A Phone App that Helps Track and Conserve Wildlife in Nairobi

On a chilly Friday morning, in Uhuru Gardens, Brian Waswala emerges under some trees, phone on his hand. Since 7 am when he arrived, he’s been busy taking photos of plants and wildlife. He is on a mission to document Nairobi’s plants and wildlife, uploading his observations on the iNaturalist app, a photo recognition app that helps people study and learn about their findings.

The app also allows them to engage with other wildlife enthusiasts in seeking to identify their sightings. Uhuru Gardens is an ideal public space for such a mission. It is Kenya’s largest Memorial Park, located 7kms from Nairobi Central Business District. The lush gardens filled with fountains and monuments are a habitat for several wildlife and plant species including birds, monkeys and warthogs, and a popular location with the city residents for resting and meditation.

Waswala is here as the Nairobi Coordinator for the City Nature Challenge (CNC), an initiative of the California Academy of Sciences and Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. Now in its 4th Year, it awards the city with the most participants and manages to record the highest nature species observations. Nairobi, which Waswala hopes will win the contest, is one of the three African cities selected for the competition, the others being Nigeria’s Port Harcourt and South Africa’s Cape Town.

At the time of writing this, Nairobi had recorded 1627 observations, spotted 329 species and had 30 participants in the challenge.

Waswala blames the ongoing heavy rains for the seemingly low turnout. Named after the Maasai’s name for a place of cool streams, Nairobi seems a favoritefor such a competition. Besides its fame as the only capital city with a
national park, it boasts of three gazetted forests, Karura Forest at 1063 ha,part of Ngong Forest and the smallest Oloolua Forest at 710 ha. Nairobi also has an extensive river basin system that cut across the whole city and
settlement including the Ngong River, Mbagathi River, Mathari River, Gathara-ini River, and RuiRuaka River all which feed the Nairobi River which flows into the Athi River. At its prime, the rich and lush Nairobi ecosystem
earned the city its reputation as the green city under the sun.

Sadly, much of this heritage has been lost due to industrial and domestic pollution and human settlement. The remaining portions are at risk of further degradation. As an ecologist and environmental lecturer at the
Maasai Mara University in Narok County, Waswala understands what is at stake. For years, he has championed for action programmes for environmental education for sustainable development. He says the happenings in Nairobi is as a result of lack of balance between development and conservation.

While there have been efforts from different stakeholders most recently being the measures by the national and Nairobi County governments to demolish settlements along riparian lands, Waswala believes initiatives like CNC offer a better sustainable solution because they involve residents in the conservation efforts. Asked whether the average citizens will care for biodiversity as much as they care for basic needs, Waswala makes the connection
of how livelihoods are dependent on flourishing biodiversity.

“The air, water, and food we all need and rely on biodiversity.  Insects pollinate plants, eat pests and decompose waste, plants give us oxygen, trees provide rain and purify the air. Loss of biodiversity affects livelihoods because it impacts on water supply, food security and increases toxicity in the ecosystems which affect human health. It also destabilizes and lessens ecosystems resilience to extreme calamities like the floods we witness whenever it rains. All these are reasons why everyone should be concerned with conservation.”

 

 According to the United Nation Environment Programme, degraded landscapes each year cost 10 percent of the global economy. In Kenya, the tourism, forestry and agriculture industries which are the backbone of the country’s economy all depend on the diverse wildlife, biodiversity resources, and ecosystems services. Conserving
the country’s biodiversity is vital for food production, generating hydropower and providing freshwater for industrial and domestic use.

In a country where much of biodiversity work is associated with foreign activists and mainly seen in the eyes of parks and private conservancies which in no small extent exclude locals, it can be hard to change attitudes. Waswala believes the iNaturalist platform and CNC offer a unique opportunity to all stakeholders including the communities living in these ecosystems. He says the iNaturalist app is a platform that allows anyone especially the youth to become part of the biodiversity protection efforts and offers an opportunity to learn more in an interactive and fun-filled manner. By using it he believes, the association of conservation with the big five and national parks only will be dispelled.

Waswala has had a keen interest in environmental affairs from a young age when he was a member of the Wildlife Clubs of Kenya in primary school. He would go on to study wildlife management and conservation for his undergraduate degree. He holds a PhD. in Dryland Resource Management and Master of Science Degree in Environment and Natural Resource Management. Working as a lead author, Biodiversity at UN Environment and youth coordinator for Regional Centre for Expertise Greater Nairobi (RCE), a consortium of environmental stakeholders for sustainable development, and Citizen Science, Waswala started corresponding with CNC organizers in the USA and with time, he brought other Nairobi stakeholders he had previously worked with on board.

