AFRICAN ELEPHANT FUND NEWSLETTER | 2023 AT A GLANCE

Completed Pre-Covid-19 Projects

Improving Field Intelligence and Investigation Capacity for Ivory and Other Wildlife Crimes in Ethiopia

Increasingly sophisticated and professional techniques are being utilized to carry out wildlife crime. Wildlife authorities and law enforcement continue to seek to enhance their capacities to adapt to this challenge by also upskilling their field intelligence expertise to combat and mitigate illegal wildlife activities. The Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples Regional State (SNNPRS) in the South of Ethiopia has significant elephant populations. It has recorded an increase in poaching and other wildlife crime employing these advanced methods. The AEF project therefore aimed to develop field capacity to run intelligence and investigation procedures to combat elephant poaching and ivory trafficking. A Train the Trainer course was organized to build the capacity in interview techniques, court procedures and witness preparation for prosecution. Ten officials from the main office and from protected areas, were trained in field intelligence and wildlife crime investigation techniques which enhanced their knowledge and technical competency to address wildlife crime issues, and their ability to arrest and prosecute offenders.

Mitigating Human-Wildlife Conflict Around Bia Conservation Area through Community Participation in Ghana

The Bia Conservation Area (BCA) comprises Bia National Park (BNP) in the north and its adjoining Bia Resource Reserve (BRR) in the south. The only viable population of forest elephants in Ghana occurs in the Bia-Goaso forest block. This population is estimated to be less than 250 individuals (Danquah and Oppong, 2013). The West Africa Elephant Conservation Strategy and the Ghana Elephant Conservation Action Plan, identifies the Bia-Goaso elephant block as a prime focus for immediate conservation attention. Unfortunately, the population continues to decline at an alarming rate due to poaching, habitat loss and serious human elephant conflicts outside of the BCA. Human elephant conflicts have been identified as the main threat to the survival of the Bia-Goaso elephant population, particularly through crop raiding whereby the community members use retaliation measures (including killing the elephants). This unfortunate community attitude threatens the sustainability of the elephants.

To address these threats, the AEF project empowered the local communities living adjacent to the BCA to institute measures to prevent crop raiding and mitigate HEC. First, a survey was done to identify HEC hotspot areas. 150 farms in 11 HEC hotspot communities were mapped. Previously, an awareness creation exercise was then undertaken, engaging local community members at all levels, including assembly members, women leaders, opinion leaders, etc., and also through the local radio stations, to sensitize them on the study and build their trust and cooperation. Multiple approaches for HEC mitigation were then utilized, including local solutions. Among this was the formation and training of Community Volunteer Squads comprising of 12 people in each of the 11 hotspot communities to implement control measures during the onset of raids to reduce conflicts. The squads were also equipped with elephant deterrents such as blasters, torchlights and cutlasses. Further, 9 field officers were trained on SMART and the use of GPS to effectively monitor elephant activity in and around BCA, as well as on the assessment of raided farms to pick relevant information for the Park’s HEC database.

Securing the elephant population within the Greater Amboseli Ecosystem from escalating human-elephant conflict and poaching risk due to COVID-19 in Kenya

The Greater Amboseli Ecosystem (GAE) straddles the border between Kenya and Tanzania. It is a mixed-use landscape composed of national parks and community-owned land, and contains some of the most important wildlife areas on the continent, including a world renowned elephant population with some of Africa’s last remaining big tuskers. Wildlife, including elephants, spend up to 70% of their time on community land, and therefore outside formally protected parks. However, community-based wildlife protection programs have been implemented on community land within this landscape for 3 decades. Though the threat of elephant poaching within the GAE has largely been eliminated, human-elephant conflict (HEC) and habitat- and connectivity-loss are growing long-term threats that require continued urgent attention. This was further exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Through the project, 2 vehicle-based mobile ranger units were re-operationalized to conduct anti-poaching missions, address human-elephant conflict mitigation, improve habitat protection efforts, and provide community support to improve tolerance. The 2 mobile patrol units completed 459 patrols covering 59,777km. No elephant poaching incidences were recorded during this period. Two (2) elephants suspected to have died from natural causes were discovered with both sets of tusks intact. These were fully recovered and handed over to the designated competent authority. 2 bushmeat poachers were arrested in separate incidences and 1 ivory piece, 1 tusk, 2 snares, over 160kg of bushmeat, and 12 poaching tools confiscated. The mobile units were also effective in responding to instances of human-elephant (HEC). The rangers stopped 24 crop-raids and intervened in another 24 incidences therefore reducing the damage. Only 2 incidences were reported after the crop-raiding has already occurred. In 15 incidences, the rangers pushed the elephants away from community areas, and away from crop protection fencing in another 42 incidents. The rangers also attended to 4 speared elephants, stopped 1 elephant hunt, and conducted 1 elephant translocation.

