Re-Birth of Meru National Park

Purpose Statement:
“To protect and conserve the endemic and threatened northern wildlife species and habitats within the unique wilderness landscape of the MCA for the benefit of present and future generations”

Meru National Park is posed as a next wonder of the world with Thursday 19th July 2007 branding and translocation of animals into the park.

“The fact that we have invested over Ksh. 0.5 billion towards the revamping of Meru National Park and the general Meru Conservation Area is a clear sign of our commitment towards improving the socio-economic livelihoods of Kenyans and especially the people adjacent to the protected area through tourism.”

Hon. Morris Dzoro, EGH, MP
Minister for Tourism and Wildlife.

“The magic of Eastern Province and essentially its touristic potential, is simply captured by Meru National Park, which explains why the Ministry of Tourism and Wildlife has been keen on the rehabilitation and restoration of this tourism gem.”

Ms Rebecca Nabutola,
PS Ministry of Tourism and Wildlife

“As the management of KWS, we have envisioned Meru National Park as the next Mara – the new wonder of the world, in terms of model protected area, revenue generation and wilderness attraction.”

Mr Julius Kipng’etich,
Director, Kenya Wildlife Service

“With over Euro 8 million loan component to the Kenya Government and a grant of Euro 1.8 million, the French Government and its people have supported Meru National Park and the greater MCA as the first French-funded conservation initiative in East Africa. This for us is a great stride towards achieving our global environmental conservation agenda.”

Jean-Pierre Marcelli
Regional Director,
Agence Franciase De Development (AFD)

“The International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) holds Meru National Park as one of its first most desirable conservation and development initiative having financed the rehabilitation of basic infrastructure and the biodiversity restoration component to the tune of US dollars 1.25 million over a five-year period. We, therefore, believe in the potential of this conservation and tourism area.”

James Isiche,
Regional Director,
International Fund for Animal Welfare

Meru National Park - A Glimpse:
Some conservation and tourism historians would surmise the 1980’s as the archiles heels of Meru Park - an excruciating and painful time for Meru National Park – a time when the Park was throbbing with banditry and infrastructural collapse.

A period of negligence and desolation, indeed, it was a time when the park was caught in a time warp and only H. G Wells’ time Machine would unwrap it.

Today, the story of Meru National Park is different; it is the story of hope and foresight, a tale that any inspired storyteller would not tire to endlessly sing about. Indeed like the flip-side of hell is Heaven, so is the story of Meru National Park.

From a ravaged wilderness that was once the haven of bandits and poachers, the park is today the epitome of proper wildlife conservation management.
“We have invested heavily on wildlife and visitor security, a move that has had ripple effect on both wildlife and our visitor numbers.

The revamping of our security strategies and operations has seen poachers and bandits exit from our facilities,” says Mr Julius Kipnge’tich, the Director, Kenya Wildlife Service.

According to the director, this has not come easily, “The investment input that has gone towards making this conservation area a world-class tourism facility is enormous, but because of our rapport with the donor communities and conservation stakeholders, Meru National Park and the greater Conservation Area encompassing Kora and Mwingi National Reserves are today the pride of all.”

Indeed the director’s words ring true for those who might toured the park in the 1980’s at the height of banditry, and now today; Meru National Park presents a surreal feeling, one that draws nostalgic emotions as one traverses its animate chiaroscuro that features riverrine ecosystems, an eye catching savanah grassland dotted with swamps and a horizon of hills interspersed with high doum trees.

With miles and miles of grassland that had little or no wildlife, and a road infrastructure, which was once the laughing stock of the other tourism facilities in the country, now ranks amongst the best. KWS with the support of development partners such the French Development Agency (AFD) and wildlife stakeholders such as the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW); has not only pumped a lot of resource in rebuilding the broken down road network within and without the park, it has also translocated wildlife from others areas, thus return Meru National Park to a new level of conservation status.

“I look at Meru National Park as the epitome of the future of national parks and game reserves in the country. It is the lifting ground of the things to come in terms of the outlook of our protected areas,” says Mr Kipng’etich.
With the re-birth of Meru National Park, and the branding engine currently running at full-throttle, a lot of emphasis has been put towards positioning the park as the next Mara – a move that is set to see this picturesque facility being marketed as a high end tourism destination and an alternative to the Seventh Wonder of the World.

