ANAW Blogs

The African Network for Animal Welfare’s vigorous projects are guided by the universally accepted five freedoms of animal welfare. The concept was first formulated in 1965 under the Brambell Report in response to the well-being of farm animals, how they were raised, transported and slaughtered. It stated that animals should have the freedom to stand up, lie down, turn around, groom themselves and stretch their limbs. They were expanded further by the Farm Animal Welfare Council in 1979 to the now known “Five Freedoms of Animal Welfare.” The freedoms presented a golden standard for the care and protection of animals, encompassing both the mental and physical well-being.

What are the five freedoms of animal welfare?

1. Freedom from hunger and thirst
   By ready access to fresh water and diet to maintain health and vigor
2. Freedom from discomfort
   By providing an appropriate environment including shelter and a comfortable resting area
3. Freedom from Pain, Injury or Disease
   By prevention or rapid diagnosis and treatment
4. Freedom to Express Normal Behavior
   By providing sufficient space, proper facilities and company of the animal’s own kind
5. Freedom from Fear and Distress
   By ensuring conditions and treatment which avoid mental suffering.

With more understanding of animal welfare and technological advances in animal care, the five freedoms of animal welfare were met with criticism. The freedoms were said to completely focus on the negative experiences of animal welfare, a goal that has been unachievable and forgoes the positive experiences. The need to reframe the freedoms of animal welfare led to the formation of their provisions derived from The Five Domains Model. These include:

1. Good nutrition: involves the animal’s access to sufficient, balanced, varied, and clean food and water provided specifically to each animal and according to their age, breed, gender and health conditions.
2. Good environment: enables comfort through appropriate temperature, substrate, space, weather and suitable noise levels
3. Good health: provides actors that enable good health through vaccination, immediate response and treatment to injury, monitoring animals and good fitness levels
4. Appropriate behavior: involves factors that provide varied, novel, and engaging environmental challenges through sensory inputs, exploration, foraging, bonding, playing and retreating
5. Positive mental experiences: the mental state of the animal is as important as the physical state and should benefit from predominantly positive states, such as pleasure, comfort, or vitality.

ANAW embraces the five freedoms of animal welfare and their provisions, allowing us to fulfil our goal of promoting humane treatment for all animals and arousing interest amongst stakeholders on animal welfare issues, ensuring its adoption as part of the development agenda for governments across Africa.

Reference
David J. Mellor. Updating Animal Welfare Thinking: Moving beyond the “Five Freedoms” towards “A Life Worth Living”. In Animals 2016, 6(3), 21

Together with a team from Africa Network for Animal Welfare (ANAW), I set out for a field trip that would inform our activities for the year 2020. My love for animals in their natural environs had me eagerly looking forward to seeing the big five on this expedition. Our drive from Nairobi down the smooth Mombasa highway was mostly uneventful as we talked about everything from work, animals, roads to Kenyan politics. After about five hours, we arrived at the largest town in Taita-Taveta County, Voi. After a quick lunch, we were out again to meet the first community of a people known as the Watha. I wondered about these people who I later found out are also referred to in literature as the Waatha, Watta or Sanye. The Watha, I later learnt, are an indigenous Cushitic group that have lived in areas bordering wildlife protected areas. They can be seen running homesteads in the counties of Kwale, Kilifi and Tana River. They are also found in the rich bio-diversity forested hills of Kilibasi and in various coastal forests including the Arabuko Sokoke. I took time to find out more about them by scanning through various online literature and listened keenly as we met different communities who to me are a little-known people of Kenya. I had been ignorant and unfamiliar about an indigenous community existing within the Tsavo ecosystem! You see, all I knew about the Tsavo is that one went there to find wild animals particularly the elephant. You can only imagine my surprise when I heard the Watha being referred to as The Elephant People!

Hearing about the Watha and their history, left me feeling rather lost in time as I wondered where we or they have been. It appears that we left them behind going on with life in the city oblivious of the plight of a people who have always been part of Kenya. Historically, these are a community of hunters and gatherers that lived off bush meat and traded in wildlife items such as rhino horns and elephant tusks. Their knowledge of the bush and game hunting which was once profitable, in the days of hunting safaris, now leads to their arrest and imprisonment. Their former lifestyle is no longer sustainable in the modern context and the area they once lived in and lived off was taken from them to create the current Tsavo East National Park.

My colleagues and I reasoned that while the government’s need for conservation was met, the Watha community were left without an alternative means of livelihood. Their traditional dependence on honey and bush meat has been challenged in post-colonial Kenya resulting in a community that is currently characterized by youth unemployment and poverty.

Education may be the solution to some of these challenges but this story does not end with Watha children going to school because we still need to know and share about whether Watha children go to school and how.
Africa Conservation Education Fund (ACEF) is a program of Africa Network of Animal Welfare (ANAW) that was established to raise funds for the education of children from communities in wildlife areas.

