Kenya opened a new forensic lab in May 2015, supported by foreign donors, in a bid to improve the country’s record in prosecuting wildlife crimes.
Scientists at the forensic and genetics laboratory at the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) headquarters in Nairobi will be able to analyze and genetically trace seized items such as elephant ivory or rhino horn to provide more compelling evidence in court cases.
Construction of the 60 million shilling ($623,000) facility has taken nearly three years. Tanzania opened a similar lab at a college in Moshi in 2013 to provide training in forensic science.
“The establishment of the laboratory is critical to yielding convictions in courts of law, and thus deter wildlife crimes,” said KWS in a statement. It admitted that “prosecutions and convictions are rare” in wildlife crime cases and blamed this on a lack of accurate evidence.
Elephants and rhinos are under siege in Africa, their poaching driven by demand from Asia. Studies have found that the Kenyan port of Mombasa is the smugglers’ exit point of choice for moving illegal wildlife products out of Africa. Kenya’s most high-profile wildlife crime case to date is that of suspected ivory trafficking kingpin Feisal Mohammed Ali, who was wanted by Interpol and arrested in Tanzania in December 2014.
The case against him is ongoing. In August 2015, Kenya’s Daily Nation reported that Ali had been released in lieu of 10 million shillings’ bond.