“This we clearly appreciate, is not a point-and-shoot target; but we are optimistic that with the refurbishing of this facility and the increase of bed-capacity and wildlife experience in the park, we will be able to earn some mileage in the local and international tourism circuit,” points out Mr Robert Njue, the Senior Warden, Meru National Park.

According to Njue: “We are already looking at ways of restocking the park with a more varied kaleidoscope of wildlife, from the Grevy zebra, to the elephant, the lions and many more ungulates so that when a visitor comes to this park, their experience is an surpassed or unmatched by any standards.”

“We not only pride ourselves with the big five, we are also home to some endangered five and a coterie of both migratory and endemic bird species not forgetting and a topography that is matchless. No other park in Kenya can boast of having fourteen permanent rivers.

Meru a CSR Template:
Like the smoke that precedes a fire; the presence of national parks or wildlife precedes conflict both in terms of space and resource – Meru National Park is not an exception.

Communities living adjacent to the park have for years held a long list of complaints against the park and issue that was heightened during the rough and tumble years of banditry.

Today, the story is different – it is the tale of good neighbourliness’. Neither the park nor its adjacent communities could live without the other and so a deal based on optimum benefits for the all the stakeholders was struck and hence life for the communities and the park have improved considerably.

”We were the personification of human wildlife conflict; a perennial pull and push kind of relationship that benefited none, but with the coming of the French Development Agency (AFD) and the International Fund for Animal Welfare, our burden was greatly lifted. The haba na haba hujaza kibaba policy of putting together funds from the Government and the donor agencies so as accomplish a Herculean tasks so easily,” intimates Mr Kenn Essau, the Meru Project Coordinator.

Through this collective resources, we were able to build electric fences that separate people from wildlife and thus to a large extent reduce human wildlife conflicts, we have also supported community scouting initiatives, including the employment of the community members in certain aspects of the MCA, not forgetting the pumping of both financial and intellectual resources in community consultative forums and self help groups,” Essau noted.

These initiatives have seen the growth of a powerful symbiotic relationship between the park and the adjacent communities. “We no-longer view each other a competitors but as partners in the greater conservation agenda,” he says.

Incidents of banditry and poaching have ebbed so low that people no longer view Meru National Park and its environs as the poaching fields of yore. Subsistence poaching has also greatly reduced as communities can draw real-time benefits from working hand in hand with KWS.

According to Mr. Essau, “The improvement in the road network has not only been within the park but also outside and this has really won us a lot of support essential because most of the roads outside the park were bumpy all weather roads, but now we have been able to even tarmac those that lead to our parks and this has improved the movement of this communities.”

We now are able to get water nearer to our homesteads quips a community member at Kinna a small town in Isiolo South Constituency, thanks to the KWS through the Meru Project.

The same story can be said across communities living adjacent to the protected area who have benefited from varied water, agro-forestry and entrepreneurial activities supported by KWS costing over Ksh. 62 Million.

Corporate Social Responsibility is surely the oil that greases the wheels of corporate linkages and Meru is one case study where KWS has seen greater success of its CSR initiates, this is set to grow even further, with the opening of the park to a greater tourism audience.

Tourism Opportunities in Meru National Park
Meru National Park boosts of diverse tourism opportunities following the adoption of a general park management plan that encompasses the whole of the Meru Conservation Area.

The current attractions of the park include it being the home of Joy and George Adamson, the famous Elsa’s and Pippa the Cheetah.

Covering an area of bout 870km2 the Park is Kenya’s wilderness and representative of the second largest conservation area.

A vast majority of visitor’s visits Meru National Park that has wilderness characteristics and pristine environmental qualities. These qualities are becoming increasingly hard to find in Kenya’s Protected area establishment. This provides an advantage over more accessible areas with larger populations of easily visible wildlife.

The Tana River is the longest river in Kenya, and flows east from its source in the Aberdare Mountains around the Mount Kenya massif through the MCA where it forms the north-south boundary between the Meru NP and Mwingi NR, and Bisanadi NR and Kora NP.

Flowing through the southern boundary of Meru National Park, the river provides potential opportunities for rafting and boating, an attractive location for new tourism accommodation sites, and an added dimension to any walking safaris or other activities that may be developed in the area.

A particularly impressive section of this river is a series of rapids known as Adamson's Falls, located around 200 metres from the bridge crossing the Tana River, which provides an ideal location for short walks and picnics.

