The Amboseli Trust for Elephants field team has been forced to open a new eastern front in the continuing war to conserve elephants and the ecosystem.

Already over the past two months our Maasai Elephant Scouts have reported that possibly six large breeding bulls have been killed in the Kimana-Kuku area. One was speared in early July. Another found dead with four spear wounds and the tusks already taken. Another, as the Scouts could reconstruct from tracks, retreated into dense bush and managed to chase off the poachers before he died. Last week, bull ivory was recovered by authorities at Rombo after being tipped off by the Scouts. This week, a 23-year old youngster, Regan, from the RA family was found with a spear wound on the left side of his belly.

Regan was treated by Dr. Ndeere, a KWS vet, who was convinced he would survive. The ATE field team and the KWS vet are keeping an eye on another old bull who is limping badly with a wound in his front foot: either from a spear or a snakebite.

Yet another 24-year old female, Smithie from the SA family, was also found with an injury from what the vet explained to be from a poisonous nail arrow. A small poisonous tip is fitted as the head of an arrow which leaves a pencil-width hole about two inches deep. Such injuries are much deadlier than spear injuries and are typically found in Tsavo National Park to the east. This was the first case in Amboseli: a very worrying portend. The vet wasn't optimistic Smithie would make it. Her two calves -- a 2000 male, Sinclair, and a 2005 calf -- are being looked after by Selengei, a good-hearted 21-year old female in the family.

The instigators of the killings have set up their headquarters in the northeast sector of the ecosystem, near Emali on the Nairobi-Mombasa road. They are encouraging field operations along the 100 km (62 mi) north-south Emali-Oloitokitok pipleline road. If the cordon is successful, it will cut off Amboseli wildlife from some 20% of the ecosystem.

The word is out: Shs. 6,000 ($90) for a kilo of ivory. Negotiable prices for bushmeat, depending on whether it's tommie or eland. Shs. 5,000 ($75) for a good domestic dog. 'Good', as in tasty.

Are we talking about gangs of poachers? Somali shifta bandits? Al-Qaida?

No: bilateral development aid, in the form of Chinese road builders.

Kenya is sharing in the recent glut of Chinese aid to the African continent, particularly benefitting from Chinese cash and expertise for road building. It's purely incidental, of course, that China gets one-third of its oil from Africa. President Hu Jintau signed an exploration contract with Kenya in 2006 and drilling has begun on the northern coast. Recent local press coverage has revealed a strong Chinese presence in northern Kenya. The Jinchuan Group has a 20% stake in the controversial Tiomin titanium mine on Kenya's south coast.

On most roads in and out of Nairobi you can see Chinese surveyors, section bosses in pickups, Kenyans driving Chinese road equipment. In the periurban setting, we confess to cheering them on as they lather tarmac over Kenya's infamous potholes.

But out in the hinterland, the inexorable sino-hunger for natural resources may be taking us back to the bad old days of the 1970s when Kenya and much of the rest of Africa lost up to 80% of its elephant populations. And we shudder to think what could happen to the spectacular herd of more than 100 eland that Harvey Croze flew over in May, 25 km (15 mi) southwest of Emali. And, concerning what some might think of as 'unnatural resources', it is against the law in Kenya to eat domestic dogs.

The current pattern of targeting big bulls is reminiscent of the early 1990s when Amboseli lost some of its biggest (and tamest!) bulls to European and North American 'big game' hunters paying big bucks to an unscrupulous safari firm in Northern Tanzania. The hunters trade on the old falsehood that the old bulls are 'past their prime' and no good for breeding, whereas our 36 years of research show that it is precisely the class of big mature bulls that is contributing the most and the best genes to the breeding pool. Sadly, three decades of the benign presence of researchers makes the bulls sitting ducks for the fearless hunters shooting from their vehicles.

Tanzania, too, is receiving road-building support. One particularly disturbing project is a tarmac road running from the Longido region in Tanzania to Rongai not far from Oloitokitok, roughly tracing the 1,800 m (6,000 foot) contour on the northern slopes of Kilimanjaro. That road crew has been buying meat and ivory for over a year. The 14 elephants that were speared at the end of last year (see the note we did for Richard Leakey at 14 elephants speared in Amboseli) were probably at least in part a response to the Chinese demand.

Project Manager, Soila Sayialel, on the phone just now: "We can barely keep up: every day there is a fresh report of something bad happening. This is one of the worst weeks we have had in a long time. I've just had a call from one of the Scouts: I have to dash back to Kimana right away …" (The Kimana Conservation Area is a small protected enclave, 40 km (25 mi) from Elephant Research Headquarters.)

Soila and her co-workers, Norah Njiraini and Katitio Sayialel, are being stretched to the limits, having to drive at all hours at a moment's notice to some hotspot in the east of the ecosystem. The costs in time, fuel, wear and tear on the vehicles is stretching ATE resources to the limit. We need a small motor bike, so our Maasai Scout overseer, Patrick Papatiti, can also respond quickly to alerts from his colleagues. We need additional airtime for the 15-odd mobile phones we have deployed to keep the Scouts in communications; we need extra cash for field per diems; we need to get the headquarters' solar voltaic system upgraded to ensure a constant supply as the lodge generator provides less and less each day. Here is a sample urgent needs list: