Kenya has unveiled a new national strategy to increase the number of the endangered rhino in the next five years.

The 2007-2011 Conservation and Management Strategy for the Black Rhino in Kenya and Management Guidelines for the White Rhino in Kenya seeks to raise the number of black rhinos from the current 540 black rhinos to 700 by 2011.

The strategy is part of a bigger plan to raise the number of rhinos in Kenya to 2000 in the next 25 years after they were nearly wiped out by poachers in the 1970s and 80s.

Kenya will also explore regional cooperation through a proposal seeking the establishment of an East African Rhino Management Group that will set protocols for exchanging and managing the eastern black rhinos within East Africa.

Since a Presidential decree in 1985 to establish a rhino conservation programme after a massive poaching crisis, Kenya has become a major player in Africa with the third largest black rhino population after South Africa and Namibia.

Speaking at the launch of the strategy in Nairobi, Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) director Julius Kipng’etich said the target of 2000 rhinos would require extension beyond protected and fenced areas to the extensive rangelands and intact habitats in Meru, Tsavo and semi-arid Northern Kenya.

The resources to realize the ambitious plan would come from KWS internal revenue, government and development partners.

Among Kenya’s wildlife species, the rhino had suffered most from poaching and habitat destruction. The populations are still small that if they were hit by a major calamity like disease outbreak, they would be wiped out.

“The poaching threat has largely been managed but it has not gone; it’s surveillance that is at its highest ever,” Mr Kipng’etich said.

He added that the survival of the rhino in the longer term would depend on good science, intensified protection, sustained monitoring and community engagement and learning from previous lessons.

In addition, the private, community and county council lands will continue playing their important role in adding to the national park and private ranches’ populations. They provide an opportunity to increase rhino numbers.

“The model of community sanctuaries has worked well and offers an additional frontier in growing our rhino numbers,” Mr Kipng’etich said.

KWS also recognises the role that southern white rhino imported from South Africa play in Kenya’s wildlife tourism and education and its importance to the conservation of the indigenous eastern black rhino. White rhinos would be introduced in community areas to boost tourism because they are easier to see than the black rhino.

For this reason, KWS and its conservation partners have developed guidelines to improve the management of this species of white rhino introduced in Kenya. The southern white rhino will also contribute to the conservation of this species globally but also and perhaps more importantly, serves as a possible reservoir of white rhino for Northern Africa.

The state agency has already bought surveillance equipment, vehicles, and recruited rangers to implement the ambitious plan and is considering introducing rhinos in former range lands.

Kenya Wildlife Service is operating on a yearly budget of Sh4. 04 billion (US$60.4 million), for all the conservation operations and seeks to have a Sh 7 billion (US$104.6 million) budget by 2010.

The launch of the rhino strategy comes ahead of others next year for the elephant, Grevy zebra, lion, spotted hyena and wild dog which are in preparation.

Kenya Wildlife Service calls upon the donors and conservation partners and all stakeholders to support the conservation of rhinos in Kenya.