A long term drought is wiping out herds in Kenya. Farmers are driving
their cattle onto Tsavo Wildlike Park and though risking arrest they
are desperate. Money cming in for relief is not reaching them.
Elephants among other wild herds are being driven into agrcultural
land.

In short it is a disaster. 10 years ago the ranges began to get some
control over the poaches but now all that work seems to be in danger
too. Elephants are attacking civilians. There is no water for them and
no shade. So they are taking what they need from settlements
surrounding the area.

Meanwhile as I was writing this, news came in about the Philippines,
flooding due to heavy rains has caused at least one landslide:

MSNBC News Services Updated: 11:02 a.m. ET Feb. 17, 2006

MANILA, Philippines - Hundreds of villagers were feared dead after a
rain-soaked mountainside disintegrated into a torrent of mud,
swallowing hundreds of houses and an elementary school in the eastern
Philippines on Friday. Twenty-three people were confirmed dead, and at
least 1,500 were missing.

"So many died. Our village is gone, everything was buried in mud. All
the people are gone," survivor Eugene Pilo told GMA television
Friday, hours after the landslide engulfed Guinsaugon village on Leyte
island, 420 miles southeast of Manila.

Southern Leyte province Gov. Rosette Lerias added that "there are no
signs of life, no rooftops, no nothing."

Pilo, who fears he lost his wife and children, was at his brother's
house when they felt the ground shake just before 10 a.m.
"Then the landslides struck," he recalled. "I ran out in the
street, but I fell to the ground, along with my brother. There were big
boulders - bigger than a house - and logs which rushed down."

The farming village was virtually wiped out, with only a few jumbles of
corrugated steel sheeting left to show that the community of some 2,500
people ever existed.

Two other villages also were affected, and about 3,000 evacuees were at
a municipal hall.
Sen. Richard Gordon, head of the Philippine Red Cross, said 1,500
people were missing.
The provincial governor asked for people to dig by hand, saying the mud
was too soft for heavy equipment.

The U.S. embassy said a Navy vessel, in the Philippines for annual
military exercises, would help with the rescue efforts.

Congressman Roger Mercado said residents had been advised to leave the
village after weeks of heavy rain but he laid some of the blame on
mining and logging in the area three decades ago.
"They would not evacuate," he said. "This is the effect of the
logging before. Every time it rains there are flashfloods."
Flash floods also were inundating the area, and the rumble of a
secondary landslide sent rescuers scurrying for safety.

A small earthquake also shook the area, but scientists said it occurred
after the landslide and likely was unrelated.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11400414/

*******

Kenya's worst drought in a decade is having a devastating effect on
national parks as humans and animals compete for increasingly scarce
natural resources. Wildlife is straying out of the parks, and cattle
and herdsmen are straying in as each tries to search wherever they can
for food and water.

In Tsavo East, half the national park's elephants have broken the
boundaries.
Three people have been killed in as many months by the animals
desperately foraging for food.
Tsavo East is one of Kenya's largest national parks, receiving more
than 150,000 visitors each year.

The parched earth and rising dust signal growing conflict between
animal and man. What little food remains is being fiercely fought over.
Three years of failed rains has stripped the park of vegetation; where
there should be wildlife, there is cattle.

Grazing cattle in national parks may be illegal in Kenya but herdsmen
who bring their cows in from outside are desperate and prepared to risk
arrest.
Elephants are now fleeing the park - the invasion of livestock combined
with harsh drought driving them away.
Those that remain try to grab what shade and water they can. Normally
there should be 10,000 elephants in the park but many are now heading
into human settlements in search of food and water.

Local people are terrified of the elephants. Some have built look-out
posts in trees. Stella Kisombe was recently widowed after her husband
was killed by an elephant a short distance from their home. She said
she was hysterical when she discovered what had happened - first she
found his hat and then her husband's mutilated body.
Whenever she sees an elephant now, Stella says she runs and hides.

Only a fifth of the park is protected by fencing, and tragic accidents
are hardly surprising. There is pressure to improve security but it is
expensive. These are harsh times for animals and man alike. The
elephant population and that of its human neighbour is growing at a
staggering rate - feeding tensions over scarce resources in a land
ravaged by drought.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4725152.stm