Reducing Covid-19 Related African Elephant Conservation Challenges in and Around Nimule National Park (NNP) in South Sudan

The Nimule National Park (NNP) hosts an estimated 125 African Elephants. It is one of South Sudan’s critical elephant conservation areas. In the last 15 years Nimule and Elegu border towns and villages in and around NNP-OFWS Landscape have rapidly encroached into elephant dispersal areas destroying their habitats and blocking their migratory corridors. This has impeded the vulnerable population’s crucial migration during years of forage scarcity. Further, several elephants have been killed and a large number of elephant tusks seized between 2012 and 2020 within these areas. Considering the number and rate of their mortality due to illegal killing, NNP’s elephant population is therefore gravely periled, with this challenge intensifying during the pandemic. The primary objective of the project was to reduce and mitigate the threats to elephant populations intensified during the height of the Covid-19 outbreak, (elephant poaching, habitat destruction and human elephant conflict) in the Nimule National Park (NNP). 15 rangers and officers were selected and trained on the use of GIS technology in anti-trafficking and anti-poaching missions. Security personnel in the country’s entry and exit points also received training on CITES Provisions on Regulation of Trade in specimen of species in Appendices I, II and III. This strengthened the capacity to identify elephant products. Further, staff were trained on Stockpile Management System and DNA sample collection and analysis.

The project tapped into indigenous knowledge to identify 6 elephant migratory corridors and 13 dispersal areas. Involvement of local communities in conservation efforts was further enhanced through the establishment of Natural Resource Management Committees (NRMC), with the aim of ensuring that local communities participate in land use policies and management decisions. 30 community leaders and youth were also trained on appropriate human-elephant conflict (HEC) management approaches, including use of traditional methods, and on how to respond to crop raiding incidents. Complementing this, a study on different HEC mitigation strategies was done, where the local communities were surveyed. From the study, guidelines and strategies to mitigate HEC were developed and disseminated to targeted communities through dramas and jingles aired on radio in local languages. The project also successfully collared 6 elephants to strengthen monitoring of elephant groups within the Park.

Reduction of COVID-19 pandemic impact on elephant’s conservation in Fazao-Malfakassa National Park in Togo

The Fazao-Malfakassa National Park remains the only site in Togo today that shelters herds of elephants permanently living there. Increased surveillance over the last few years has helped maintain representative ecosystems for biodiversity conservation and flagship wildlife species like the African elephant. The increase in the elephant populations, coupled with the growth in the human populations in the neighbouring areas has led to an increase in human-elephant conflicts. The spread of Covid-19 further exacerbated the invasion of the Park by the resurgence of poaching, charring, sawing and clearing, complicity in fraud and corruption to overcome the loss of livelihoods crisis linked to the pandemic. The objective of the project was therefore to secure the elephant populations of the Fazao-Malfakassa National Park through capacity building of conservation actors and the improvement of the living conditions of local communities.

Through the project, 50 personnel, comprising of 11 staff from the administration and 39 eco-guards from Fazao-Malfakassa National Park, were trained on anti-poaching, data collection, intelligence and investigation techniques, as well as on understanding conservation legal texts. The trainings built the capacity of the administration staff and eco-guards to effectively search for perpetrators of wildlife crimes and to better investigate and present cases for prosecution. Additionally, 55 beehives and beekeeping equipment were procured, distributed and installed among 3 local community groups. The beekeeping activities will simultaneously be a source of livelihood while serving as deterrents to elephants. This will improve the living conditions of the local communities.