Read more here https://www.anaw.org/index.php/africa-conservation-education-fund
Or for more information write to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

An exhausted hardworking team felt the draft of the city life in the rescue vehicle the minute they hit Mlolongo along Mombasa Road. It was a composite din of matatus honking in traffic, the vendors shouting out affordable prices and clustered hordes of people crossing under various flyovers on the highway in the urban concrete jungle. The fatigue and sudden noise that marked the hustle and bustle of city life did not wan their spirits.

The wildlife rescue and de-snaring operations had been successful. The operation had taken place at the tranquil wilderness about 90kms east of the Nairobi capital. This particular rescue came about from an alert by a community member that had been issued that had the Africa Network for Animal Welfare (ANAW) team jump into the vehicle and drive out to Maanzoni together with the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) team to rescue an eland, a giraffe and a bushbuck that had been caught in snares.

Every month, the rescue team sets out for the bush to investigate and collect snares set up by people sourcing bush meat in Nakuru, Machakos, Kajiado and Makueni Counties in Kenya. The organizations recognize that the community living with and surrounding the wildlife play big vital role in working to ensure that this does not happen. They often act as informants who communicate with the authorities and experts when snaring is happening or has happened, or when an animal has been spotted in a snare. It is due to this collaboration that hundreds of wildlife species have been rescued in the Kenyan wilderness.

*Isaka, for instance, was of great value to the rescue program, He spent his days tending cows and goats with his dog for a neighboring farmer in a community conservancy in order to earn a livelihood. His childhood days in the mountains had brought out a kind of respect and love for nature and animals that had always resided deep within his heart. He was a good contact for the lead of the rescue team. Periodically, he walked for about an hour to the shop to put money on his Mpesa account so that he could easily buy airtime. This was because he wanted to be able to make quick calls when he came upon an animal in a snare.

Sighting animals in distress and ensuring that they are attended to brought great meaning to his life. Community informants are not only effective in conservancies, but they are also key in protecting the environment and natural habitat such as forests, wetlands, parks, oceans, plains, mountains, and lakes. They are also the best placed players to lead and ensure that effective education and awareness is taking place amongst community members.

The informants are mostly volunteers who are passionate about protecting animals and their habitat and are willing to play their part in conserving them. They are mostly aware of what is going on the ground. Some chose to be majorly unknown to the community they are part of as they are afraid of the repercussions they would face. They are consistent in their goal to disclose the ill and harm that come to the animals. They issue alerts to conservation and animal welfare NGOs, KWS or even known individuals that they know informing them of animals in distress through phone calls, social media messages or emails.

The informants are an intricate part of the intelligence network used to support NGOs and KWS to curb bush meat trade and poaching on a large scale. In her presentation, Collaboration and Coordination Efforts in Combatting Wildlife Crime: A Kenyan Prosecutorial Perspective, given during the 1st Africa Animal Welfare Conference - Action 2017, Gikui Gichuhi stated that wildlife crimes lead to economic sabotage, banditry, global terrorism, piracy, human trafficking, child related offences, degradation of the environment and proliferation of small arms from war torn neighboring countries. She further stated that wildlife crime is an organized crime and is the fifth most profitable illicit trade in the world.

As we celebrate rangers all across the world, let us put to mind the community members that risk their lives to protect wildlife. Community informants are the faceless heroes who advocate and fight silently for the voiceless animals.

Policies and implementation plans that have focused on government institutions as the sole protectors of wildlife, the environment and other natural resources have been enacted and have been seen to be unsuccessful. Involving the community has been taken up as imperative by the state actors and has resulted in placing them at the center of wildlife and environmental conservation.

The Forest Conservation and Management Act 2016, forest management under the Kenya Forest Service (KFS) shifted from a non-collaborative approach, where local communities were excluded in decision making in state forests, toward a participatory management regime where communities are actively involved in ensuring the well-being of forests is maintained. According to the Kobujoi Participatory Forest Management Plan, the aims of such a shift towards participatory management include greater accountability, reduced conflict, and ideally address improved livelihoods and better protected resources.

Many organizations employ community scouts to patrol community areas and conservancies, manage human-wildlife conflict incidences, and collect data in an effort to monitor the impact on wildlife populations. Unfortunately, a common challenge and frustration is that enforcement is beyond the capacity of community scouts as it requires specialized interventions by trained personnel.

The drastic change in the scenery, the weather, and the landscape was familiar to the team as the sped to the office before darkness engulfed the city. They dropped the snares, portable kitchen appliances, tents, and other camping equipment at the stores beneath the lobby balcony of the beautiful tucked away building first before heading to their homes. They were ready for the next call. As they go about their daily duties, the team rely on one thing for sure. The success of the program would not be possible without community informants and scouts.

Platforms for discourse bring together different governments, organizations, groups and institutions to deliberate on achievements, strategies, actions, and challenges of programs and projects set up to protect and ensure the well-being of the environment, wildlife for human welfare. The Africa Animal Welfare (AAWC) is one such platform. The 6th Africa Animal Welfare Conference – Action 2022 that will be held in Gaborone, Botswana will give focus to Animals, People, and the Environment in a rapidly changing 21st Century. All are invited to attend the conference which will take place virtually and physically from October 31 -November 2, 2022.

