The role of rangers:

Four anti-poaching teams conduct daily patrols alongside the Kenya Wildlife Service to secure the Tsavo Conservation Area,  which incorporates Kenya’s largest official Protected Areas; it houses Kenya’s largest single elephant population, the iconic “Tusker” elephants, and many other high-value species including black rhino and hirola. These mobile teams work to defend elephants and other wildlife against ivory and bushmeat poachers, traffickers, illegal livestock grazing, hardwood extraction, and human-wildlife conflict threats. For the first six months of 2020 these teams have collected 240 snares, made 14 arrests, recovered 704kg of bushmeat, and located 9 elephant carcasses.

How your donation will help:

Additional funding would allow us to bring our ground operations back to full strength by filling the current funding gap and allow Tsavo Trust to continue to play a key supporting role alongside Kenya Wildlife Service. All Tsavo Trust rangers have had their salaries reduced by 40%. This reduction in salaries to those that are on the front line tackling illegal activities in Tsavo (which is on the rise) could be addressed and brought back to their previous pre COVID-19 rate. Additionally, providing salaries to these rangers will indirectly benefit 100 people in the local area.

Effects of the pandemic:

Protecting the TCA is becoming increasingly challenging: many people have lost their jobs and the reliable mainstream income following the overnight disappearance of tourism and related services and this has negatively impacted revenue streams for neighbouring communities across the board. This in turn has had a “knock-on effect” towards wildlife security. We have already seen an upsurge in bushmeat poaching. We believe this situation will only worsen as more people lose their jobs and livelihoods become more challenging and reverting to illegal natural resource extraction becomes necessary for survival.

Our operating capacity has reduced by at least 40%. Our normal day-to-day activities have been seriously hindered, resulting in less coverage of the area, fewer aerial reconnaissance flights, less surveillance of high-value species, fewer foot patrols, fewer snares removed; less support to communities and fewer "eyes and ears" in the field. Tsavo Trust has refrained from laying off staff, they have taken significant pay cuts. We are carrying out normal operations and work, albeit in a reduced capacity and our core emergency need is to bring field activities back to full operational capacity at a time when poaching is clearly on the rise.

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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.