Poaching is the illegal hunting or capturing of wild animals, usually associated with land use rights. Poaching was once performed by impoverished peasants for subsistence purposes and to supplement meager diets. It was set against the hunting privileges of nobility and territorial rulers.
Kruger National Park is a South African National Park and one of the largest game reserves in Africa. It covers an area of 19,623 km2 (7,576 sq mi) in the provinces of Limpopo and Mpumalanga in northeastern South Africa, and extends 360 km (220 mi) from north to south and 65 km (40 mi) from east to west. The administrative headquarters are in Skukuza. Areas of the park were first protected by the government of the South African Republic in 1898, and it became South Africa's first national park in 1926.
Hluhluwe–Imfolozi Park, formerly Hluhluwe–Umfolozi Game Reserve, is the oldest proclaimed nature reserve in Africa. It consists of 960 km² of hilly topography 280 kilometres (170 mi) north of Durban in central KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa and is known for its rich wildlife and conservation efforts. Operated by Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife, the park is the only state-run park in KwaZulu-Natal where each of the big five game animals can be found.
Zakouma National Park is a 3,000 km2 (1,158 sq mi) national park in southeastern Chad, straddling the border of Guéra Region and Salamat Region. Zakouma is the nation's oldest national park, declared a national park in 1963 by presidential decree, giving it the highest form of protection available under the nation's laws. It has been managed by the nonprofit conservation organization African Parks since 2010 in partnership with Chad's government.
Garamba National Park is a national park in the north-eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo covering nearly 5,200 km2 (2,000 sq mi). It is among Africa's oldest parks and was designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1980 for its protection of critical habitat for northern white rhinoceroses, African elephants, hippopotamuses, and giraffes. Garamba National Park has been managed by African Parks in partnership with the Institut Congolais pour la Conservation de la Nature since 2005.
Liwonde National Park, also known as Liwonde Wildlife Reserve, is a national park in southern Malawi, near the Mozambique border. The park was established in 1973, and has been managed by the nonprofit conservation organization African Parks since August 2015. African Parks built an electric fence around the perimeter of the park to help mitigate human-wildlife conflict. In early 2018, the adjacent Mangochi Forest Reserve was also brought under African Parks' management, almost doubling the size of the protected area.
The International Rhino Foundation (IRF) is a Texas-based charity focused on the conservation of the five species of rhinoceros which include the White Rhinoceros and Black Rhinoceros of Africa, and the Indian Rhinoceros, Javan Rhinoceros and Sumatran Rhinoceros of Asia.
Majete Wildlife Reserve is a nature reserve in southwestern Malawi, established as a protected area in 1955. The reserve's animal populations were decimated during the late 1970s and 1980s due to poaching and other human activities. Majete has been managed by African Parks since 2003, when the nonprofit conservation organization entered into a public–private partnership with the Malawi Department of National Parks and Wildlife (DNPW). Since then, wildlife has been restored, the park has achieved big five game status, and tourism has increased.
African Parks is a non-governmental organization (NGO) focused on biodiversity conservation through protected area management, established in 2000 and headquartered in Johannesburg, South Africa. It was founded as the African Parks Management and Finance Company, a private company, then underwent structural changes to become an NGO called African Parks Foundation, and later renamed African Parks Network. The organization manages national parks and protected areas throughout Africa, in collaboration with governments and surrounding communities. African Parks manages 22 protected areas in 12 countries as of May 2023, and employs more than 5000 staff. Michael Eustace, Peter Fearnhead, Paul Fentener van Vlissingen, Anthony Hall-Martin, and Mavuso Msimang are credited as co-founders; Fearnhead continues to serve as chief executive officer. Prince Harry served as African Parks' president between 2017 and 2023 and later became a member of the board of directors.
The Ol Pejeta Conservancy is a 360 km2 (140 sq mi) not-for-profit wildlife conservancy in Central Kenya's Laikipia County. It is situated on the equator west of Nanyuki, between the foothills of the Aberdares and Mount Kenya. The Ol Pejeta Conservancy works to conserve wildlife, provide a sanctuary for great apes, and generate income through wildlife tourism and complementary enterprises for re-investment in conservation and community development.
Akashinga, is a non-profit organisation registered in Australia, predominantly operating on the African continent. The group initially created a structured military-like approach to conservation, employing tactics and technology generally reserved for the modern-day battlefield, and has since moved to a community oriented approach. This has included the training of local women as rangers.
Conservation Drones is a conservation organization co-founded by Lian Pin Koh and Serge Wich to make and promote the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for biodiversity conservation applications. The Conservation Drone project shares their experiences of UAV building and using low cost UAVs. This Project has grown to become a worldwide initiative to raise awareness of conservation challenges in certain regions, and inspire others to adopt emerging technologies for conservation.
Many species are affected by poaching, including illegal hunting, fishing and capturing of wild animals, and, in a recent usage, the illegal harvesting of wild plant species. The article provides an overview of species currently endangered or impaired by poaching in the Americas, sub-Saharan Africa, and South-East Asia.
Wildlife Angel is a wildlife protection non-governmental organization (NGO) based in Strasbourg (France). Its three main objectives are to protect wildlife, to protect rangers and to fight poaching by intervening in national parks, private reserves and working with other non-governmental organizations (NGO). Wildlife Angel intervenes directly in the field with rangers in charge of animal protection.
The Big Life Foundation is a non-profit conservation organization created to preserve the wildlife and habitats of the Amboseli-Tsavo-Kilimanjaro ecosystem of East Africa through community-based and collaborative strategies.
Human bycatch is a term for people who are unintentionally caught on film, in photos, or acoustically recorded on equipment used to monitor wildlife or habitats for the purpose of conservation, or environmental law enforcement. It comes from the term bycatch, which is used in fishing practices to designate non-target species that are caught in a fishing net. Nearly every remote monitoring study contains human by-catch, yet there are no standardized rules or policies regarding what the researchers can or should do with their data.
Rhinoceros poaching in southern Africa is the illegal act of slaughtering rhinoceros in the southern African countries of Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe and South Africa, where most of Africa's rhinos live. The most common reason for rhino poaching is to meet the high demand for their horns in Asian countries, where the horn is predominantly used in Traditional Chinese Medicine but is increasingly being used as a symbol of wealth and prosperity. In previous generations, the most common rhino poaching activity was hunting for recreational purposes. Because of excessive poaching, rhino populations have decline rapidly since the 1970s, leaving some species critically endangered and facing extinction.
Anti-poaching is the organised act to counter the poaching of wildlife. However, it is generally used to describe an overall effort against the illegal wildlife trade. The act of anti-poaching is normally carried out by national parks on public land and by private security companies on privately owned land. Anti-poaching takes many forms and which depends mainly upon the habitat being protected. Typically, it is the act of actively patrolling land in an effort to prevent poachers from reaching the animals.
Hemmersbach Rhino Force is a direct action conservation organization acting with a focus on the African rhinos. Rhino Force's main activities consist of anti-poaching rangers in the Greater Kruger National Park, a biobank called Hemmersbach Rhino Force Cryovault to preserve rhino genes and the Black Rhino Reintroduction to bring back rhinos to the Mid Zambezi Valley in Zimbabwe.
