Country/Region: Senegal
Partner: Panthera
Covering an area of more than 900’000 ha, Senegal’s Niokolo-Koba National Park is the second largest national park in West Africa. It is of outstanding regional and global importance for the conservation of a whole suite of highly threatened iconic mammal and bird species in West Africa. The park has recently experienced declines in its wildlife populations and habitat degradation due to poaching, gold mining, uncontrolled bush fires, invasive exotic plants disrupting natural water supplies. Park infrastructure is also heavily degraded in large parts of the park, and mobile communication is currently lacking.
Fondation Segré decided to partner with Panthera in collaboration with PAMS Foundation to establish intensified protection for the park and its threatened species. Both organisations are working closely with Senegal’s Directorate of National Parks, who is responsible for the management and protection of all national parks of Senegal, and have already established a strong law enforcement and wildlife monitoring program in the south-eastern area of the park, training, equipping, and deploying one Mobile Anti-poaching Brigade (MAB).
The support of Fondation Segré aims to provide the means and tools needed to replicate this law enforcement regime and its encouraging results across the remainder of the park. Additional equipment will be provided to MABs across the rest of the park, which will contribute towards the implementation of a coherent law enforcement strategy across the entirety of the park and of a law enforcement and wildlife monitoring system to evaluate impact and adjust strategy and tactics. Training sessions will also be carried out in order to improve rangers’ performances and effectiveness, as well as to improve relationships with nearby communities in order to gather intelligence on poaching and other illegal activities.