George Adamson moved to the then Kora National Reserve in 1970 to continue his work on the rehabilitation of captive or orphaned big cats for reintroduction into the wild.

He and his wife Joy Adamson are best known through the book and the Academy Award winning film “Born Free”, which depicts the story of Elsa, an orphaned lioness cub they raised and later released into the MCA (and who is buried in Meru National Park).

In 1989, at the age of 83, George Adamson was killed near his base at Kambi ya Simba.

Meru National Park is surrounded by a variety of different peoples, with varied cultures, traditions and associated land-uses.

Boran pastoralists are found to the northern and eastern areas of Meru National Park and Bisanadi National Resereve; Tharaka and Kambas agriculturalists occupy areas to the south while to the west of the area the Wameru agriculturalists predominate.

Orma pastoralists mainly occupy the remaining areas to the north and east. Meru National Park management is taking steps to help improve the compatibility of cultural practices and land uses surrounding the MCA with the area’s conservation, and to ensure that MCA-adjacent communities are directly benefiting from the area’s existence. This is achieved through management actions under the CP&E Programme, which involve enhancing, or developing community NRM institutions, and the promotion of community tourism initiatives and potential attractions outside the protected area, such as the Njuri Ncheke Shrines.

Meru national park has exceptional resource values that can be described as the area’s key natural resources and other features that provide outstanding benefits to local, national and international stakeholders and that are especially important for maintaining the area’s unique qualities, characteristics and ecology. These include the big five including the elephant, lion, leopard, rhino and the buffalo. Other animals that are endemic to the Meru eco-system are the rare species of the bush babies recently discovered. Meru National Park is also last frontier for protection for the endangered Grevy zebra, Somali Ostrich and the endemic naked mole rat that is only found in Meru.

Meru National Park as elaborated is divided into two zones (high and low) that provide wide area use and accommodation prescriptions. The zonation scheme provides a framework for reconciling the twin management needs of protecting natural resources and regulating and promoting visitor use.

KWS is currently working at improving the low bed capacity within the park. At present the park as at least two operational lodges and a third that is under construction. Elsa kpje and Leopard rock provide visitors with a exclusive high-end tourism accommodation facilities.

When completed the Meru Mulika Lodge will be a 60-bed tourist facility. The facility will have the most sophisticated environmental protection facilities will be marketed as a high-end destination outfit.

Other tourist accommodation facilities include; permanent tented camps, special and public campsites, KWS self catering cottages and tousit hotels in the surrounding towns.

Fact File:
Location: Meru North District Eastern Province

Distance from Nairobi: 348Km

Date of Gazzettement: 18th December 1966

Acreage: 870 Km²

Altitude: 2740 Feet ASL

Latitude: 38^o 00 & 38^o 25`

Climate: Agro-Ecological Zone V, Bimodal Rainfall 380mm-1000mm, Moisture Index –42 to 51, Temperature: day- 330 Night 200

Airstrips:
Main Airstrips- Mulika & Kinna
Others- Masandukuni

Park Gates:
Main Gate:-Murera Gate
Others:- Ura Gate, Bisanadi Gate, Tana Bridge, Kanjoo Gate, Mulika, Elsa Kopje

Major Attractions:
Former home of Joy and George Adamsom and Elsa the Lioness (Born Free)
Rivers and riverine habitats
Tana River and Adamson Falls
Pippa’s Grave
Hippo Pool
Grevy zebra among the Northern species
14 Permanent Rivers
Diverse Cultures including: Borana, Meru, Tharaka, Akamba

Guest Accommodation Facilities:
Hotels/ Lodges: Elsa Kopje, Mulika, Leopard rock
Banda’s/ self-Catering Cottages: Bwatherongi, Murera

Permanent tented Camps: Off Beat Safari camp

Special Campsites: Kampi ya Baridi, Kitanga, Makutano, Rojowero, Mugunga, Kenmare, Kanjoo, Kampi ya Chuma, Princess, Kampi ya Nyati

Public Campsites: Bwatherongi

Tourism Activities:
Game Drives, Short Walks (along specified routes), Catch release Fishing (In designated areas), Raft boating (On Tana River), Wildlife Translocations, Camping.

Exceptional Resource Values:
The following resource values provide outstanding benefits to local, national and international stakeholders.