About the Wildlife Ranger Challenge: 

COVID-19 has brought tourism revenue to a halt across Africa, threatening the important work and livelihoods of the rangers who protect iconic African wildlife such as elephants, pangolins, rhinos, lions, and more. Ranger teams are now uniting around the Wildlife Ranger Challenge, a running race with one goal: to raise money to support thousands of their fellow rangers. Now is the time to go the extra mile—it’s time to race to support our rangers. Every dollar donated will be matched by the Scheinberg Relief Fund, doubling your generous contribution.

Your donation will help 128 rangers and an estimated 1,452 livelihoods in and around Phundundu Nature Reserve in Zimbabwe. 

Role of rangers:

In an industry where men outnumber women on the front lines by up to 100:1, a primary strategy of APF’s Akashinga program is female empowerment. Professionally trained, fully qualified, and tough-as-nails: women are hired as rangers and tasked with protecting the wildlife reserves in their own regions. Akashinga’s “beta team” began active patrols in October 2017 to protect 230,000 acres of Zimbabwe’s wilderness that, until recently, had been patrolled by trophy-hunting outfitters as they “protected” their permitted hunting areas from poachers. 

Since then, Akashinga has patrolled the Phundundu Reserve, in Zimbabwe’s Lower Zambezi Wilderness. This area contains one of the largest remaining elephant populations on the continent and is surrounded by local communities needing financial help in Zimbabwe’s struggling economy. The Akashinga team has protected elephants and other critical wildlife populations even while generating economic returns many times greater than trophy hunting ever provided.

How a donation would help:

In the past three years, IAPF has made nearly 600 arrests related to poaching between the Akashinga program and Special Investigations. We are one of the most effective in the region. In the wake of a complete disappearance of tourism as a source of income in Zimbabwe, funding for the protection of wildlife and wilderness areas has been greatly reduced. 

Any additional funding will help contribute to stopping the increased wildlife crime that we are expecting to happen over the coming months and start to drive a downturn in elephant poaching in the Lower and Middle Zambezi region. This will be done through special investigations, conducting arrests, seizure of illegal weapons, cyanide (a poison used to kill elephants), and wildlife products - both live and dead. This effort will help meet the need for increased protection of wildlife due to reduced income from tourism in the wake of the Covid-19 crises.

Effects of the pandemic:

Rangers and support teams in the field have invested significant time and resources assessing current circumstances and virus projections, anticipating regional impacts from COVID-19 on their operations (in a country with only 6 respirators), and modifying their tactics and Standard Operating Procedures to ensure the safety and security of our people while continuing our mission. Our teams are isolated by patrol groups and do not mingle with other rangers or support staff in camp. While off duty they go to their homes and stay there until returning to work and “patrols under quarantine” – because they must continue to protect the animals. 

Across Africa, the tourism industry has completely collapsed due to COVID-19. For non-profits and conservation organizations that rely on income from tourism, this is having devastating consequences. Without the resources to operate, many have been forced to reduce operations and send rangers home for the foreseeable future. We are now seeing a surge in elephant poaching and ivory trafficking in the wake of these industry shutdowns. 

We stand strong in our commitment to patrol the vast wilderness areas we are entrusted with and protect those that can’t fend for themselves against poachers. But we do need to do much more right now. If the current situation continues to deteriorate, years of conservation efforts will be undone. True to our mission, we must continue to do all we can to ensure that we are the first and the last line of defence for wildlife and that the IAPF rangers are always there for them when they need us most. Poachers will not rest, quarantine, or hesitate, hence it is up to us to maintain operations and the moral high ground, by protecting and caring for our teams as much as possible. 

When valuable ecosystems are being left abandoned and left without staff, they open up for poaching syndicates. This is a serious threat that needs to be fought now in order to not risk unique wilderness areas and biodiversity being lost. When resources are limited, they need to be put in the most strategic places. In order to ensure that the Special Investigations work can be maintained, as well as expand the work in the areas where the downturn in tourism is having some of the most serious effects on conservation efforts, we are seeking funds for these efforts.

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Tusk is registered with JustGiving in the UK (or GoFundMe.com in the USA). Our online fundraising sites allow you to create a sponsorship form with easy access for your supporters, knowing their money is going directly to Tusk. UK tax-paying donors can enhance their contribution by agreeing to Gift Aid their sponsorship (for every £10 you raise, Tusk will receive another £2.50 from the Government provided you are a UK taxpayer). US supporters wishing to make a tax deductible donation can do so via GoFundMe.com.