Large-scale poaching in Central Africa, targeting elephants in particular, has reached dramatic levels. In early 2012 Cameroon was the scene of the latest slaughter, with > 300 elephants lost in Bouba Ndjida National Park, involving poachers from Sudan and elsewhere. This is just the latest example of an escalating phenomenon, resulting from the spillover of armed conflicts, collapsing protected areas and lawlessness. Over the last 3 decades the northern Central African Republic has lost over 95% of its 35,000 elephants, and other wildlife. Since 2005 Zakouma National Park in Chad has lost 85% of its 4,000 elephants, and continues to lose them.
Widespread international attention and high-level political support has caused the Cameroonian Minister of Forestry and Wildlife to develop an emergency action plan to secure the protected areas of its northern border. Contributing to the regional component of this plan, the Central African Forest Commission (COMIFAC), with support from the Réseau des Aires Protégées d'Afrique Centrale and the German Technical Development Cooperation, organized a meeting in June 2012 of ministers of the Central African Republic, Chad and Cameroon, to initiate a dialogue on reinforced transboundary anti-poaching control. In a preparatory meeting the directors of wildlife, park wardens and other delegation members exchanged experiences on the Bouba Ndjida massacre. The Central African Republic delegation presented information on the passage of 150 and 80 men through Sangba, in the north, 4–6 weeks after they left Cameroon heavily loaded with tusks and after having killed seven elephants. In November 2012 we received information from the northern Central African Republic of sightings of presumed poachers, returned from Sudan earlier than expected. A health worker, who treated one of them, reported he was from the group that poached the Bouba Ndjida elephants. Two columns of heavily armed men were subsequently observed heading towards the Chadian border. One elephant was reported killed. The most recent report at the time of writing (February 2013) is that the group had reportedly split up, some observed again around Bouba Ndjida National Park whereas others had moved into the forested south-west of the Central African Republic.
The three countries signed a declaration on the reinforcement of combating cross-boundary poaching, highlighting the interest in wildlife survival, as well as of security of personnel in border areas. In the declaration's implementation plan each of the three countries commits itself to submitting the necessary budgets for anti-poaching and improving the status of protected area personnel. In addition, a road map was signed to operationalize the cooperation agreement of the Bouba Ndjida–Sena Oura transboundary complex between Cameroon and Chad. Ministers asked to include the Central African Republic in the accord, subject to follow-up tripartite meetings in Ndjamena in September and November 2012 in which an agreement on anti-poaching transboundary collaboration was prepared. In June 2012 the ministers in charge of wildlife of the COMIFAC member states also adopted the Central African Wildlife Trade Law Enforcement Action Plan (CAWTLEAP, 2012–2017). News as at February 2013 is that, recognizing the increasingly military character of effective anti-poaching, the dialogue amongst the three ministers in charge of wildlife is to be widened to include their colleagues in charge of defence.
Important first steps have been taken with this long-awaited tri-national dialogue and signing of CAWTLEAP but more is needed. The dramatic increase in elephant poaching has been triggered by the rapidly increasing demand for ivory in China, Thailand and other East Asian countries. Regional and intercontinental dialogue, including ivory consumer and transit countries, was called for by a platform meeting organized jointly by the US Embassy and the Governments of Gabon and Central African Republic in Libreville in April 2012. The greatest challenge now is to translate these dialogues into concrete collaboration. This may be boosted by treating the illegal international wildlife trade as a crime that mobilizes action beyond ministries in charge of wildlife protection. As called for by CAWTLEAP, national units to combat wildlife crime are being established, comprising law enforcement agencies (Defence, Justice, Customs, Police, Wildlife, Interior and Exterior) and assisted by technical partners such as INTERPOL, conservation organizations and diplomatic missions. These units are being tasked to bundle resources and intelligence systems to track, arrest and prosecute wildlife criminals to the full extent of the law.
This attention to large-scale transboundary poaching should not, however, divert attention from increasingly commercial small-scale poaching operations, with implication of powerful elites, for which collaboration with local communities should, whenever possible, be reinforced. Only reacting to these different types of poaching will ensure that elephants and other wildlife do not follow the same fate as the western black rhino, extinct a decade ago.
