Good, Bad and Ugly

Good, Bad and Ugly

The good.

• Rory Young will be coming to the US in September to speak before a crowd of 10,000 in Boston. We are also trying to arrange a TEDxBoston talk for him when he is here.  The speaking engagement was arranged by board member Joe Chernov. I plan to be there to meet Joe, Rory and hopefully Marjet Young.

• Rory and the rangers he trains are having unprecedented success in the bush. Rory has dialed in the time needed to do a proper training session. To do it right we need two weeks of instruction/planning and two weeks of operations with Rory’s guidance. So a typical training session now lasts 30 days and costs around $18,000.

• Kristen Kurczak Nightingale is an invaluable new addition to Chengeta Wildlife’s board of directors. She is an amazing person and exactly who we need on our team! She first contacted me through our website and said our approach to ending poaching is what has been missing and badly needed. She is extremely knowledgeable about nonprofits and especially nonprofits in Africa. She has traveled extensively throughout Africa and lived there for 10 years.  Kristen has been very generous with her time and expertise. She knows how to gain access to larger foundations and other possible income streams.

• We are attracting some immensely talented board members. I will do a full post about them soon. Kyle Murao is our new treasurer.

• Helen Rennie with ALERT has been submitting multiple grant requests for anti-poaching funding. Those requests take a lot of effort and organization. She does them with good cheer and is always supportive of my paltry efforts.

• Jamie Joseph is an environmentalist and a writer for Africa Geographic,Huffington Post, Virgin Unite and other media sites including her ownsavingthewild.com. This week she will begin covering Rory’s reports from our training camps. We will be gaining a great deal of publicity for our work through Jamie’s coverage.

• Sara Varon is a childrens book author and illustrator who has offered her services. She is going to work on creating a comic strip to be used to raise awareness on the plight of elephants and as a fundraiser on social media and t-shirts. The strip will be based on Alon Amit’s answer to Why should I care about elephant poaching?

• Some other amazing things are in the works, but I can’t announce those just yet so stay tuned for more.

The bad.

• Our bank account is empty. I messed up. I let too much time pass between our first two crowdfunding campaigns. In our first year we had two major campaigns, but I have learned we should probably have three per year.

• We were hoping the US Fish and Wildlife Service would help out with some grant funding, but I received an email from them last Thursday denying our request.

• I owe Rory $2,300 in back pay for the training session that ended in March. When the current session is over on May 6th I will owe him an additional $6,000. Rory insists that any funding shortfall comes out of his trainer fees. The rangers must have supplies, vehicles and fuel. He won’t cut back on those.

The Ugly.

• Our lack of funds couldn’t have come at a worse time. The Youngs are moving to the Netherlands in May. Rory’s sweet wife Marjet is under a great deal of stress. While Rory is away she is getting everything ready for the move overseas, packing up, deciding what stays or goes, trying to sell their vehicle and furniture, searching for good homes for their pets in Zimbabwe and finding a new place for the family to call home.
• Last week both of their kids were hospitalized with severe gastrointestinal distress. They were given meds and IV fluids overnight. They are back home now and doing fine.
• Rory’s father is hospitalized with a terminal illness and has been given only weeks to live.
• Rory has received serious threats and harassment because of our successful anti-poaching work. More on this later. (I so wish his wife and kids could get on a plane and leave tomorrow.)

I promise we are doing all we can to line up funding from larger organizations so we don’t have to lean on you guys so much in the future. That said, if you have any amount that you could donate, I would be forever grateful.

We have set up an easy new way to donate through our partners at ALERT.
Supporters in the UK can text APTR05 to 70070 to give £5
or text APTR10 to 70070 to give £10.
(APTR stands for Anti-Poaching TRaining.)

US donors can text any donation amount to (415) 319-6494. The first time you will have to fill in the bare minimum of information. In the future you can donate by simply texting the amount you would like to give to the number above.

Or donate any amount at chengetawildlife.org

Black Mamba Morning

Written by Rory Young

Interesting morning. We captured a poacher (2nd from left in the picture) and then just after taking the picture walked into a Black Mamba. The first two rangers and the poacher walked past it and then it came out of the grass and chased me and the ranger on the right in the picture.

