Humankind are the sole predators of some of Africa’s most threatened wildlife species.

Elephants and rhinos are dying more from poaching than from natural causes or conflict with humans.  Poachers take their body parts that are traded illegally as trophies, for traditional medicine, or trinkets on a lucrative black market. But these iconic pachyderms are not the only wildlife species being slaughtered for human gain. Big cats like the lions and cheetahs are killed for their bones. The African wild dog and other large carnivores are dying at the hands of villagers that are protecting their livestock. Great apes, like chimps, in Central and West Africa, are hunted as bush meat and their babies are traded as pets. Pangolins are captured for their scales and meat.

Across the African continent’s diverse wild lands, management authorities need data-driven solutions to enhance anti-poaching capacity to allow remaining priority populations to recover from the previous, and on going crises. Meanwhile, community-level interventions must explore different economic opportunities that will secure, rather than destroy biodiversity as the pressure on natural resources grows with increasing development, infrastructure, and urbanization.

Habitats for wildlife must be maintained to reverse population decline.

The accelerating decline of Africa’s keystone species over recent decades is devastating. Not only to national economies that depend on wildlife tourism, but also to ecosystems that provide resources for other species and vital services to growing human populations. As wildlife habitats become increasingly fragmented, making Africa’s wild lands secure gives them a fighting chance to survive.