“With peace restored to the region, something miraculous happened. Elephants were able to be elephants once again, and for the first time in years, they began to breed and raise their young. In early 2018, we counted 103 calves under the age of three. In 2011, we counted just one.”
Zakouma National Park is a 1,158 square mile (3,000 km²) national park in southeastern Chad, straddling the semi-arid, scrub-brush flatlands that separate the ever-growing Sahara Desert from the lush, increasingly threatened rainforests to the south. It is a part of Africa where, until recently, it was said a loaf of bread cost more than an AK-47, ground zero in a religious bush war that pitted elephant poachers and Jangaweed militias against local villagers, where, in 2007, militias attacked the park headquarters for its 1.5 ton stockpile of ivory, in the form of elephant tusks, and killed several park rangers.
The government of Chad, itself reeling from years of war and instability along its long, sprawling border with Sudan, forged an agreement with the NGO African Parks in 2010 to help manage the park and protect its wildlife, an anti-poaching operation that involved equipping 60 rangers with GPS tracking units and reliable radios.
Zakouma is unique in that it is vast, rugged and home to one of the world’s largest and least known elephant migrations, and now, according to both African Parks and outside monitors, it is in recovery. A military rapid response team, dubbed the Mambas,” after the deadly, fast-striking snake, has thrown down the gauntlet to heavily armed poachers, many of them unused to the idea that park rangers can now shoot back, with often deadly efficiency.
Zakouma and the nation of Chad marked the park’s 50th anniversary in 2014 with a ceremony attended by President Idriss Déby, in which a one-ton pyre of elephant tusks was set ablaze to send a message to the outside world that Chad’s elephants are no longer fair game.
Zakouma first came to attention to North American TV viewers when 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley devoted an entire segment, “The Ivory War,” in 2007, to some of the largest elephant herds rarely seen by western eyes, before a massive TV audience that had just watched a November Sunday afternoon National Football League game.
Pelley flew with National Geographic photographer Mike Fay by helicopter over some of the most stunning nature scenes Africa has to offer, and the future looked uncertain for a park — and an elephant population — surrounded by famine, war and pestilence.
That was then, this is now.
Zakouma’s resurgence has emerged as a rare success story, a case study in nature’s healing ability and proof that, with adequate funding, committed leadership and political stability, wildlife conservation is possible, even in some of the poorest corners of the globe.
Much of the credit belongs to the Johannesburg-based NGO African Parks, an international non-profit founded in 2000 and best known for resurrecting Mozambique’s Gorongosa National
Park, among others, after decades of civil war.
Today the organization’s portfolio includes 15 protected areas in nine African countries, with an estimated yearly budget of USD $72.5 million.
The key to success, African Parks’ directors believe, is to enlist local and indigenous people in nurturing and protecting biodiversity in the places where they live, in a way that benefits surrounding communities.
Revitalized national parks don’t just create jobs: They help heal the wounds of war.
“We all know the origin story of national parks in Africa,” ardent conservationist and philanthropist and Greg Carr told writer Patrick Adams, for an op-ed piece in the New York Times this past February.
“They were created by colonial regimes and they were essentially fortresses: open to white, Western tourists but closed to the people whose natural heritage they were meant to protect.”
People often ask him what should be done to protect African wildlife, Carr added.
“And, every time, I say, ‘Girls in school.’ It’s the No. 1 thing we will do for this planet.”
Zakouma, it turns out, is one of wild Africaʼs most remarkable transformation stories. Between 2002 to 2010, 95% of the parksʼ elephants were poached – almost 4,000 were slaughtered for their ivory, and poachers would often take out entire family units at the same time. Not only were they destroying the park’s wildlife, they were ruining the lives of local people who lived in the area.
African Parks’ website recalls what happened next.
“Our first step was to overhaul law enforcement, but it wasnʼt for the faint of heart.
“In 2012, six of our rangers were gunned down execution-style during their morning prayers. But our rangers, with their indomitable spirits, didnʼt give up. Because of their efforts and effective community work, only 24 known elephants have been lost to poaching since 2010. Along with providing law enforcement, we built ‘Elephant Schoolsʼ for local communities, providing desks, blackboards and teachersʼ salaries, helping more than 1,500 children get an education.
“People were employed to help manage the park, making Zakouma one of the largest employers in the region. With law enforced and security reclaimed, tourists began to visit, delivering needed revenue back to the park and local communities.”
And now, Zakouma’s elephant population is on the rise for the first time in a decade. Reason for hope.
©Michael Viljoen/African Parks