Time for breakfast!

Stunning Success

Written by Rory Young – These thirty-odd men have just finished making 33 arrests during the in-operation portion of their advanced anti poaching and anti trafficking training organized and funded by chengetawildlife.org and lionalert.org in Liwonde National Park in Malawi.

To put that in perspective, they have made the same number of arrests of poachers and traffickers in just two weeks, with just two old vehicles and one old boat, as the whole of the hugely funded and massively equipped Kruger National Park does in one month with all of its drones, helicopters, army and air force support.

The officers are given the knowledge, skills and strategies to continue the work long after we leave.

The group’s arrest rate is equivalent to forty times that of the average Kenya Wildlife Service protected area.

We are only just getting started. We will be continuing our work through all the protected areas of Malawi in our partnership with the Malawi Department of National Parks and Wildlife as well as other countries. The officers are given the knowledge, skills and strategies to continue the work long after we leave.

Thank you to all those whose financial and other support has allowed us to do this work.

Please support the men and women achieving the most success with the very least, in the war to protect our rhinos and elephants. This project is entirely funded through private donations.

We can win this war!

Hello Mr. Poacher…

Rory Young shared this photo of a poacher’s tracks.

Just to prove that I have been paying attention to Rory’s tracking lessons, I will tell you what I can about the person who made the tracks.

From the large size I think that a man left these prints. Also male because the toes are close together. Women’s toes are typically more spread apart.

His toes are not digging in so I think he is walking and not running or jogging. Though for someone walking his stride is quite long, that tells me that he has long legs. So probably a tall man.

I know he is very fit with not much fat on his body because his straddle is extremely tight. Straddle is the side-to-side width of his feet from each other. An unfit person will usually carry fat on the inside of their thighs and that will make their straddle wider.

He is not carrying a heavy load. If he was carrying something heavy his toes would dig in more, his straddle would be wider and stride would be shorter.

If there was a measuring stick next to one of his feet showing the exact length of his footprint I could give you his approximate height.

So we have a tall fit man, walking confidently along with no clue that rangers are on his trail. Either he is a foolish man or he has been doing his poaching with no fear of reprisal for too long, because he is leaving a very clear trail in a sandy area making no attempt to conceal his tracks.

The second photo shows the arrested poacher and his two sons. Rory explained that while one of them was putting out the fish traps, shown in the photo, the other was setting snares and gin traps in the bush. The youngest was their lookout.

(I have told Rory that if we ever walk together in the bush I will be jumping from rock to rock and will drag a big leafy branch behind me so he won’t know all my secrets.)   🙂

Rangers Ambushed

After making arrests in a notorious poaching base last night we ran into a series of ambushes quickly set up by digging trenches and throwing logs across the road. Several hundred men attacked at different points as we were forced to clear the road.
Unfortunately one of the rangers was hit in the eyes by flying glass.
He is in the emergency ward now. Please keep him in your thoughts.

Rich Crush the Poor Under Their Heels

1. Elephants are being slaughtered in unprecedented numbers and if it continues experts predict they will be extinct in the wild within 20 years. They are killed for their ivory tusks. This ivory isn’t used to create anything necessary, it is used to flaunt wealth. Elephants are being slaughtered out of existence so the ignorant rich can say, “Look what I have! See how wealthy I am?” 

   

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2. Poachers are killing the wildlife and stealing the ecological heritage from all Africans. Many African countries depend on wildlife tourism.
   

   “The illegal trade threatens to wipe out the natural endowment of affected nations by depriving future generations of their heritage, and of their right to develop those resources in legitimate ways. Ladies and gentlemen, it is wrong that children growing up in countries vulnerable to wildlife crime are losing their birthright in order to fuel the greed of international criminals, and that those children will face greater hardship and insecurity as this crime traps them in poverty.” The Duke of Cambridge’s speech on the illegal wildlife trade at the World Bank, Washington D.C., USA

   

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3. Elephant poaching is a threat to international security and the stability of African countries. The illegal ivory trade is easy money for terrorist groups, armed militias and other criminal syndicates. CITES calculates that the illegal wildlife trade generates around $20 billion dollars annually.
   

