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 76 rangers and an estimated 760 livelihoods in and around Liwonde National Park.

The role of rangers:

Liwonde National Park deploys security rangers and community extension staff. The rangers remove snares on regular patrols, prevent human-wildlife conflict and monitor threatened species such as black rhino. The rangers have removed over 40,000 wire snares since African Parks assumed management in 2015. After almost 30 elephants and rhinos were poached in the first 18 months of management, the park has not lost one in over three years. In fact, wildlife has increased by more than 28% since 2016, thanks in part to the rangers’ efforts.

How your donation will help:

Due to the loss of projected tourism income, additional support is needed if it is to keep rangers in place moving into 2021. These rangers are the backbone of our work in protected area management. With their help, we have brought poaching to a point where many species are now showing strong recovery, attracting tourism and creating economic benefits for communities in the process. The ranger fund support is critical to maintain this momentum and ensure that vulnerable local communities do not experience additional negative impacts from human-wildlife conflict.

Effects of the pandemic:

We have conducted internal reviews of our budgets to strip down or postpone all non-critical costs for the parks to ensure funding can be made available towards the rangers. Whilst these budget shifts have prevented us from having to retrench any rangers, additional funding is critical to ensure we can keep doing so as we move into 2021 and tourism income remains severely hampered. 

As the economic impacts of the pandemic and loss of tourism exacerbate poverty in local communities, it is vital the rangers mitigate the threat of human-wildlife conflict to vulnerable local communities, prevent poaching of key species vital to ecosystem health and the capacity to attract tourists. In addition to increased pressure from communities, the loss of tourists present in the park also means a loss of eyes and ears detecting suspicious activity. In light of the above, it is vital we keep in place our ranger force and continue the positive momentum of the park through these incredibly challenging times.

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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.