Former poachers help in the fight against elephant poaching

Ex-poachers turn the tables on their former fellow contempories

November 2013: Two victories in the battle against elephant poaching in the Congo have been achieved by the Odzala-Kokoua National Park’s eco-guard unit, which now has former poachers in its ranks. The first involved the arrest and conviction of a Congolese regional ivory kingpin in July, and the second involved the arrest of an alleged major Chinese ivory trader in October.

The Odzala eco-guard unit comprises of former poachers who applied for the park’s ground-breaking amnesty programme at the end of last year. The inaugural “poacher-to-protector” amnesty programme was launched last December with a word-of-mouth drive via existing eco-guards and with official notification letters to the chiefs of villages surrounding the park. Poachers who entered the amnesty programme were required to hand in their illegal weapons and provide written statements detailing their poaching crimes. As part of the amnesty programme, they were entitled to take part in a selection and training programme for new eco-guards in the park.

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Healthy elephant numbers but gorilla decline recorded in Congo's Odzala-Kokoua National Park

Increased anti-poaching efforts to combat greater encroachment

October 2013. An estimated 9,600 forest elephants still reside in Odzala-Kokoua National Park in Republic of Congo, according to the results of a wildlife census commissioned by African Parks in 2012, but just released. Whilst higher than expected, this healthy number is believed to be a result of compression, with elephants fleeing highly poached areas outside the park and moving into the safety of the centre of Odzala.

The Odzala census was conducted by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) on behalf of African Parks. A total of 83 transects covering 208 kilometres were walked during the survey, which was a follow up to censuses conducted in 2005 and 2008. WCS recalibrated its results from its previous surveys to ensure consistency of analysis over the three survey periods.

Dr Fiona Maisels, who supervised the census, said the results indicated that an estimated 9,600 elephants currently live in the Park (with 95% confidence limits between 7,500 and 12,400). Of these, 65% reside in the southern sector. "There has been no significant change in elephant density since the first comprehensive survey of 2005," she said.

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