Cameroon: Anti-poaching Operations Intensified

Wildlife authorities in Cameroon arrested 20 suspects and confiscated 45 guns during a 10-day anti-poaching operation that targeted elephant poachers in, Yokadouma the southeast of the country.

Thirty-nine forest rangers, backed by 25 soldiers of the country’s rapid intervention battalion, commonly known by its French acronym as BIR, carried out the operation that lasted from April 15 to 26, 2013.

WWF’s Communications Officer at the Njengi Project in Yokadouma told this reporter authorities transferred two suspects caught with an AK47 war gun to Bertoua, chief town of the east region of Cameroon, to stand trial in a military tribunal. The local justice department formally charged 18 other suspects, seven of whom were remanded to prison custody while 11 were released on bail. Rangers also seized two ivory tusks, gorilla, chimp and elephant meat, including a wide variety of other wildlife species during the operation.

Clashes
Two suspects were wounded during clashes with eco-guards in separate incidents. A suspect, who threatened to fire at rangers, was shot in the leg, while another, who attempted to harm an eco-guard with a machete, was slightly wounded in the left arm. A third suspect fled after firing at one of the patrol vehicles inside a logging concession, shattering the back screen but injuring none.

According to the Delegate for Forestry and Wildlife for the East Region of Cameroon, the objectives of the operation were largely attained. “With the seizure of 45 arms, 337 ammunitions, 10 chainsaws and more than 3000 wire cables, we have inflicted a heavy blow on illegal wildlife exploiters,” says DjogoToumouksala. “Their ability to wreak havoc on elephants and other wildlife species has been curtailed,” Djogo said. “Though this region is rich in wildlife, it is constantly menaced by the proliferation of arms,” he added, promising many more of such operations to guarantee the survival of elephants.

This operation was carried out incollaboration with the judiciary, the military and the local administration. “We would not have registered any success if the judiciary, administrative authorities, military and WWF that helped us with financial and logistics support,” said the Wildlife Delegate.

Arms circulation
The operation supported by WWF’s African Elephant Program, comes at the backdrop of armed conflict in neighbouring Central African Republic. Conservationists fear a rise in the circulationof war arms in the southeast of Cameroon putting elephants and people in danger.

The number of guns and ammunitions seized portrays the degree of menace besetting the forest and wildlife. “If there is one lesson this operation has taught us, it is that poachers are well armed and no longer hesitate to shoot at ecoguards on sight,” says Gilles Etoga, WWF Project Manager for Boumba-Bek and Nki, who co-supervised the operation. “We might not notice the degree of wildlife carnage going on in southeast Cameroon, because we are in dense forest, where visibility is inadequate. But the problem seems worse than what obtains in Bouba Ndjida, North of Cameroon,” he said.

Cameroon government decided to go after Sudanese poachers riding on horsebacks, massacred over 300 elephants in the Bouba Ndjida National Park in the north of the country in 2012. The situation has united central African countries now seeking effective response to what is now known as the “elephant crisis.”

[afrikanews]