African Parks Network

Kafue National Park was honoured to welcome President Hakainde Hichilema of Zambia last week when he and a delegation visited the park as well as Chunga and Busanga areas. The president had this to say during his visit: "Fellow citizens. This afternoon, we took time to visit Kafue National Park and specifically Chunga and Busanga areas. With the current climate challenge, we urge each one of you out there to desist from burning bushes and other practices exacerbating climate change. We listened to our officers on the ground regarding challenges, and we must all conserve nature and protect wildlife for economic development.  We also held fruitful discussions with our traditional leaders in the stated areas, namely Chiefs Mulendema, Chikaza Munyama, Musungwa, and Mwene Kahare. And in view of the foregoing, we also held a meeting with the African Parks leadership and discussed measures that should jointly lead to development.  We must conserve and protect our natural resources while promoting earnings through tourism and joint ventures. God bless you all."

A remarkable discovery was made near Boma and Badingilo national parks in South Sudan where a herd of elephant, numbering between 250 and 300, was observed. Until now, only tracks from this group had been seen. Comparisons with studies from the 1980s reveal substantial declines in sedentary species like elephant, warthog, cheetah, hippo, and buffalo, making this large herd a significant and hopeful sighting. It underscores the importance of continued monitoring and conservation efforts in South Sudan. 📸 Marcus Westberg #GreatNileMigration #SouthSudan #WildlifeConservation #Elephants #ProtectOurPlanet #BomaSighting1 m

Villages around Garamba National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are some of the most remote places in the country, making the provision of essential services like quality healthcare very difficult. That’s why the Garamba team with the support of the European Union and USAID in DRC through the HEARTH partnership are providing mobile medical clinics to service these communities who are living near the park. The patients are consulted by the travelling medical team in their villages and are provided with the care needed. Serious cases are transferred to appropriate local medical facilities. These clinics improve the efficiency of local health structures in caring for the sick around Dungu, Faradje and Aba towns. Since 2022, the clinic has treated over 15,000 patients. These mobile clinics are also used to raise awareness among communities on a range of health issues like preventing sexually transmitted infections, malaria, and other infectious diseases. The Garamba team also use the travelling clinics as an efficient way to share information on the park, the importance of nature and biodiversity, and sustainable farming practices. 📸 Marcus Westberg #garamba #healthcare #communityservice

Check out some of the most recent footage from Akagera’s camera traps! Turn the sound on! Camera trap images and videos play a crucial role in wildlife monitoring by providing park management with daily insights into the behavior of various species. This information is important for understanding and protecting Akagera’s biodiversity, providing valuable data for making informed conservation decisions. These tools are particularly effective in remote areas, where human presence is minimal, and for allowing us to view animals in their natural state 24/7. Camera traps provide data that can be used for individual identification, population estimates, species distribution and abundance, predator-prey interactions, behavioral patterns, and habitat use. You can view more footage on our Instagram page: https://bit.ly/3Lgz5Nx #CameratrapTuesday #Conservation #Research #Rwanda #Akagera #Africa

“Protected areas are the most effective way to safeguard biodiversity, and healthy ecosystems are nature’s in-built climate regulator and critical for humanity’s wellbeing. It is therefore imperative for African Parks to scale, and to do so in a manner that minimises risks of mistakes being made,” says African Park CEO, Peter Fearnhead in his Executive Summary of our 2023 Annual Report. Read the full report here: https://bit.ly/3yAC3cu 📸: 1 Steve Lorenz Fischer 2 Kyle de Nobrega 3&4 Mike Dexter 5 Scott Ramsay #2023AnnualReport #AfricanParks

Thanks to a collaboration with volunteer organisation Senior Expert Service (SES), a skilled carpenter from Germany has been training five carpenters across three community cooperatives around Akagera National Park. This training promises to boost skills development in carpentry, auto electrics, and welding within the local community, who are then able to provide these services to Akagera National Park. It's a success story in building reliable craftsmanship for future park management projects! #Akagera #CommunityProjects

