Pastoralists demonstrate against “harassment”

Hundreds of herdsmen from Narok and Kajiado districts in Kenya’s Rift Valley province, held a demonstration at the Maasai Cultural Centre, Naivasha, protesting against “harassment” by game rangers, the ‘Daily Nation’ reported on Wednesday. They accused the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) of arresting them and detaining them in “inhuman conditions” only to release them without pressing charges against them. A representative of the community, Toboika ole Kipenju, said they would in future resist such “intimidation” and also threatened to bar tourists from visiting the cultural centre and Ol Karia Gorge [in the Rift Valley] as these were “not within the KWS-managed park”. He said tourists would only be allowed to visit the two sites if they paid directly to the community as KWS “does not support them in any way”. KWS dismissed the herders’ allegations as “baseless”, the paper said.