Household initiatives including the provision of cookstoves and livestock that were meant to combat sustenance-driven illegal poaching in the Amboseli and Tsavo regions of Kenya ended due to the loss of U.S. funding.
Date: 8/25
Region: Africa
Country: Kenya
Topic: Climate & Environment, Economy & Livelihoods
Policy Lens: Climate & Resource Pressure
Entry Type: Human Impact
Additional Context: These interventions were part of $7.8 million USAID grant to the International Fund for Animal Welfare, or IFAW, set to continue through 2027 but terminated in the middle of implementation. The project aimed to transform Kenya's Amboseli and Tsavo ecosystems through strengthened biodiversity protection services and natural resource governance.
According to IFAW, these interventions would have included building 1,000 energy-efficient cookstoves and supporting the purchase of livestock in order to reduce the food-related household expenditure that currently drives many intosustenance-driven illegal poaching.
Devex Researcher Note: Local organizationspoint to poverty and local beliefs of thetherapeutic properties of wildlife bushmeat as a main driver of poaching of species such as elephants, giraffes, and antelopes in the region. In addition to serving the sustenance needs of populations, IFAW notes that these practices areevolving to serve commercial enterprises in illegal urban meat markets, which would make the integration of rural and urban livelihoods programming along with security and patrolling interventions particularly crucial going forward.