   “Indeed, it suits traffickers that areas rich in natural resources remain under-developed or conflict-ridden, so that they can go on plundering without restriction.” The Duke of Cambridge’s speech on the illegal wildlife trade at the World Bank, Washington D.C., USA

   ​Nairobi attack funded by rhino and elephant poaching

4. On average 2 rangers are killed each week while protecting wildlife. 1,000 over the last 10 years.
   

   Wildlife rangers — who tend to be incredibly knowledgeable about their environment and the ways of animals, but less so about infantry tactics — are wading into the bush to confront hardened soldiers. The New York Times

   Rory Young instructs the rangers of Malawi on how to stay safe while apprehending heavily armed poachers.

5. Africa’s ecosystems are already suffering because of the decrease in elephant numbers. The loss of forest elephants will devastate the Congo rain forest. It is the second largest rain forest in the world. Rain forests absorb billions of tons of carbon every year and slow the rate that carbon dioxide accumulates in the atmosphere.  Elephants, the ecosystem’s engineers, gardeners and architects
   

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6. Elephants are an incredible species.
   

   To Richard Ruggiero, the situation is nothing short of the genocide of an animal that mourns its dead, loves its young and suffers emotionally.”I am convinced many, if not most, know that people are trying to kill every last one of them and that they emotionally suffer because of it, and I can see it in their behavior,” he said. “I am sure that they feel that and that they know it. That people are committing a genocide on them, and most of them even know it’s for their teeth.”  Veteran USFWS official serves as U.S. eyes, ears in poaching crackdown

   

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   Chengeta Wildlife is a nonprofit run by volunteers. We give free anti-poaching training to rangers all over the African continent. We teach them how to safely apprehend poachers and traffickers of wildlife products. Click on this link if you would like to learn more or donate to our current fundraiser. Take a Stand for African Elephants and Rhinos

Rory Young Gives an Update From Guinea

Another busy day in the lecture room at Sidokoro, Parc National de Haut Niger, Guinea.

The theory phase has been amazing. From Director General level down to AP team leaders, from all over Guinea, the work is being taken very seriously and the discussions have been animated and indicate a high level of motivation and the determination to make the most of the opportunity.

I have been impressed and touched by never ending thank you’s and requests for advice on numerous ops plans and other AP initiatives.
Still three weeks to go, including practical and intensive in-ops phases. Thereafter, these participants will go out and pass on the training immediately to another three hundred officers. It is clear that the impact of this training on poaching in all protected areas of Guinea will be massive.

I am delighted to also hear that the training will be used to create well protected green zones as quickly as possible for the safe reintroduction of species such as elephant and lion! Go Guinea!

A very rewarding feeling and a feeling of immense gratitude to all our Chengeta Wildlife supporters for making this possible! I cannot think of any organization where every cent goes so far and has so much positive impact in the protection of wildlife and wild areas.

Lisa Groeneweg has gone so far beyond what could ever be expected or hoped for by someone like me in terms of dedicated support and tireless effort and sacrifice.

Thank you also to Lion ALERT for working tirelessly behind the scenes to make sure it happens. David Youldon has ensured that our efforts are coordinated, managed and arranged professionally and without complaint and edited the field manual and so much more for no reward or recognition. This has been a model partnership between organizations, individuals and governments.

I have already been asked to return asap to advise on ops as they are planned and executed. How can we say no folks? It is so important to support a people trying hard to get it right. Guinea will reap the rewards for this effort in the future and I hope gain a reputation for much more than just the place where Ebola started.

This year we have managed to train over 120 DG’s, Directors, Wardens and Anti Poaching team leaders in West, Central, East and Southern Africa, in advanced anti poaching and wildlife protection strategies, techniques and skills.

