Empowered

For the first time ever, women will join the forty-plus team of community scouts patrolling Mbire district in Zimbabwe’s wildlife-rich Lower Zambezi Valley. For Country Director Olivia Mufute, who leads African Wildlife Foundation’s community conservation and wildlife protection programs in Zimbabwe, adding female scouts to the force is not a minor achievement. In fact, it marks the beginning for the country's rural women striving to create a new future by taking up active roles in biodiversity protection.

Driven by international poaching syndicates as well as local bush meat hunters, the illegal killing, trading, and trafficking of wildlife and wildlife products keep African species at risk. Learn from Didi Wamukoya, African Wildlife Foundation’s Senior Manager, Wildlife Law Enforcement, why the continent needs watertight investigative, prosecutorial, and judicial processes — coordinated across regions — to adequately protect its wildlife.

When it comes to biodiversity, Uganda is among the world’s most fortunate countries. It claims 10 percent of the world’s bird species (more than 1,000) and more than 340 species of mammals, including the elephant and the endangered mountain gorilla. Though poaching and bushmeat hunting are controlled in national parks and reserves, species loss persists in the acres of community land outside protected areas, as more people settle close to these biodiversity-rich regions.

The rapid expansion of small-scale farming in wildlife-rich and ecologically sensitive areas is one of the leading threats to biodiversity in the fertile wetlands of Tanzania’s southern breadbasket — and across the African continent.

To make the greatest conservation impact, AWF uses a range of strategies to protect species in priority landscapes. Though our work is organized around iconic wildlife such as elephants, rhinos, and large carnivores, we design our programs to benefit local human communities as well as all indigenous wildlife and habitats. Among the key species we focus on is one of the world’s rarest canids, the Ethiopian wolf.

Since 1993, governments, policymakers, and expert organizations have negotiated strategic global agreements for the sustainable and equitable use of biodiversity, aiming to mitigate species loss and safeguard ecosystems. However, it was only at the 10th Conference of Parties to the Convention for Biological Diversity held in 2010 in Nagoya, Japan that youth took a seat at the table thanks to the formation of the Global Youth Biodiversity Network.

Africa’s wildlife-rich ecosystems extend outside of protected areas. Similarly, the socioeconomic and cultural conditions driving species loss in these expansive landscapes are not easily contained. To expand protections for these ecosystems, the U. N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization upgrades their status to biosphere reserves.

When resources are available, advanced technologies such as drone surveillance or other tracking and sensing systems might be the fastest way to nab wildlife offenders. But anti-poaching and anti-trafficking work also relies on low-tech, tried-and-true methods. One of the oldest and most reliable? Dogs.

The tides are turning in the war against the ivory trade. In the past several months, China, Hong Kong, and the U.K. have all implemented or announced bans on domestic ivory trade — long overdue measures to help stop the slaughter of elephants.