By Felix Kioko

A lot has been written, talked about and advertised about climate change. In the first series of edge of extinction we learnt on why it is important to limit global rise in average temperatures to below 1.5 degrees. We know climate change is happening but the biggest questions are what do we do about it? Who are responsible to take action? Many people think that it is the government’s role to stop climate change, the government on the other hand thinks it is the people who are to take the lead in the fight. This finger pointing and lack of responsibility is what has gotten us here.

People, communities then governments. That is how action against climate change should be set up. In this series we will look at home based solutions that can help you fight climate change right from what you do at home.

Let’s make one point clear before we continue, we can’t stop climate change. We are already past that threshold. Climate change will keep happening for as long as the earth exists. The climate we are experiencing today is not near what was there a thousand years ago. The planet is changing whether we like it or not we can only dictate the rate at which it changes at.

That’s where the words mitigation and adaptation come in.

Climate Change Mitigation refers to efforts to reduce or prevent emission of greenhouse gases. Mitigation can mean using new technologies and renewable energies, making older equipment more energy efficient, or changing management practices or consumer behavior. It can be as complex as a plan for a new city, or as a simple as improvements to a cook stove design. Efforts underway around the world range from high-tech subway systems to bicycling paths and walkways.

On the other hand,

Climate Change Adaptation means anticipating the adverse effects of climate change and taking appropriate action to prevent or minimize the damage they can cause, or taking advantage of opportunities that may arise

In a nut shell adaptation is knowing that something bad is going to happen so you try and reduce its effects. Almost like why cars have airbags or planes have life jackets.

Examples of adaptation measures include: using scarce water resources more efficiently; adapting building codes to future climate conditions and extreme weather events; building flood defenses and raising the levels of dykes; developing drought-tolerant crops; choosing tree species and forestry practices less vulnerable to storms and fires; and setting aside land corridors to help species migrate.

But before we get started.

This article in no way downplays the role of the government in taking action on climate change. Climate change is a planetary-scale threat and, as such, requires planetary-scale reforms that can only be implemented by the world’s governments. Individuals can at most be responsible for their own behaviour, but governments have the power to implement legislation that compels industries and individuals to act sustainably.

Although the power of consumers is strong, it pales in comparison to that of international corporations and only governments have the power to keep these interests in check.

Usually, we regard governments as having a duty to protect citizens. So why is it that we allow them to skirt these responsibilities just because it is more convenient to encourage individual action? Asking individuals to bear the burden of global warming shifts the responsibilities from those who are meant to protect to those who are meant to be protected. We need to hold governments to their responsibilities first and foremost. But before we do that, we must first check ourselves first.

Know that that’s out of the way, here are some solutions.

It may sound obvious, but powering your home with solar or wind is still one of the best ways to fight climate change. Depending on where you live, you may be able to switch to a power company that provides energy from renewables. Or you can consider getting solar installed on your home. Learn more about getting renewable energy here.

Let me hit you where it will hurt most, your stomach. You can fight climate change simply by changing what you eat. You can significantly lower greenhouse gas emissions by eating less meat. The global livestock industry produces more greenhouse gas emissions than all cars, planes, trains and ships combined. All you nyama choma people why not take a nice freshly made salad instead. Choosing local foods when possible and buying food with less packaging. Learn more about cutting down on animal products here.

Saving water at home is another way to fight climate change. Why? Because the less water you use the less water is drained from streams, rivers or boreholes.

You can make a sustainable choice every time you need to go somewhere: I won’t tell you to use an electric vehicle, no one owns one in Kenya, but rather take public transportation if it’s available, carpool to work, ride a bicycle or walk when possible. The last two methods are a perfect way to get your body in shape. These are all ways to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases entering the atmosphere and heating our planet.

There are carbon emissions embedded in all the things we use day-to-day. When you buy fewer new things, you shrink your carbon footprint. Learn more here.

Recycling. Yes, recycling really can help stop climate change! That’s because re-using materials usually uses less energy, and thus creates less pollution, than extracting raw materials. Learn more.

Last but not least. Plant a tree. I dare say it is an injustice to boast of the aesthetic beauty of Kenya when you have never planted a tree. Not just plant but make sure it grows. According to the U.N. FAO, 6.1% or about 3,467,000 ha of Kenya is forested, according to FAO. Of this 18.9% (654,000) is classified as primary forest, the most biodiverse and carbon-dense form of forest. Kenya had 197,000 ha of planted forest. The aim is to increase the forest cover to at least 10%, this will help to suck carbon out of the air and stabilize the climate.

Fighting climate change won’t be easy. The things we consider normal routine will have to be adjusted or done away with completely.

Now that you know. Spread the word about climate change. Help save the planet.

Watch the short film on climate change and be motivated.