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 contribution will help support 61 rangers and an estimated 200 livelihoods in and around the Hwange National Park Buffer Zone in Zimbabwe.

The role of rangers:

Anti-poaching units scouts carry out patrols on a daily basis throughout the Gwayi Conservancy and buffer zones surrounding Hwange National Park. These units work collaboratively with Hwange National Park officials in carrying out joint patrols and thus supplement the work of Zimbabwe's National Parks. With joint efforts and resources, our collective anti-poaching efforts can maximize efficiency and cover as large an area as possible--patrol areas are currently more than 10,000 square kilometers.

How your donation will help:

Funding for rangers would allow us to maintain our traditional level of anti-poaching unit deployment, which relies heavily on vehicles for rapid deployment and resourcing the scouts in the field. The arrest of one poacher often leads to multiple expensive trips back and forth to the police and magistrates court, which is 100km away, thus draining resources further.

Three active community volunteer anti-poaching units have been established as a direct result of our community-based conservation efforts. We supervise and incentivize these volunteer groups through assistance with paying school fees for the children of active members. Funding for the rangers would enable us to engage with these volunteer groups even more directly and reward them to carry out much needed patrols to increase the protective footprint on the ground.

Effects of the pandemic:

With the COVID-19 pandemic, wildlife poaching is on the rise across Africa. This is a result of both desperation (from dwindling income opportunities for local people) and opportunity (with rangers unable to work in some protected areas, giving poachers more access). This request for emergency funding will support Painted Dog Conservation’s existing and long-running anti-poaching units to address the increased threat of poaching. 

This said, we are painfully aware of the uncertainty of the impact that the pandemic can and will have on funding an organisation such as ours. Thus while the need to at least maintain if not increase our anti poaching effort is desperately real, we are having to cut or at least be cautious with operational costs, which directly impacts APU deployment, leading to a reduction in the geographical area we can cover.

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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.