‘We are fighting armed insurgents’

‘PLEASE tell people that we are under siege here.

“We’re under attack. We’re fighting a war against armed insurgents working for organised crime,” an agitated William Mabasa, general manager of communications and marketing at the Kruger National Park, said.

Mabasa has reason to be agitated. Every day, two or three rhinos are killed in his domain.

And the buck stops with the custodian of South Africa’s wildlife heritage: the Kruger National Park.

Communications with rangers, scientists and experts on the park’s antipoaching operations are strictly controlled. “I deal with all questions around poaching,” said Mabasa.

He gets even more agitated when asked if “insider help” plays a role in the poaching.

There are claims that trackers, rangers and the police have been involved in poaching on both sides of the Kruger border.

On one Mozambican game farm bordering the park, the head ranger said that “at least two poaching groups” had daily crossed their land into the Kruger. “These guys all have intelligence that they get on both sides of the border. They’re told where the rhinos are and they’re told where patrols are. We know this because when we catch poachers some of them talk,” he said.

Mabasa announced the arrest of two Kruger Park employees last week. According to him, only one Kruger ranger had been implicated in rhino poaching.

“Every single ranger working the field feels a personal sense of failure every time we find another rhino carcass. Our rangers are extremely committed to this fight against the poachers and they take this war personally.”

Mabasa dismissed suggestions that rangers and trackers could be tempted into criminality because of their low pay.

He refused to say how much a Kruger ranger earned.

“There are a lot of people living an honest life on R2 000 a month. If a man earns R10 000 a month and still gets involved in poaching, that person is greedy and not hungry. We need to praise our rangers and not doubt them. They’re involved in a war against high-calibre criminals who come here with highcalibre guns fitted with silencers.”

Former Mozambican president Joaquim Chissano is a man who understands that when you have Africa’s second-biggest economy next to the world’s 20th poorest nation, you are going to run

These guys are told where the rhinos are and where patrols are

into problems.

“Extreme poverty encourages poaching,” Chissano said in November last year when he launched the Chissano Foundation’s Wildlife Innovation Initiative.

Initially focusing on establishing a special antipoaching force with the Mozambican government, the Chissano Foundation aims to develop commercial projects so that residents in rhino hotspot areas such as Kabok, Massingir and Magude can start benefiting from conservation.

“Poor Mozambicans must make an income from conservation so they don’t join the army of rhino hunters,” said Chissano.