Burkina Faso's jumbos thriving

2004-06-02 21:31

Brahima Ouedraogo

Ouagadougou - A hardline government anti-poaching campaign and widespread community support have brought Burkina Faso's tiny elephant population back from the verge of extinction.

Conservation authorities in this small, impoverished West African nation announced this week that an official census indicated the country's elephant population had increased from 350 animals to more than 4 500 after 20 years of community-based anti-poaching campaigns.

Wildlife concession manager Frank Alain Kabore said: "A decade ago, we would go for days without seeing any elephants at all in my reserve. Today, you stumble across one every 100 metres.

"When I call the team at my encampment in Arly (about 400km east of the capital, Ouagadougou), I can hear elephants rummaging through the garbage cans or pulling down wires.

"There used to be a lot of poaching of elephants ... today, if you travel on my ranch's 90 kilometres of trails, you can see at least 10 herds of them."

Declared elephants an endangered species

Kabore's experience is a microcosm of an environmental success story that may yet return to haunt it.

Towards the end of the 1980s, poachers were causing Burkina Faso's elephants to disappear at an alarming rate.

This prompted the government to declare elephants an endangered species, and outlaw hunting of them.

The government also joined "Monitoring the illegal killing of elephants" (Mike), a programme run by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites).

Mike was initiated in 1997 to help states with elephant populations keep track of changing trends in illegal elephant hunting, among other things.

In addition, authorities decided to make hunting areas into concessions, in an effort to include the private sector in wildlife preservation and development.

"We succeeded in creating suitable conditions for elephants to reproduce, to return and to settle in," said Lassane Sawadogo, director of wildlife and hunting at the ministry of the environment. "Elephant breeding skyrocketed."

When the government sounded the alarm about poaching at the end of the 1980s, official estimates put the number elephants living in Burkina Faso at 350.

Tourism also shows improvement

But, a recent study conducted by the government with the support of Mike showed there were now more than 4 500 elephants in the east of the country, many of which had migrated from Ghana, Benin and Nigeria.

About 400 elephants are thought to live in western Burkina Faso.

Tourism related to elephant viewing has proved beneficial for people living in the areas around the concessions.

Burkina Faso allows 600 sightseers and hunters (of animals other than elephants) into the country each year to enjoy its wilderness areas. - Inter Press Service

- African Eye