SITREP LIII June 2019 DIARY OF EVENTS: 2019 AUSTRALIA Gold Coast: Sunday Curry Lunch, Krish Indian Restaurant, Robina TBA Brisbane: Sunday Curry Lunch, Punjab Curry Club, Forest Lake TBA Sunshine Coast: Sunday Curry Lunch, Caloundra Boat Club TBA Contact: Alastair Napier Bax. Tel: 07-3372 7278 <[email protected]> EA Schools: Picnic, Lane Cove River National Park, Sydney TBA Contact: Dave Lichtenstein. 041-259 9939 <[email protected]> Perth: Bayswater Hotel – KRA and EA Schools curry lunch TBA Contacts: KRA – Aylwin Halligan-Jolly <[email protected]> BHS: Richard Tredget <[email protected]> GHS: Pat Dunn ENGLAND The KenReg Rafikis 2019 Curry Lunch at The Victory Services Club, 17 July 63-79 Seymour St, London, W2 2HF. Contact: John Harman <[email protected]> Tel: (0044) 1635 551182. Mob: 078-032 81357. 47 Enborne Road, Newbury, Berkshire RG14 6AG KENYA Nairobi Clubhouse: Remembrance Sunday and Curry Lunch 10 Nov Contact: Dennis Leete <[email protected]> NEW ZEALAND Auckland: Soljans Winery & Restaurant, Kumeu, Auckland TBA Contact: Mike Innes-Walker <[email protected]> SOUTH AFRICA Cape Town: Somerbosch Wine & Bistro - Stellenbosch July Contact: Geoff Trollope. Tel: 021-855 2734 <[email protected]> Johannesburg: Sunday Curry lunch, German Club, Paulshof (Joburg) Oct Contact: Keith Elliot. Tel: 011-802 6054 <[email protected]> (towards end of) KwaZulu-Natal: Sunday Carveries: Fern Hill Hotel, nr Midmar Dam 16 Jun, 15 Sep, 17 Nov Contact: Jenny/Bruce Rooken-Smith. Tel: 033-330 4012 <[email protected]>; or Ray/Sally Letcher. Tel: 033-239 0722 <[email protected]> ***** Kenya Regiment Website <www.Kenyaregiment.org> administered by Graeme Morrison SITREP Editor: Bruce Rooken-Smith, Box 48 Merrivale, 3291, RSA. [Ed: My thanks to Anthony Allen for proof reading, albeit against the clock – any errors are mine!] Front cover: Crossing Victoria Falls bridge from Southern Rhodesia into Northern Rhodesia Back cover: Katherine Gorge, Northern Territory, Australia The views expressed in SITREP LIII are solely those of the contributors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Editor, nor those of the Association – E&OE I was born in Africa and its seasons shaped my soul, I knew my place beneath the sun, the warm earth made me whole, Those arching skies and brilliant stars fixed my position there, That brooding space my boundary, the far horizons clear. I belonged to Africa and knew no other home, I had no wish to leave her and no desire to roam. The heat, the storms, the droughts were all familiar scenes to me, The hills, the plains, the valleys and the green acacia tree. It’s tempting to resist my fate, to look back and complain At the stealing of my birth right and who or what to blame, For the loss of those I loved and knew, and the places I have known. My memories will always take me back to friends that now have flown Regrets and blame are for the past and I must walk the track That takes me on this journey, where there is no turning back, I must embrace the changes that old England holds for me And see the old with eyes anew where I was meant to be. There is a beauty here in England and it’s steeped in history, It’s the land of both my parents and my ancient ancestry. So I must look beyond the dross and open up new doors, And blend my life that’s yet to come with what has gone before. I do not have to be there to hear the Masai song, It lives forever in my mind where memories belong. When I sail through the sunset, the truth will set me free Take me out of Africa—but leave Africa in me. RL 18 Printed by Pmb Drawing, Pietermaritzburg, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa THE KENYA REGIMENT & CONSERVATION [Ian Parker KR4602] [Ed: Having included a very brief article about Daphne Sheldrick’s life in SITREP LII, I approached Ian for an equally brief synopsis of East Africa’s, Kenya’s in particular, Wildlife Conservation, and the Kenya Regiment connections.] Military links between game keeping and hunting are ancient. The tactics of locating and outwitting human enemies have many similarities to hunting. Bushcraft. stalking, tracking, concealment, using and understanding camouflage, navigating across country, capacity to rough it, live off the land and endure discomfort and senses of independence, are attributes armies value. And so it was across East Africa’s colonial years. Frederick Courtney Selous, DSO, was not only an ardent conservationist, a great naturalist and hunter, but also an aggressive and competent soldier. Six out of the eleven substantive or acting Chief Game Wardens of Kenya prior to the country’s independence were military men (tho’ not from the KR). Of all 75 Game Wardens listed as serving in Kenya’s Game Department in Parker & Bleazard’s ‘Impossible Dream’, 41 (55%) had military experience. The same pattern appeared