In a newspaper report this week was a story, ‘Woman demands justice after jumbo kills daughter.’ The incident happened in Kaloleni, Kwale County. The mother of the dead child was out grazing goats when the child went to alert her that there were elephants in the vicinity.
Unfortunately, one of the elephants trampled the little girl to death. Undoubtedly, the government will apologise to the family and register her case, one more statistic that may be used in future to compensate the child’s family, or may be used to request for more money for wildlife conservation.
But what can mere sentiments really achieve in a life and death duel between people and wild animals? Do you kill the wild animals? Wild, did you say? When animals are roaming the forests and the savannah, do they really ‘see’ themselves as wild? How do we stop humans from encroaching on the wildlife’s habitat? Through what lens should the conflict between humans and wildlife be seen? Moral? Financial? Socio-cultural? Pragmatic?
These questions are difficult to answer conclusively. These questions can become very emotional for wildlife conservationists and humans who live in daily danger of attack from wildlife. In the recent past, encounters between humans and wildlife have increased.
African elephant
Whereas there are communities that have tried to coexist with animals in their neighbouring forests and game parks, some individuals still actively hunt down the animals for food or items for sale, such as skin and tusks. The African elephant has been a major victim of hunters for centuries to date. The elephant tusk is still a very much sought after commodity in Asia just as it is in Africa.
Well, the African elephant is at the centre of a play, ‘On Trial’ (written by Lizzie Jago; directed by Jazz Moli; staged by Youth Theater Kenya), that run last week at the Alliance Francaise and is scheduled to play at the Karen Country Club this weekend. Thereafter, it will travel to Kilifi County. On Trial is a stage re-rendering of the film The Elephant Queen (Deeble & Stone,2018).
Athena, a matriarch elephant is accused of killing a four-year old boy. She trampled on the boy, who had accompanied his mother to their farm on the edge of the forest. Athena had (probably) been attempting to protect her child from attack by the boy’s father. Athena is accused in a court of law (a court of humans). She is defended by conservationists and accused by the dead boy’s father. The court has to decide her fate.
In the pay, the audience is the jury. It has to listen to the prosecution and the defence and help the court make a ruling. What really is at stake in ‘On Trial’? or put differently, what or who is really on trial here? Is it Athena and her progeny? Is it the boy’s family and community? Is it the society that has allowed the conflict to happen?
And can the trial really deliver a verdict that is fair to humans and wildlife? Isn’t the trial itself some kind of a farce? Why would humans bring Athena to court to prosecute her? After all, her ancestors roamed the lands from which she and her offspring are increasingly being pushed. But the trial does go on.
Dramatising emotions
‘On Trial’ is a skillfully produced one Act play. The cast does a very convincing job of dramatising the emotions of loss of human life as well as the tragedy of wildlife that is forced into conflict with humans. The stagecraft is spellbinding, and the scene shifts are quite seamless – moving between the courtroom, the public road (Mombasa road, which divides Tsavo National Park into two), dream etc.
The duel between the prosecution and defence evoked the lived struggles between people and the animals – humans want land and often meat/skin/tusks; animals want space/food/peace. Inevitably, in this clash one of the two will lose out. Often both lose, their lives.
But there are underlying issues in this human-wildlife conflict that remain largely on the periphery. If the game parks and private game reserves earn money from tourism, how much of it is spent on the local communities neighbouring these reserves?
How are the local communities supported to make a decent living by the government, for instance, which claims ownership of the wildlife? Definitely these communities have coexisted with the wildlife since time immemorial. How is the knowledge they have about wildlife being used to help in wildlife and nature conservation?
On Trial’ puts the economic, political, socio-cultural, conservation beliefs and practices ‘on trial.’ It provokes the audience to think more about what value Kenya gains when it builds roads and railways and hotels across game parks, thus irreversibly changing the habit for wild animals.
‘On Trial’ is a delightful educational project. This is a play that should be performed in our schools, all the way from kindergarten to university. It should be staged for the public. It would be a refreshing edutainment in places where local communities struggle to coexist with wildlife.
Government officials should watch this play, not because it will change their approach to this intractable modern problem. But because it will remind them that today, it is neither the wildlife nor humans who are on trial when destruction and death happen in the encounter between the two, but the government. Why? Because the government is responsible for the preservation of both human life and wildlife. BY DAILY NATION
