The pickups speed off in pursuit of the giraffes. When they reach them, a veterinarian shoots a tranquilizer dart at one of them. After several minutes, the rangers manage to immobilize it on the ground using ropes.
The Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) veterinarian gets out of the vehicle and checks her vital signs. All is well. She will be taken to a small enclosure on Sergoit’s farm in the Rift Valley of western Kenya.
After an acclimatization period of around ten days, a total of eight giraffes will join the Ruko reserve, located 140 kilometers to the east, not far from Lake Baringo.
This reserve was created in the mid-2000s with a dual objective: to reintroduce giraffes into a region they had deserted and to restore peace between the two local ethnic groups, the Pokot and the Ilchamus, who have opposed each other for decades in violent, sometimes armed, clashes.
The idea of the elders of the two communities behind the project is to “guarantee peace” by attracting tourists to generate income and develop this arid and deprived region.
“Twenty years ago, Pokot and Ilchamus were in conflict over cattle rustling, which cost lives. People were forced to leave their land. This place had become a desert, a battleground for bandits,” says the reserve’s manager, Rebby Sebei.
“One community”
Douglas Longomo waits for the giraffes to arrive at the reserve. The 27-year-old Pokot farmer says it “took a while” to convince some people that ending the fighting is necessary to develop tourism.
Sometimes hunted for their meat, giraffes are today a source of common interest and cooperation.
Since the arrival of the first giraffes in the reserve in 2011, “we have never had any poaching problems,” says Rebby Sebei.
“Now we live as one community, we can move freely without any fear,” smiles Douglas Lomgomo, stressing that both communities are ready to “take care of these giraffes because we can benefit from them.”
“I hope these giraffes [créeront] “good jobs,” adds James Parkitore, a 28-year-old mechanic and member of the Ilchamus community: “I think [que le conflit] is behind us now because we have interactions.”
Rebby Sebei tempers: there remain some “small conflicts”, but nothing that “leads to the separation of the two communities”.
Before the giraffes arrive in the reserve, the two communities even hold a joint ceremony, dancing and singing together, a scene inconceivable in the mid-2000s.
“No more giraffes”
The Ruko reserve, which is now home to nearly twenty giraffes, is a way to protect these animals, which have been in decline in recent decades in Kenya due to the reduction of their natural space and illegal hunting.
There are two different species there, the Rothschild’s giraffe and the Maasai giraffe. Having them live together allows us to “observe how they reproduce,” says Isaac Lekolool, one of the heads of Veterinary and Capture Services at the KWS.
Rebby Sebei believes this is just the beginning. “There is peace and we need to bring more giraffes,” she smiles.
Ruko reserve officials even dream of making a place for themselves in the Kenyan tourist landscape, alongside the famous Massai Mara and Amboseli national parks.