and
that the market for native handicrafts has been exploited. 11
The Maasai Mara Reserve embodies the best, but nearly all tourism in
Kenya is ecotourism. This dates back more than a century, when the colony
became famous for shooting big game. Today the shooting is done with a
camera. The visitors aim for the Big Five: lion, elephant, buffalo, leopard,
and rhinoceros. Huge herds of zebras, giraffes, wildebeests, gazelles,
hippopotamuses, and ostriches roam freely. Some tourists come to climb
Mount Kenya and Kilimanjaro. Some come for the beaches, but it is a long
flight from Europe. In all half a million visitors come annually to visit
54 national parks and reserves. Hunters with guns go elsewhere to South
Africa, Namibia, or Zimbabwe. Game hunting was outlawed in reserves in
1972, and everywhere in 1987. The average tourist on a game reserve safari
spends $4,400 and the average tourist at the coast spends $1,900. 12
WWF has been involved in Kenya since 1962 when it purchased
land to protect flamingos on Lake Nakuru. This led to establishing the
black rhino sanctuary there, at the height of the poaching crisis. The
International Union for Conservation of Nature has been in Kenya since
the 1980s involved in projects on wildlife protection and preserving
forests. Its project in the Garba Tula district seeks to return people to a
pastoral way of life. For centuries nomads with their cattle enjoyed a sym-
biotic relationship and did not suffer unduly from droughts. If rainfall was
sparse, the tribes moved with their herds. More recently their rights to
pastures have been taken away and the land converted to farming, which
was not sustainable.
Population growth has put pressure on the land and animals. Indepen-
dence sparked an explosion. From 1969 (the first good census numbers) to
1989 the number of people doubled. The rate of increase peaked at nearly
4% in 1982, and remains high at 2.6%. Its present size is 41 million, com-
pared to 10 million at independence in 1963. Much of the growth is in cities
like Nairobi, but some is rural. This is not just natural increase of fami-
lies already living there but is also interprovincial immigration by distant
tribes eager to establish farms, for instance in the Rift Valley province.
The more economically advanced regions have entered the so-called
demographic transition of lower mortality due to modern medicine and
sanitation with the high birth rate of traditional society. Less advanced
regions continue to have the high death rates of traditional society, hence
less population growth. The topic of population is controversial because