Joseph Kony and his notorious Lord鈥檚 Resistance Army haven鈥檛 gone away since US and Ugandan troops earlier this year. They have decamped to a politically unstable belt of countries near Uganda, where they and other lawless militias are now decimating iconic animals like elephants for food and illegal ivory, as well as and .
That鈥檚 the grim message from by TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade monitoring agency. Compiled through interviews with 700 people from 87 villages in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the Central African Republic (CAR) and Sudan, the report exposes the threat posed to large species including elephants, giant elands and eastern chimpanzees.
Giraffes are reportedly being killed simply to provide the Lord鈥檚 Resistance Army (LRA) with tails for deterring flies. Only 47 now survive in the Garamba complex in the DRC, where there were previously 350. Elephants totalled 22,000 in the 1970s, but are now down to between 1100 and 1400. Rhinos, of which there were once an estimated 500, are gone completely.
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The report found that the key threats were the LRA, corruption in the DRC state military, armed pastoralists called the Fulani and a multitude of militias, including the Janjaweed, spilling over from the chaos in Southern Sudan.
Lawless and chaotic
鈥淭he LRA poaches a lot of the ivory, but in terms of quantity, the pastoralists and the militias from Sudan and Southern Sudan are the biggest problem,鈥� says report author of the University of Stirling, UK. 鈥淭hey hop back and forth over the border, and most trading of wildlife products, especially ivory, goes through Sudan.鈥�
The groups are highly professional and well-equipped. Some even poach elephants from helicopters. 鈥淭hey are highly organised poaching gangs,鈥� says Williamson.
Several groups are fighting back, but they need more support, says Williamson. They include , which in October to trace poaching activity. Similarly, is primarily focused on combating child kidnappings, but has set up a local radio network for villages to swap intelligence on poaching activity.
The biggest problem of all is the chronic political instability in the region, says Williamson. This creates power vacuums that allow the militias to operate and poach with impunity. Civil wars continue to rage in the CAR, corruption and instability is rife in the DRC, and the ongoing conflict between Sudan and Southern Sudan is creating chaos.
鈥淚t鈥檚 a very, very difficult situation, and without peace agreements to tackle ongoing insecurity, the problems will continue,鈥� says Williamson.
