Our Impact: Protecting Pangolin, Rhinos and Critical Wildlife Corridors with Project Ranger

Our Impact: Protecting Pangolin, Rhinos and Critical Wildlife Corridors with Project Ranger

Vital Impacts is honored to have been able to support Great Plains Conservation’s Project Ranger during a critical time for wildlife. The funds we raised went to ranger teams across sub-Saharan Africa supporting three major initiatives.

In Tanzania’s Enduimet Wildlife Management Area (EWMA), our funds are providing salaries to 15 rangers as well as vehicle fuel and maintenance ensuring that species that call the area home are protected.

The EWMA is run and managed by the local Maasai community. It plays an important role in wildlife conservation and community development in the Kilimanjaro-Amboseli Ecosystem and provides connectivity for wildlife movement in one of the most important wildlife migratory routes, connecting Amboseli National park of Kenya and Kilimanjaro National park of Tanzania.

Ranger at Tanzania’s Enduimet Wildlife Management Area

In the Sabie Game Reserve (SGR), located in the heart of the lowveld in South Africa, Vital Impacts funds are providing both salary support for eight rangers and vehicles and funding the entire 2022 budget to initiate a pilot monitoring project of the pangolin in the reserve. Pangolin are one of the most highly trafficked animals in the world and the project was considered urgent at a time when Covid brought funding for new projects to a halt.

Finally, these funds are also being used to provide an additional month of full salary and operational support to the Anti-poaching Tracking Specialists K9 unit and their ranger-handlers in the Savé Valley Conservancy, one of Zimbabwe's critical strongholds for rhino.

The Anti-poaching Tracking Specialists (ATS) team at Savé Valley Conservancy has just been recognized with an International Ranger Award, bestowed by The World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA), together with the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). The award honors those who go beyond the call of duty to protect the earth’s wild places and wildlife, and to support local communities.

Photos courtesy of Savé Valley Conservancy and Enduimet Wildlife Management Area.