Layout: A5 HuSSci Book ID: 427762_1_En Book ISBN: 978-3-319-57565-0 Chapter No.: 5 Date: 13 July 2017 16:19 Page: 1/30 UNCORRECTED PROOF 1 CHAPTER 5 Kenya’s ‘War on Poaching’: Militarised Solutions to a Militarised Problem? Thomas J Maguire In the last decade poaching of African elephants has surged and indus- trial-scale traf icking emerged. Estimates suggest that over 200,000 elephants have been slaughtered to feed the trade since 2009—a large proportion in East Africa. 1 Between 2008 and 2015, Kenya—both, one of Africa’s primary remaining range states for rhino, especially elephants, and one of its primary traf icking hubs 2 to markets in East Asia—lost 1830 elephants out of a total population of 28,000–38,000 to poaching according to conservative estimates (Fig. 5.1). These losses have primar- ily taken place in the two rangelands mostly populated by elephants in Kenya: the Samburu-Laikipia ecosystem in the north (around 7000, or 18–25% of the total population); and the greater Tsavo ecosystem in the south (around 11,000, or 29–39%.). 3 During this surge there has been mounting evidence of links between the Illegal Wildlife Trade (IWT) and transnational organised crime and corruption, contributing to grow- ing alarm over the involvement of armed non-state actors. 4 Concern has grown that both the challenges posed by poaching and traf icking in ivory and other wildlife contraband, and the counter-measures to these challenges have become increasingly ‘militarised’. © The Author(s) 2018 T. Reitano et al. (eds.), Militarised Responses to Transnational Organised Crime, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-57565-0_5 T. Maguire (*) King’s College London, London, UK e-mail: thomas.j.maguire@kcl.ac.uk 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 A1 A2 A3