Training & Education

Since 2007, poaching of wildlife and in particular the poaching of White Rhinos, Black Rhinos and African Elephants, has been at the forefront of the conservation battle in southern Africa. The combination of increasing demand for rhino horn and ivory as well as high black market prices in Asian markets (especially Vietnam and China) has fueled an increase in poaching.

South Africa has by far the largest population of rhinos in the world and is an incredibly important country for rhino conservation. From 2007–2014 South Africa experienced an exponential rise in rhino poaching — a growth of over 9,000%!

In South Africa, around a quarter of the total population of rhino are found on private land. The owners of these reserves and game farms are increasingly hiring specialized companies that focus on the protection of wildlife and the apprehension of poachers

Most illegal activity occurs in the Kruger National Park (KNP), which is 19,485 km2 (almost 2 million hectares) in size and lies on South Africa’s north-eastern border with Mozambique. The Kruger consistently suffers heavy poaching losses, and so in the last few years, the South African government and international donors have channelled ever more funding and resources into securing it.

It has become clear throughout Africa and the rest of the world that in order for conservation efforts to succeed, local communities living in or near protected areas must and should be involved in conservation management decisions. Local communities must benefit from conservation.

There is a passive involvement from the communities who are staying or operating in the surrounding areas of the Kruger, since they will often not report poachers to the authorities. The reason for this is that the money that is derived from poaching plays a vital role in the poor communities. The fact that the Kruger does not really add value to the communities also plays a big role in their passivity — having a vast piece of land which is used for nature conservation neither benefits nor makes sense to them.

Therefore, recently conservation solutions have been designed to be people-centric, environmentally sound, and economically viable. 

Workforce development programs have also emerged, allowing locals to specialize in conservation education, training and skills development as well as wildlife management. These initiatives develop careers and enable connections in the following spaces: 1) field rangers with the necessary skills to help counter the onslaught of wildlife crime in the region, 2) an air wing unit that provides aerial surveillance to plot and monitor rhino movements and suppress poachers, 3) a K9 unit that adds tracker and apprehension dogs to field ranger teams and 4) community engagement projects that engender support and buy-in from local communities for wildlife protection.

Information sourced from Southern African Wildlife College