I do not mean to be secretive with regards to who I get the information from however to name my friends open in public could risk their jobs with the NGO's they work for as they are involved with KWS and / or local government.
They have also expressed thewir concern on how I handle their info; I am sure you understand.

what the hell is going on in kenya?????????? are they all going nuts?????
i promise: tourism is going to be killed within the next 5 years if KWS doesn't change its mind!
greedyness comes shortly before fall!
what puzzles me most: we have "discovered" that destination only 3 years ago for upmarket tourism and convinced a number of people to give it a try despite the reputation of being a massmarket and despite of all the negative press and it has cost us a fortune in time and money/research. i think we have to revise the whole kenya concept!

From Sheldrick Trust monthly summary 11-7-07:

Early on in the month, the Kenya Wildlife Service arbitrarily and without prior discussion or warning, and also without the authority of their Trustees, suddenly decided to impose the normal $40 Entrance Fee per visit to Nairobi National Park at the Service Entrance that provides access to our premises. This instantly resulted in chaos and confusion for the visiting public. Visitors who turned up as usual specifically just to see the elephants during our one public viewing hour a day, expecting just to put a donation of K. Shs. 300/- in the Orphans’ Donation Box, turned away, irate, and refusing to pay; others threatened to boycott Kenya as a tourist destination, and tell all their friends to do the same, and many more left bitterly disappointed, not having come prepared, and therefore unable to pay. Since Rangers at the Service Entrance are not permitted to accept cash, after the first day the visitors were told to return to the Main Gate in order to load their Smart Cards and pay there even though the Gate did not have the capacity to process the numbers and still enable access to the elephants for the one open hour. Even our own personal guests and the Vets were not spared!

No amount of discussion between us and the KWS officers concerned with this implementation was successful in persuading them to rethink what was turning into an appalling Public Relations blunder since by now the Tour Operators were also up in arms. Since the situation was becoming completely out of control, eventually it had to be taken to a higher level, and this has resulted in the establishment by the KWS Trustees of a panel to investigate the matter and come up with a workable and fair solution, allowing forward planning and advance warning to the public and also taking into account that the Trust has to raise the funding to raise the elephants, who are Keeper dependent for at least l0 years of life. Meanwhile, of course, our visitor numbers have plummeted, falling by at lest two thirds, with only the very intrepid customers making the journey. By extension, so has our working revenue. Hence, for us as an organization, it has been an extremely difficult month.

Perhaps however, the most startling discovery of all has been that the Kenya Wildlife Service, who live just next door to us, are not as well informed about the work of the Trust and what it has contributed in terms of support and conservation, than the general public both here and overseas! That they also appear to not appreciate the contribution of the orphaned elephants to Kenya’s conservation reputation and their immense public relations value through the international exposure they have generated, has also shocked us. Through them, the global public have a much better understanding of their species, so they have been amazing little ambassadors for their kind that has impacted on management decisions made further afield.

May we take this opportunity to thank our many friends and supporters for their empathy and the protests they have made on our behalf. We hope for a just solution.

Every time I go back to this topic - it amazes me how ignorant these people can be?
Yes Pippa - they are all bloody nuts - shooting themselves in the foot!

One of my Kenyan friends was right when he said of KWS, "minimum service for maximum price". It's so very hard to understand how KWS could do this.

I could certainly understand this if most of the people going to the Trust also wanted to see Nairobi National Park. However, that is not true in most cases. After one has been to the Mara, Amboseli, Samburu or Tsavo and seen thousands of animals, NNP is truly very disappointing with so few animals. Park fees are usually good for a period of 24 hours, and there is certainly nothing about NNP that would keep you there for 24 hours, enabling you to get your money's worth over that period of time!

Sheldrick Trust has worked for years to assist KWS financially during hard times, and it is truly sad that KWS is not being appreciative to the Trust.

I agree - NNP has changed a lot over the years.
Such a basic issue with who goes to the trust and who then visits NNP can be worked out in one afternoon - NO they make a massive issue out of it.
"Penny wise Pound foolish" -