Poaching in Uganda is threatening wildlife more than ever before. It is no longer subsistence by ordinary hunters with spears looking for bushmeat, it has become a lucrative commercial and organized crime spearhead by foreign rich gangs who pay big moneys and facilitate poachers with sophisticated riffles. Every year, more than 100 wildlife rangers are killed while they are on duty to protect wildlife in Africa. Protecting wildlife now requires large numbers of highly trained and dedicated rangers to keep on frontline against increasing wildlife onslaught. Rangers also spend long hours monitoring chimpanzees, lions, elephants, buffaloes and other dangerous animals in the pursuit of identifying and establishing their daily whereabouts, behavior and their health. They cover huge patrol areas on foot, enduring scotching sun and heavy rains and the ranger’s survival depends heavily on the basic gear they carry on their backs, rangers carry out their roles with much difficult. Rangers get injured and others killed while battling with poachers and others get accidents and either die or are seriously injured by the wildlife they are trying to save! Theirs is a dangerous, tough job and If we are to protect wildlife, we must keep rangers safe and motivated to risk their lives and keep on frontline for wildlife.
At Care for Nature, we are working with protected area management authorities to improve the welfare of rangers by providing them with necessary equipment like cameras, GPS handsets, range-finders, touches for data and evidence collection, darts for veterinary capture, sample collection and storage kits, microscopes, hand lenses, and surgical supplies. We are providing school fees, uniforms and scholastic materials to orphans of rangers who died on duty to enable them attain education their parents would have loved to offer them. We are recruiting, training and equipping wildlife scouts; community volunteers to give rangers a hand in conserving our wildlife, addressing human wildlife conflict and these act as key informants in combating poaching. We are strategically taking interventions that contribute to the well-being of rangers and ease their work to protect wildlife. We also rehabilitate, equip and upgrade schools and health centres inside national parks to provide better education for the children of the rangers and improve their health care.