Conservation Programs

Anti-Poaching Projects

Healthy and vital wildlife populations on the landscape are a core priority for SCI Foundation.   In developing countries that interface with wildlife every day, this can be challenging, so it is important for local communities to be able to derive financial and nutritional benefit from wildlife if it is to be valued.  Without the ability to use and benefit animals through legal harvest and economic gain, poaching is often carried out with negative impacts on species.

Rural communities must be provided alternatives for herding and other practices that encourage responsible wildlife management and reward support  to those dedicated to protecting wildlife if anti-poaching efforts are able to succeed in the real world.  Hiring and training local rangers and educating the community on the long term benefits of wildlife are key efforts that SCI Foundation has supported.  The 4 programs below highlight key investments into combating poaching:

Community based counter poaching training in Namibia

Species Involved: Elephant and Rhino

Project Partner: Namibian Association of Conservancy Support Organizations (NACSO)

SCIF Investment: $25,000

SCIF Involvement: 2017-2018

Smart Training in Tanzania Selous Game Reserve

Species involved: Elephants and Rhinos

Project Partner: College of African Wildlife Management, Mweka

SCIF Investment: $50,000

SCIF began involvement: 2017-2018

Mozambique Anti-poaching Project

Species involved: Rhino

Project Partners: The GEOS Foundation and the Dyck Advisory Group Conservation Trust

SCIF Investment: $50,000

SCIF Involvement: 2015-2018

This counter poaching operation was in the Limpopo National Park Area of Mozambique across the border from Kruger National Park in South Africa. The primary focus was on deterring rhino poaching, however, it also benefited elephants and helped deter the bushmeat trade in the area. Reporting from 2018, documented 22 poaching incursions in the area, the arrest of seven individuals including four rhino/elephant poachers and three after illegal bushmeat poachers.  In additional, four firearms were confiscated and 209 illegal snares were removed. 

Save Valley Project

Species Involved: Elephant and Rhino

Project Partner: Save Valley Conservancy (SVC)

SCIF Investment: $25,000 (Funded by Hunter Legacy Fund)

SCIF Involvement: 2011-2018

The SVC is an approximately 3,500 km2 wildlife area in southern Zimbabwe and has populations of black and white rhinos, as well as elephants, lions, and African wild dogs. As with any area supporting rhinos and elephants, poaching is a serious issue and the SVC has a two-tier antipoaching system. Individual landowners in the conservancy support ranch scouts that patrol their properties and the SVC as a whole runs a highly trained, armed, and mobile Specialized Species Protection Unit (SSPU). The SSPU can respond to threats identified by ranch scouts or operate independently within SVC. The SSPU consists of 37 rangers with their vehicles and equipment plus four trained tracking dogs.  In 2017, rangers arrested and provided information on the prosecution of four members from a poaching ring in the area.  While in 2018, rangers respond to three incursions by organized rhino poachers.  They also arrested and prosecuted one individual for poaching pangolin on the SVC. During operational support, it was reported that there had been reduced poaching mortality and increased annual population growth in both species at SVC.

  • Markhor in Pakistan

  • Snow Leopards in Nepal

  • Tajikistan Argali Populations

  • Pakistan Snow Leopard Project