Who Will Protect Them? Poaching Pandemic Set to Wipe Out Vulnerable Animals
New initiative ‘Project Ranger’ is an emergency intervention to support 5,000 rangers to help protect endangered species amid tourism shutdown.
Credit: Great Plains Foundation
A new emergency initiative in Africa has been launched to help tackle the escalating crisis in conservation, as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to decimate tourism, and drive an unprecedented surge in poaching.
Experts are describing the impact of COVID-19 as “the biggest threat that we have seen to the conservation world”. Poaching is said to have already increased ten-fold across some parts of Africa, with the big five - lions, leopards, elephants, rhinos, and Cape buffalos - particularly at risk due to their value as ‘trophies’.
Now, the Project Ranger initiative hopes to help the crisis, by supporting 5,000 rangers who can patrol the land and protect animals from poachers, following mass redundancies of rangers.
Under the new scheme, it will cost just $6,000 to fund a ranger for a whole year.
“As travel and tourism has been brought to a standstill [by COVID-19], many wilderness areas are left vacant and workers left with the uncertainty of personal income. This ‘perfect storm’ of conditions is leaving many endangered animals highly vulnerable to wildlife crime”, say Beverly and Dereck Joubert, who are leading the project.
The pandemic comes at a critical time for conservation efforts. In the last 50 years alone, Africa has lost 90 to 95 percent of its large predators.
Earlier this year, the devastating impact of poaching was highlighted by the tragic killing in Uganda of Rafiki, one of only 1,000 mountain gorillas left in existence.
You can find out more about the Project Ranger emergency fund, on their website, and listen to the latest Species Unite episode with Beverly and Dereck Joubert.
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