“The CNC is an opportunity for me to teach Kenyans that economic growth does not necessarily have to lead to degradation and biodiversity loss. It’s wrong to choose progress over the environment,” he said as he strolled ahead to photograph a butterfly. He hadn’t seen one in a long time.

“We have to find ways of using science and technology to extract resources and help in sustainability.” He added.

 

Paul Mutuku, a botanist and environmental trainer with AROCHA and a coordinator of CNC within Nairobi Central District blames much of the city’s ecosystems degradation to ignorance and apathy which he says is
alarming. 

“Nairobi is a fast growing and polluted city and may soon turn into a jungle in which we can’t live sustainably. So, we must realize our biodiversity is our greatest asset. It could be a tree, a small insect or a bird, but they deserve our conservation efforts,” Mutuku said.

The apathy and ignorance, as well as lack of sustainable policies he says, has been responsible for some of the extreme instances of ecosystem degradation. The three Nairobi forests have had massive chunks of their portions cut off to create spaces for settlement for estates like Karen, Muthaiga, Mathare North, Gigiri, Runda, and several others. Much of Karura Forest would have gone to further real estate development but efforts from citizens led by Wangari Maathai, whose persistent efforts would earn her a Nobel Prize, helped stop the plans, but significant damage had already been done. Projects such as the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) and the North Eastern Bypass highway cut through a national park and a wetland respectively.

 

The impact of such has been the reduced forest covers, destabilized natural wildlife habitats which led to further human and wild animal conflicts as was seen by the cases of lions roaming in the streets of Nairobi. With fewer forests coverage and houses built on wetlands, the city has been flooding and houses and malls collapsing whenever it rains leading to human and property loss. Wildlife populations in the city have also taken a dip
in recent years.

The Nairobi River system has however been the most affected. Due to lack of proper planning and enforcement of the law, all the rivers have thousands of inhabitants leaving on their banks or their wetlands. The 2016 Nairobi River Masterplan noted that 56% of the capital city’s residents reside in 46 informal and middle-class settlements along the banks of these rivers. The situation is compounded by poor waste disposal and dumping of industrial effluent in the rivers.

The resulting impact has seen streams that were once filled with different fish species be choked with toxic chemicals and human waste. Several tributaries have dried up, and all have seen a significant drop in size and amount of water flow affecting other ecosystems like the Nairobi National Park and Karura Forest, the Arboretum and City Park which are supported by the rivers.

Salome Ngage, a participant and an environmental educator with Friends of Arboretum, insists there is still a future for Nairobi but requires a joint effort. She says that problems caused by poor planning and poor implementation of laws can be solved when policy-makers stop working in isolation and engage the community members especially the youths.

The Kenyan government seems to recognize this need with the Kenya Wildlife Conservation and Management Act CAP 376 calls for active community participation in wildlife conservation outside protected areas. Other laws like Wildlife Conservation and Management Act 2013, Community Land Act, No. 27 of 2016 support engagement of communities and landowners who live with or close to wildlife areas in efforts to sustainably conserve biodiversity and support community livelihoods.

The challenge, however, remains, creating awareness of such existing opportunities and changing attitudes of Kenyans to make conservation to them and not just government organizations and NGOs.

A man Mutuku tried to recruit for the CNC at the Jeevanjee Gardens insisted he couldn’t care less about trees or conservation despite been a government official with the military yet he sat under a shade of neem tree.

But for sunburnt Dan Otieno, an ice cream seller at City Park, this challenge is what the country needs to be reminded of its in environmental conservation responsibilities. He said the city’s biodiversity is incomparable as an asset and believes this competition is a unique opportunity to advance the conversation.

Waswala adds the partnerships and consultation are needed to realize a sustainable and productive Nairobi. But Kenyans must change their mentality and attitude towards biodiversity conservation. He says this has been among one of his most significant challenges as a conservationist in the city.

Waswala has been reaching out to Kenyans through social media, word of mouth, print and network stakeholders. He says the City Nature Challenge is only the beginning and Kenyans should continue to submit to the database. He plans for the country to have annual sightings, temporal and spatial planning to at least two or three years as to reconcile and see the challenges and chart a way forward.

Update: South Africa’s Cape Town emerged top at the 2019 City Nature Challenge

 

 

 

 

 

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