On June 13, government representatives of the Central African Republic and Chinko’s team came together to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the joint management partnership for the Chinko Conservation Area (CCA). The first public-private partnership was signed exactly 10 years earlier, on June 13, 2014. In 2020, this partnership was renewed for another 25 years, with the intent to create a larger Land Use Plan. The long-term goal is to create the Chinko National Park (CNP) and to develop an integrated conservation strategy including sustainable development goals such as agriculture, fishing and pastoralism. The ceremony highlighted the progress and key results achieved at Chinko over the last decade, which in its early years faced enormous challenges resulting in a drastic decline in wildlife. Today, thanks to strong community partnership and effective conservation work, a core area of over 30,000 km2 has been kept completely free from habitat degradation, and vital ecosystem services are being preserved for both people and wildlife. Chinko hosts some of the last forest and savannah elephants in the Central African Republic, proven presence of 23 carnivore species including the heavily threatened African wild dog, and the Northern lion. Nearly 500 bird and over 100 fish species have been identified to date. "Managing Chinko, restoring Chinko, is not only a mission of the utmost importance for the preservation of our natural heritage, but it is also vital in order not to leave the field open to destructive activities or to the installation of a situation of anarchy that would threaten our country”, noted His Excellency Gervais MBATA, Minister of Water, Forests, Hunting and Fishing of the Central African Republic in his speech. Bienvenue Guy Siguindo started working with African Parks in 2014 and has witnessed Chinko’s incredible recovery: “In the future, I'd like to be able to show my children the work we've done here and I hope they too will want to  work for African Parks.” This is only possible thanks to the collaborative partnership forged with the Central African Government and the key role played by technical and financial partners such as USAID, the European Union, the Rainforest Trust, the US Fish & Wildlife Service, the Good Energies Foundation, the Rob Walton Foundation, the Lion Recovery Fund, the Elephant Crisis Fund, Fondation Segré, the People’s Postcode Lottery and Bel Group.        📸: Irene Galera (1-6), Marcus Westberg (7-9) #chinko #communitypartnership #wildliferecovery #conservationcelebration #UECentrafrique

Odzala-Kokoua National Park in the Republic of Congo forms a key part of the vast Congo Basin rainforest and hosts one of the largest populations of critically-endangered forest elephants in the region. Forest elephants rely on the park’s natural forest clearings, also known as “bais”, to fuel up on minerals in the soil and vegetation, and socialise out in the open. This timelapse video was taken at Moba Pool bai. Since 2023, tourists can visit Moba Pool through Camp Imbalanga, an African Parks-run camp designed to attract the domestic tourism market. Timelapse videos are a novel use of camera traps for the park – images were taken in 10-minute intervals during a 12-hour time period and stitched together – enabling park management to detect potential impacts of tourism on the elephant activity in the bai. After local poaching increased with the opening of new roads before 2016, Odzala-Kokoua’s elephants shifted to nocturnal bai visits. While elephants still visit bais at night, these timelapse videos show elephants coming out to Moba Pool in the mornings and afternoons, a reassuring sign that they feel safe enough to visit the bai in the daylight, when tourists can see them.   This novel application of camera trapping is just one of the ways the park is applying technology to understand the role of bais. Another is through their partnership with Harvard University, who just returned to the park to re-map Moba Pool and several other bais with high-resolution LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) data, providing an unprecedented opportunity to quantify structural change to the bais since they were first measured in 2021.   To see all the videos visit our Instagram page: https://bit.ly/4bx2NbI   #Odzalakokoua #cameratraps #forestelephants #ecotourism

Following the recent announcement confirming that the Great Nile Migration in South Sudan is the largest land mammal migration on Earth, Geographical online magazine reported on what this means to the people of South Sudan and how this natural phenomenon has persisted during years of conflict in the region. The survey was done by African Parks in partnership with the Government of South Sudan and supported by The Wilderness Project. Boma Badingilo Jonglei Landscape (BBJL) in the southeast of South Sudan, is the setting for this migration. Approximately six million antelope, including white-eared kob, Mongalla gazelle, tiang and reedbuck move across the landscape into Gambella National Park in Ethiopia every year. The sustained operations of Boma and Badingilo National Parks which form part of this landscape have been made possible by the support of several funders including the Elephant Crisis Fund, Fondation Segré, Hempel Foundation, Rainforest Trust, Lion Recovery Fund, Wyss Foundation, and the EU in South Sudan. Read the full article here: https://bit.ly/4cGekGu Image: Marcus Westberg #EarthsLargestMigrations #LargestlandmammalMigration #SouthSudanMigration #MammalMigrations #SixMillionAnimalMigration #GreatNileMigration #BomaBandingiloJongleiLandscape

Zakouma National Park and Siniaka Minia National Park are celebrating World Day of Micro, Small, and Medium-sized Enterprises today. Today we acknowledge the importance of boosting local production to contribute to sustainable development and biodiversity conservation. Since 2019, African Parks has been helping several groups of women and local cooperatives through training and infrastructure, enabling them to offer environmentally friendly products such as honey, shea butter, balanites oil, and vegetables. You can read testimonials of some of the ladies who have benefited from this initiative on the Zakouma Instagram page: https://bit.ly/4eS8pjQ #communitydevelopment #zakouma #siniakaminia