in Uganda’s and Tanganyika’s Game Departments and National Parks. Being a territorial unit that drew its members from all walks of life, from its inception in 1936, there were few aspects of colonial Kenya that Kenya Regiment (KR) men did not contribute to. It recruited from the farming communities, the railways, every field of commerce, the civil service, commercial aviation and many more besides. Yet perhaps no field was quite so influenced by KR men as conservation. In 1950, the tiny Game Department and National Parks combined, had fewer than 30 wardens. Of these, their KR men, listed alphabetically, are George Adamson [KR1719], Jack Bonham [KR577], Don Bousfield [KR848], Mervyn Cowie [KR399], Gordon Harvey [KR374], Tony Henley [KR3696], Marc Lawrence [KR666], Charles Marshall [KR302], Frank Poppleton [KR1813] in Uganda, Evelyn Temple-Boreham [KR199], David Sheldrick [KR415] and Myles Turner [KR884] all saw service in the Second World War and left their marks in conservation. Re-establishing the Regiment in 1950 and the Mau Mau rebellion in 1952 produced the next wave of KR names on the conservation record. Alphabetically some are David Allen [KR3974], Athol Allison [KR6917], Jack Barrah [KR3627], Stan Bleazard [KR4242], John Brown [KR3902], Rodney Elliott [KR5758], Alexander Forbes-Watson [KR4547], Charles Harris [4665], Peter Jenkins [KR4311], Denis Kearney [KR4087], Marc Lawrence [KR666], Tom Martindale [KR3934], Dave McCabe [KR4280], Julian McKeand [KR4302], Monty Moore [KR4891], Ian Parker [KR4602], Gilfrid Powys [KR6263], Peter Saw [KR6144], Tony Seth-Smith [KR4980], Bill Woodley [KR3997]. These lists relate to the National Parks and Game Department only. If one includes professional hunters, they would be far longer, as the East African Professional Hunters Association (EAPHA) played an important role in pressing for national parks (their archive is now housed in the libraries of the University of Florida) and many were honorary game wardens. Until after independence the Trustees of the Royal National Parks of Kenya always had an EAPHA representative on their Board. Such lists would be further enhanced if the KR men who had been appointed Honorary Game Wardens were to be taken into account. Unfortunately no such record now exists. 1 It was no accident that conservation policy across the colonial period was not in the hands of biologists, but better enforced by people with military and police experience. Their primary role was not so much managing animals and plants, as controlling people, preventing trespass and poaching. After independence, these qualifications gave way to scientific degrees which, whatever fine science was produced, was a catastrophe for enforcement. Quoting Myles Turner [KR884] of the Serengeti:- “Out of the many hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on research in East Africa during the fashionable decade of the 1960’s, little if anything has been achieved to my knowledge. Far better, if the money had been spent on anti-poaching and education. One thing is sure, it was a great confidence trick, and virtually nothing has ever come out of it to help the hard-pressed animals of East Africa.” Small wonder the boffins squealed in anguish, and Myles was a tad over the top, but what he said has a strong core of truth. As Bill Woodley opined dryly:-“The only parks without problems are those without scientists”! Again Bill exaggerated, but he was the continent’s most out-standing anti- poaching warden with cynicism well founded. The greatest KR contribution to Kenya’s conservation took place in and around the Tsavo National Park. Proclaimed in 1948, it immediately proved too large for one Warden and two junior Assistant Wardens to manage. In 1949 it was divided in two: all east of the Nairobi/Mombasa railway becoming Tsavo (East), all west of the line becoming Tsavo (West). David Sheldrick, who in WW2 had been the youngest Major in the KAR (seconded from the KR), and had tried professional hunting, became Warden of Tsavo (East). His junior Assistant Warden was Billy Woodley. They were joined for a short period in the early 1950s by John Lawrence who had also seen active service with the KAR in the East African campaigns and in Burma. Sheldrick, a military martinet, tried to make the system of field patrolling from fixed bases, patterned on Kruger in South Africa, work. The bases were too few and the manpower, limited to what in army parlance would be a section or less per base, too little to be effective. The patrolled zones were limited to areas within reach of each base, they could be kept under observation by poachers who often outnumbered by them. David did not take long to close the fixed bases, base his men at Park Headquarters, and deploy them in bigger units to different parts of the park without warning.