pay their school fees. Men asked me to help remove ivory from an elephant. It was already dead and I was to get paid for the job. I had never really thought about elephants – people in my community think they are destructive. They destroy crops and can be dangerous."

He said the men poisoned the elephants by leaving contaminated food, often salt and ash mixed together, at known feeding areas. The lethal mixture gives the elephants diarrhoea and eventually kills them. The other poachers had promised him a cut of the ivory sale – he hoped it would be around 10,000 Kenyan shillings, or just over £70. "That day I saw an elephant for the first time up close. I felt something in my heart. I really feltfor it. I still have the vision of that dead elephant in my mind. The other men were part of an organised group, who also sell game meat. Those involved in the actual poaching are rarely arrested. Perhaps if they knew they could end up in prison, it might deter them."

This is the hope of the Kenyan government, which has just passed a Wildlife Conservation and Management Bill that will bring in stricter sentencing rules for poachers, and larger fines. Chachu Ganya, a Kenyan MP who has worked closely on the Bill, said that poachers could face life imprisonment under the new law, and a fine of 15 million Kenyan shillings (£107,000). He said that the legislation was a "big departure from the previous law" which led to