Zakouma National Park featured in New York Times

An article appeared in the New York Times on 1 January 2013, focusing on the anti-poaching challenges faced by Zakouma National Park.

2012 was a particularly challenging year for Zakouma, mainly due to the devastating attack on our rangers at the Heban outpost located 100 km north east of the park in September. The good news however is that our management team, led so competently by park manager Rian Labuschagne, has managed to keep the Zakouma elephant numbers stable at about 450, with only four elephant fatalities due to poaching recorded during the year, all of them outside the park. This follows on from the six-year period prior to African Parks’ involvement which saw 600 – 800 elephants being lost to poaching each year. After the tragic deaths of our rangers in September, we have stepped up our anti-poaching measures at Zakouma with the aid of the Chadian government and we will soon be training an elite rapid response unit to deal with any poaching incidents in future.

Last year we established an African Parks Anti-Poaching Fund, which is dedicated to law enforcement activities at our parks, with a focus on step-up anti-poaching efforts at our three parks which are particularly under threat from elephant poachers - Garamba, Zakouma and Odzala.

Please contact us to receive more information about the Anti-Poaching Fund.