2018 - Kunene Namibia ZERO rhinos lost
from Jeff Muntifering / 20/12/2018 08:56
As the 2018 calendar comes to a close, we look back at the achievements and accolades for our collective efforts to protect Africa’s last truly wild population of black rhino in Namibia. Overall, 2018 can be seen as yet another milestone year with the most important achievement - for the first time since the poaching began in 2012 – a full 12 months with ZERO poaching!

A tribute to the incredible collaborative effort which has helped catalyze and sustain a tremendous boost for necessary trained, equipped and motivated local ‘boots on the ground’. Our Conservancy Rhino Ranger Program continued to advance community-based rhino monitoring to new levels of achievement. All our effort and event indicators have continued to climb including the Conservancy commitment with total growth since inception from 18 to presently 64 Conservancy employed rangers.

How We Got Started
In 2011, in the face of an escalating poaching threat, local community leaders and game guards saw the need to improve their capacity to protect the rhino on their lands and better fulfill their obligations as ‘Rhino Custodians’. A small group of dedicated field conservationists together with support from the Ministry of Environment and Tourism formed an informal working group that sought to provide targeted support to these Communal Rhino Custodians. Our first initiative was to design and implement a programme to strengthen and expand the capacity for Communal Rhino Custodians to monitor the rhino on their lands. We called this the Rhino Ranger Incentive Programme. This program utilizes specialists from dedicated field-based organizations, namely Save the Rhino Trust, Integrated Rural Development and Nature Conservation and Minnesota Zoo, to train a new generation of “rhino rangers” - highly talented groups of local people, chosen by and accountable to their communities to conduct rhino monitoring. The program provides an enhanced training curriculum, state-of-the-art rhino monitoring and field patrol equipment, and performance-based cash bonuses that enable and incentivize rhino ranger teams to complete quality patrols. Once rhino ranger teams acquire the basic skills needed to effectively monitor the rhino on their land and pending necessary approvals, training in rhino tourism will help guide the development of community-led rhino tourism activities that would improve rhino security by generating the critical finances needed to sustain rhino monitoring and enhancing the value that people place on keeping rhino alive. At the heart of this approach is the belief that a future for Africa’s wild rhino will only be secured when poaching is simply not tolerated by the local people, when rhino become more valuable alive than dead, and where innovative solutions – grown from the grassroots – are supported through authentic partnerships between government, NGOs and private sector.

We deeply thank our main donors & partners, who’s gifts directly support the Conservancy Rhino Rangers: USAID, Houston Zoo, North Carolina Zoo, Minnesota Zoo Foundation, SwissAfrican Foundation, Nature Friend Safaris, Conservation Travel Foundation, Tourism Supporting Conservation, & Nakara.