White Rhino return to Garamba National Park
Sixteen southern white rhinos have been safely translocated to Garamba National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. This subspecies' introduction to the Garamba Complex (GC) gives hope that it will adapt and fulfil the same role as the now extinct northern white rhino.
African Parks CEO, Peter Fearnhead, and the Republic of Chad’s President, Idriss Deby, last week announced details of the country’s national programme to combat elephant poaching at a function in New York attended by foreign dignitaries, Ronald J. Ulrich, the Chairman of the African Parks Foundation of America, fellow board members, donors and conservation professionals.
The initiative outside Zakouma National Park is Chad’s first national programme of its kind and scale and a first for the Central African region where elephant numbers have declined by 66 per cent in just 10 years. Fifty years ago the Republic of Chad was teeming with 50 000 elephants; today that figure is estimated to be between 1 200 and 1 500.
The plan includes the satellite collaring of individuals in eight identified herds that total approximately 600 elephants, information from which is transmitted to a National Elephant Monitoring Centre in the capital city of Ndjamena. The centre has been set up by African Parks and will be run under the auspices of the Ministry of the Environment. The satellite signals from the collars provide the positions of the elephants and details on their movements. This information is used in conjunction with intelligence from local communities to protect the herds and prevent poaching. In addition, the Chadian Government has established and trained a unit of 350 guards with the sole function of protecting these remaining herds.
Zakouma National Park, the 3 054km² breathtakingly beautiful national park operated and managed by African Parks in conjunction with the Chadian Government, is regarded as one of the last strongholds for conserving the migratory herds of savannah elephants in the region. In 2005 Zakouma’s elephant population was 4 000, but this year the figure stood at 450 following years of rampant poaching by heavily armed horsemen from Chad and neighbouring Sudan. African Parks took over the operation and management of Zakouma in 2010 and since then stability has taken hold in elephant numbers.
"Not a single elephant has been killed in Zakouma in the past two years and calves have been born for the first time in five years, an indication that the herds have begun to relax and settle,” confirmed African Parks CEO, Peter Fearnhead in his address to the attendees at the function.
He attributed the organisation’s success at Zakouma to a multi-pronged strategy. "We put in place seven effective measures, he said. " We equipped Zakouma’s rangers with effective weapons and horses, collared 15 elephants with satellite devices in order to track the main herds, improved logistics by installing nine all-weather airstrips, extended the VHF system, set up a 24-hour control room to support anti-poaching controls, increased the park’s intelligence-gathering capabilities and recruited and trained a new rapid response team with the ability to respond quickly to potential threats.”
Fearnhead concluded by commending President Deby and his Government on becoming the first African country to commit to a national elephant plan and thanking the European Union for pledging 20 years of sustained funding to Zakouma.