Elephant Poaching Success in Mozambique

CREDIT: WCS Mozambique

Anti-poaching success isn't easy in Africa, but when a concerted team effort is put in place with sufficient funding, amazing things can be done.  For example, in the 17,104 square mile Niassa National Reserve in northern Mozambique, over a five year period (2009-2016) poaching had reduced the elephant population from 12,000 to 3,675.  A coordinated effort starting in 2018 has resulted in tremendous success in the reserve.

To fight elephant poaching head on, a group of Niassa National Reserve partners, comprised of the Government of Mozambique, WCS, and the Niassa Conservation Alliance, began to implement a coordinated anti-poaching strategy in early 2018, with the generous support of various donors such as USAID. This strategy included deploying a year-round Cessna aircraft and chartering a helicopter during the wet seasons of early 2018 and again through December 2018 through May, 2019 to transport scouts and supplies to remote poaching locations, deploy response teams when poaching was detected, as well as aerial surveillance.

A strong government effort to remove illegal mining and fishing camps in the reserve and more aggressive prosecution of poachers in combination  with improved coordination of anti-poaching resources and the addition of the resources noted above resulted in:

... an 87 percent reduction in the number of illegally killed elephants in 2018 compared to 2017. The last illegally killed elephant was reported on May 17, 2018.

As a side note - the Trump administration proposed to slash the USAID budget by 25% in the most recent Federal budget submission.