They call him bird-man. Martin Wheeler stands on a rocky bluff overlooking an expanse of semi-arid land framed by the mountain ranges of the Northern Frontier District, the "wild-west" for anyone who knows Kenya well. Blood Mountain with its right-angled peak rises out of the scrub a few miles away.

Tiny birds with tremendous songs are raising a ruckus, but otherwise all is quiet. There is no turf war or skirmishes over cattle-rustling today, just a complex billion-dollar global battle over an enduring prehistoric asset: the elephant.

"I'll just see if there are any elephants on my landing," Wheeler says, peering down at the dry riverbed below. His motorised backpack and paraglider allow him to go anywhere. Wearing a harness and a helmet, he looks nervous. The wind has dropped. A GPS handset and altimeter are strapped to his thigh. Standing 50 metres from the edge, with what is essentially a lawn-mower engine and a large fan on his back, a giant kite stretched out behind, he takes a last look at a crumpled windsock, inhales deeply, and runs off the cliff.

Wheeler and a security team look after the Lekerruki group ranch owned by the Mukogodo-Maasai people, 24,280 hectares (60,000 acres) of wilderness in north-eastern Kenya.

Early in the morning one of the team, Laban, found human tracks while crossing a dry riverbed. The former elephant hunter is now a well-trained wildlife ranger, armed with a semi-automatic rifle and the jurisdiction to use it. He reported the details of the tracks to security command, identifying even the brand of shoe.

The carcass of an elephant left by poachers in northern Kenya. Photograph: Kristian Schmidt/WildAid

Rangers at a distant outpost also reported hearing gunshots during the night. A aeroplane from a nearby conservancy has done a flyby, and a car has been deployed, but on this sand, where roads are virtually nonexistent, it is difficult to cover the ground. Wheeler wants to have a look for himself. "We are doing all we can with every tool we have available; on foot, by vehicle, by plane and now by para-motor," he says.

A quietly spoken young Kenyan, Wheeler's face becomes animated when he talks about birds– he has a sanctuary for rehabilitating birds of prey – and his jaw becomes set with uncharacteristic anger when the topic of poaching comes up, as it inevitably does. Africa's wild elephants are being killed at their fastest rate since 1979-89, the bloody decade in which their number more than halved from 1.4m to 600,000. Wheeler, like many conservationists, is on the frontline.

Elephants are the most prevalent big animal species on the Lekkuruki group ranch, where he and his girlfriend, Antonia Hall, run a lodge. "Paramotoring air patrol enables a more constant presence. You can cover large areas without disturbing wildlife or livestock. Its unobtrusive, and slow moving, so you gain unobstructed views," he says.

Aerial surveillance using drones has proven a successful conservation tool in Madagascar and elsewhere, and private conservation firm, Ol Pejeta Conservancy, hopes to trial the technology in Kenya within the next two months.

Kenya's then president, Mwai Kibaki, far right, sets alight confiscated elephant tusks at Tsavo West national park. Photograph: Dai Kurokawa/EPA

It is not just conservationists with technology at their fingertips. Speaking earlier this year at the British high commission in Nairobi, the UK minister for natural resources, Richard Benyon, said organised gangs and militias now used helicopters and gun silencers to poach. "State of the art technology is being used to prosecute this dreadful trade," said Benyon.

Also speaking, Christian Turner, the high commissioner, added: "Illegal wildlife trade is the 5th largest illicit transnational activity and the potential for profits of poaching to feed back into terrorist activity is real."

Earlier in July, the US pledged $10m to combat the trade during Barack Obama's visit to Tanzania. On Tuesday, the former US secretary of state Hillary Clinton added her name to the fight.

"All figures suggest that the [elephant] population has now dropped below 500,000 and may be 450,000 or lower," says Charlie Mayhew, chief executive of the charity Tusk Trust. Experts estimate Africa will lose another 30,000 this year.

Arappa, a Mukogodo-Maasai security scout at the Lekerruki group ranch, says he did not know what to think when he saw Wheeler's first "bird-man" voyage last year. "Martin helps us to keep our land free of poaching in every way possible. We never though it could be done like this. When we first saw the machine, we laughed, but now we see it benefits the conservancy and the community," he says.