Anti-poaching with Village Game Scouts (VGS)
In the greater Amboseli Kilimanjaro Ecosystem in northern Tanzania 8 village communities are dedicated to the conservation of wildlife and their natural resources. These villages formed a Wildlife Management Area (WMA); this is village land that has been set aside for conservation of wildlife. This area provides key resources for the wildlife in the Amboseli Kilimanjaro Ecosystem such as the renowned big tusker elephants and the migrating wildebeest and zebra that disperse into the area during the rainy season; this allows for the Amboseli to recover from the high concentration of wildlife from the drier months.
The goal of the WMA is to conserve the natural balance of the rangelands, which for hundreds of years has supported both the pastoral livelihoods of the Maasai and wildlife. To do this, communities in this region have partnered with tourism programs that take place within the WMA. This partnership will help support the livelihoods of the local populations as well as foster sustainable, local development within the communities.
In recent years, population growth in communities neighboring the WMA has yielded intense pressure on the local resources. This has transferred into alarming increases in poaching for game meat and ivory as well as a loss of trees due to a higher demand for charcoal. Communities in the region are now struggling to protect their threatened resources. In total, the WMA has 34 Village Game Scouts (VGS) that are reliant almost completely on outside funding. These VGS are integral to the success of protecting the resources of the WMA. Their salaries are paid for by the African Wildlife Foundation and their ranger posts along with construction materials have been funded by USAID and the World Wildlife Fund. Other than this, the VGS have little else. With no proper equipment and little training, they are severely outmatched against hard-line, and often times armed, poachers. These communities along with the Village Game Scouts are doing everything in their power to protect their resources and the future of the WMA; it is time they received some help.
Anti-Poaching Initiative
The Honeyguide Foundation in partnership with BIG LIFE is on the front lines providing a solution. Working in concert with BIG LIFE through a community conservation project, we have been able to provide essential training and resources to the Village Game Scouts. Through the donations of patrol vehicles, radio communications, and GPS devices, the VGS will be able to patrol the area and track down, and apprehend poachers with better success rates. Moreover, the VGS are being trained in specialized patrolling and ambush techniques by an experience platoon commander. With this combination of practical military training along with technological tools, the VGS will soon become a legitimate anti-poaching unit, able to catch the most extreme poachers and deter would be-poacher from destroying the natural resources of the area. It will also foster trust in the community for the VGS as they will be able to properly preserve the Amboseli Kilimanjaro ecosystem from transgressors.
Importantly, this project will further link these communities’ conservation efforts within a much larger protection initiative by developing and combining communication and collaborative strategies with the anti-poaching teams of Ndarakwai Ranch in Tanzania and BIG LIFE across the border in Kenya.
All of us at the Honeyguide Foundation feel extremely privileged to work with the outstanding communities in the Greater Amboseli Kilimanjaro region who care deeply about their environment, and we are looking forward to continuing to work hand-in-hand with organizations, like BIG LIFE. Together, our work can accomplish important, tangible sustainable development solutions in rural Tanzanian communities.
