For a long time, a tired man armed with a bow and arrows, machete, hacksaw, tattered shoes with a matching torn coat was the picture that came to minds whenever a poacher was mentioned in Kenya.
Every time a poacher was arrested, a bow and arrows was a common weapon they had together with machetes and hacksaw they used to remove ivory after killing an elephant.
Today, a poacher is armed with a modern rifle and state-of-the-art communication devices. They use powerful modern vehicles to penetrate our parks just to rob our elephants of their most prized item, ivories.
This calls for a change of tact when dealing with this evolution of poachers from the ones that were being used.
Although the bow and arrow poacher caused damage, it cannot be compared to the havoc the modern poacher is wreaking today. Over 100 elephants are killed everyday in Africa and this translates to about 33,000 a year.
Going by this rate, our elephants in the next several years might just become extinct. Our Rangers in the parks should be facilitated by the government to acquire modern weapons to match that of the poachers if we cannot afford more sophisticated ones than theirs.
Most of the times, rangers have been unable to confront poachers because they were under armed therefore, our elephants are at the mercy of these unapologetic killers.
Some of the rangers have also lost their lives in this war. Therefore, we must lobby for the government to increase funding to this sector and specifically equip Kenya Wildlife Service to deal with modern poaching effectively.
Another area that should be looked at keenly and seriously are the existing laws related to poaching. Poaching should be made a very serious crime with severe punishment.
Our parliamentarians should take the initiative and play their role by drafting and revising poaching laws to make them more relevant to the present days situation.
Ivory is worth millions and sometimes we witness poachers being fined peanuts after being taken to courts and they easily pay because they have the money.
Others are granted bail and eventually they jump bail and run away to continue with the heinous crime. This cycle is encouraging poachers because they arm themselves with money to buy their freedom.
Bail conditions should be set high in order to discourage this vice. Still in this area, we need to deal strongly with corruption. From the courts to the police service, corruption is aiding poaching and our elephant numbers keep dwindling. The popular saying "Why hire a lawyer when I can buy a judge?" should not be allowed to get root in the system as this is aiding criminals to continue with the vice.
Suspected poachers have been caught in the past even with evidence, but the cases are lost in court due to lack of proper investigations by police and other times lack of enough evidence to nail the culprits. A case in point is the latest haul of ivory that was seized in Thailand and it is suspected to have been an exhibit in poaching cases here in Kenya.
This shows how serious corruption tentacles have penetrated the industry. There has been allegations that poachers collude with police and money exchanges hands.
We must fight corruption seriously in our judicial system.
The traditional poacher we knew often had problems getting markets for the ivory they got after living in the forest for a month or two hunting elephants.
Today, our ivory finds its way overseas and this points to an organised and well facilitated process and allegations that some high powerful individuals could be behind this business lends credence to this.
Just like drug trade, money has been claimed to be used in politics, poaching is heading there and we should fight it from all corners.
This is not a fight for he faint hearted as it affects everybody. We might bury our heads in sand like the proverbial ostrich, but the consequences of keeping quiet are grave. We must raise our voice.
We must involve everybody in this fight. We should raise awareness about the plight of our elephants by enlightening even our children to let them grow knowing that we should keep our hands off our elephants because ivory belongs to elephants.