Kony's Ivory: How Elephant Poaching in Congo Supports the LRA
Posted by Cody Leblanc on Jun 03, 2013
Elephants in Garamba National Park
A new report and video by the Enough Project and the Satellite
Sentinel Project, co-produced by Invisible Children and The Resolve,
confirms that the Lord’s Resistance Army,or LRA, has turned to
poaching elephants as a means to fund its atrocities.
The report, “Kony’s Ivory: How Elephant Poaching in Congo Helps
Support the Lord’s Resistance Army,” is co-authored by Kasper Agger
and Jonathan Hutson, based on their field research in Congo’s Garamba
National Park. The multimedia report combines photographs,
DigitalGlobe satellite imagery of an abandoned LRA camp in Congo’s
Garamba National Park, and eyewitness reports to conclude that LRA
fighters are trading ivory for arms, ammunition, and food.
The report links the group’s activities in Garamba to the growing
regional ivory trade, which threatens Africa’s wild elephants with
local extinction.
Co-author Kasper Agger, an Enough Project LRA field researcher based
in Kampala, Uganda, states:
“After months of uncertainty, we now have proof that the LRA is
killing elephants trading ivory for resources that help the group to
survive. Greater investments are needed to combat the LRA across
central Africa. Governments in Asia and elsewhere who fail to regulate
the illegal ivory trade share responsibility for atrocities committed
by the LRA and other armed groups engaged in poaching.”
International NGO African Parks employs approximately 130 rangers who
are charged with patrolling Garamba. But they are outmanned and
sometimes outgunned.
Peter Fearnhead, Chief Executive Officer of African Parks, which has
jurisdiction and which manages the park on behalf of the Congolese
wildlife authority called the Institut Congolais pour la Conservation
de la Nature, states:
“In the 1970s, 20,000 elephants roamed Garamba. Today, our
management is fighting to conserve the remaining 1,800 to 2,500
elephants. But the battle is far from lost. With more training, better
equipment, and intelligence support, Garamba’s elephants will be
saved.”
The video filmed during their field visit, hosted by African Parks,
investigates the LRA's role in ivory poaching in Garamba National
Park, and includes interviews with recent LRA defectors and Garamba
Park manager Luis Arranz.
The report concludes that the resources gained from the illegal trade
of ivory undercut the efforts of the African Union Regional Task Force
soldiers to combat the LRA and undermine the mission of U.S. military
advisors to assist their work.
The report offers recommendations to combat the ivory trade, including
The expansion of LRA defection programs
Providing greater support and more advanced equipment to park
rangers in Garamba in order to defend the park from poachers and the
LRA
investment in livelihoods and infrastructure for local communities
to provide alternatives to rebel activity and large-scale wildlife
poaching
Increased airborne and satellite surveillance and real-time
intelligence sharing to help coordinate the defense efforts of U.S.
military advisors and the African Union Regional Task Force (AU-RTF)
Report co-author Jonathan Hutson, Director of Communications for the
Enough Project and the Satellite Sentinel Project, states:
“African wildlife parks have become automated teller machines for
armed groups that commit atrocities. They find a readily available
source of support in poaching elephants and other protected species.
That is a driver which contributes to record levels of poaching. Of
course, the LRA is not the only group benefiting from the surging
black market for ivory. Park rangers suspect that members of the
Congolese, Sudanese, South Sudanese, and Ugandan armed forces, as well
as janjaweed militias from Darfur, are killing elephants at an
accelerating pace.”
Multiple sources report that a group of heavily armed LRA fighters
have picked up tusks from rendezvous points in Garamba and transported
them north through the Central African Republic towards Sudan. An LRA
defector reported that his group, based in the Kafia Kingi enclave – a
disputed border region between Sudan and South Sudan – sold tusks
poached in Congo to members of the Sudan Armed Forces.
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