Kenyan Farmers Want Land Open to Hunters

[jpak]

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/w-af/2007/apr/21/042105434.html

For the farmers of Kenya, life is a constant contest for grass and water between their herds and the wild animals that share the land. Now they are waging a new struggle, this time against the international animal welfare lobby. Pleading poverty, the farmers want to open their land to wealthy fee-paying hunters. The advocacy groups are firmly opposed.

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A million tourists a year spend more than $580 million to see and photograph lions, elephants, gazelle and other wildlife on this East African country's savannas. But the revenue isn't enough to protect the animals.

Only 8 percent of land in Kenya, a country twice the size of Nevada, is set aside for wildlife. The rest is privately or communally owned and studies show that most of Kenya's wild animals live there.

By some estimates, wildlife numbers have dropped 60 percent since the mid-1970s and continue to plummet, because of human encroachment and illegal hunting for food.

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