In addition we have provided the departments and units with practical and objective field manuals, SOP’s and modules for further training and to ensure the skills are passed on as quickly and thoroughly as possible.

The men trained this year alone are training another 750 that we are currently aware of. But how many more will benefit? What will be the knock on from all of this? Incredible. Thank you again from the bottom of my heart to all of those who have supported Chengeta Wildlife this year. You really have achieved the impossible.

What will prevent future outbreaks of Ebola?

Written by Rory Young

A few people have gathered in Guinea to do something that doesn’t make big headlines and costs very little, yet is the most obvious way to prevent future outbreaks.

Unfortunately all the big news is about the billions of dollars being spent on defeating the outbreak and finding a cure and even more unfortunately nearly all the money is going into dealing with the effect and not the cause. People have for the most part forgotten that this virus originated with a bat poached and butchered in unhygienic conditions and which infected the first victim, a two-year-old child in Guinea.

Whilst the world is pouring gazillions into producing a vaccine, thirty senior officers from the Ministère des Eaux et Forets, along with representatives of other law enforcement agencies, are undergoing the first anti poaching training ever held in Guinea, in order to become anti poaching trainers themselves, so that they may in turn train another five hundred men as soon as possible. It will cost about one millionth of the cost of producing vaccines. Literally.

Whilst vaccines are important, it is important to also do the obvious; educate people not to handle bats and other animals and put an end to the illegal bushmeat trade.

This is not the first time that diseases originating from poached or illegally captured animals have sent the world’s health services into overdrive. There have been many others, most notably HIV/AIDS, SARS, bird-flu and marburg virus, all related directly to poaching or the trade in captive wild animals. What is cheaper? To prevent outbreaks such as these by protecting our environment and people from each other or by spending more on treatments?

There will be many more new and deadly outbreaks too, as long as the world continues to do next to nothing about the ongoing wreckless abuse of the environment. This is not something the world can turn away from. Just as Al Qaeda reached into everyone’s living room in the United States from the other end of the world and tore their hearts out, so too will tragedy attack from afar, again and again, the world over, in the form of diseases quietly waiting their opportunity to find new unsuspecting victims.

The overall training has been funded by the United Nations Office for Project Services and the European Union, and the trainer has been provided by Chengeta Wildlife and Lion ALERT. I am the trainer and am in Guinea right now working with UNOPS and the Guinean government, preparing the equipment, security protocols and logistics necessary to travel as soon as possible to Haut Niger National Park and begin the training.

It is an intensive course that will last five weeks and will cover all aspects of wildlife protection. The officers will undergo a period of lessons in theory, followed by practical training and then finally “in ops” training in the field. It is a mir

Some would say that it is too late, but then they don’t know what else is lurking out there. If we don’t protect our environment we will have wasted the warning that is the current outbreak. Next time will be worse because it will be different. Nature is warning us and we need to listen and act appropriately.

Our work has been funded by private donations from normal people. No celebs. No billionaires.

From Rory Before He Trains In Guinea

Rory Young – I’m off to Guinea tomorrow for six weeks to conduct wildlife protection courses for parks and military personnel.

Yes, I know Guinea is an “Ebola country”. The work has been organized by United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS) and all precautions will be taken. I will not be going near any sick people and will be monitored daily by the government health department on my return.
The work is important. It needs to be done. I will not be taking unnecessary risks. Thank you to all Chengeta Wildlife and Lion Alert supporters for your support and thank you to my beautiful family for sacrificing your husband and father for yet another long, worrying time.
Unfortunately I will not have internet access, so I apologise in advance for not responding to messages and emails. However, I will be in regular phone/satphone contact with Marjet if there is anything urgent.
Peace, love and happiness to you all!
Rory

Anti-poaching Podcast featuring Rory Young.

In this fascinating interview Rory explains the devastation caused by poaching in the many African countries he has visited this year. He also reveals what he and the rangers are doing to stop poaching.

In the final minutes he discusses the time he was shot at when crossing from Central African Republic into Cameroon.

Give it a listen over the weekend. The sound quality is a bit rough for short periods, but recovers quickly.