Kenya: Elephant naming ceremony 2021
Kenya: Elephant naming ceremony 2021
Elephant naming ceremony 2021 : In August 2021 Kenya will hold its first even Elephant naming ceremony called Tembo Naming festival. This festival was launched early in June by the Kenya Tourism and Wildlife Cabinet Secretary Najib Balala.
The event that is intended to take place annually is aimed at bringing attention to conservation of elephants and other wild animals. Additionally the event is intended to promote the elephant tourism and entire tourism industry; especially now as it recovers from the covid-19 pandemic effects.
This year’s naming festival is slated to take place in Amboseli National Park on the 12th August 2021 which will coincide with the international day for elephants.
The naming festival will be open to the public and it will be a platform to get everyone involved in the sustainability of Tourism and Wildlife in Kenya for posterity.
The Kenya Tourism and Wildlife Cabinet Secretary Najib Balala stated on the day the festival was launched that “Wildlife is a big part of Kenya’s heritage and ensuring that future generations enjoy this resource should always remain paramount. The launch of Magical Kenya Elephant Naming Festival builds on the good work that KWS and other partners have been doing over the years. ”
As noted about the Naming festival will be held in Amboseli National Park because it home to the largest number of elephants in Kenya, but also over the year Amboseli has played a huge role in elephant conservation. With the robust elephant research programme that use elephant DNA to trace the elephants.
The Tembo Naming Festival will give individuals a chance to participate through adoptiong an elephant. The adoption process will be communicated to the public and those who wish to adopt will be required to make a contribution towards the conservation fund.
The persons, who adopt the elephants, each will get a chance to name the elephant they have adopted by giving the elephant a first name. The second name will be given to the elephant by elders from the Maasai community. Second names for the elephants will be given to elephants basing on the elephant’s story, history, profile, attributes, character et cetera. The first name however will be based on the adopter’s preference.
Fees for adopting an elephant will start as low as 1000 ksh for individuals and 50000 kshs for corporate bodies.
The magical Kenya elephant festival – the Tembo Naming Festival is expected to uplift elephant conservation in Kenya and the Kenya tourism sector especially just like the Rwanda’s gorilla naming festival the Kwita Izina; which has strengthened mountain gorilla conservation and put Rwanda’s tourism sector on a global stage.
In East Africa, Kenya is known to have the highest population of elephants boasting total elephant population of about 34,000 elephants with over 3000 elephants found in Amboseli National park alone.
Though there is an increase in the number of elephants in the wild, Kenya Tourism and wildlife service’s say there is need to boost conservation elephants to conserve more animals. Initiatives like this are some of the ways that will improve on elephant conservation.
The elephant naming festival initiative comes after Kenya conducted its first national wildlife census. The National wildlife census started in May with the main objective of aiding wildlife conservation efforts and singling out threats to wildlife. This exercise is expected to run until July and it will inform many more initiatives to protect conservation.
The results of the census have so far showed that climate change, expanding human settlements and poaching are the main threats to wildlife and the biggest contributors to the decreasing numbers of several wild animals.
