All Safe in the Game Park
Park Rangers Enter Fray in West Africa’s Battle with Militants By Aaron Ross
W
hen a dozen suspected Islamist militants from a neighbouring country were spotted riding motorcycles through the W National Park in northern Benin armed with AK-47 assault rifles, park rangers snapped into action. From an operations room at their base, the park director and two senior ranger officers sent antipoaching units to pursue the men who eventually fled into Nigeria, according to a confidential incident report reviewed by Reuters. They also directed Benin’s army and police where to position their forces and deployed an airplane and helicopter belonging to the park as part of a broader operation to surveil and “neutralise” the target, the undated park report said. It was prepared by the anti-poaching force to assess the response and make recommendations for improving future collaboration among rangers, army and police, including creating a “rapid intervention/commando unit capable of responding to multiple threats and especially those linked to terrorism.” The previously unreported account of the 36hour chase in June 2020 offers a rare glimpse into how conservation group African Parks has gone beyond protecting flora and fauna and engaged in pursuing Islamist insurgents in West Africa. The blurring of lines between conflict and conservation has raised concern among some experts, who say it could encourage governments to lean on rangers to support their depleted armies and undermine security by making rangers a target for jihadists. “This is not the rangers’ fight,” said Sergio Lopez, the president of Wildlife Angel, a French nonprofit that trained park rangers in Burkina Faso and Niger until 2019. “The fight against terrorism is special forces.”
Non-profit African Parks is based in South Africa and manages W and the adjacent Pendjari National Park in Benin. It is in talks to extend operations to parks in Burkina Faso and Niger and to support the management of a park in Ivory Coast, officials in these countries say. All four are on the frontlines of the battle to contain a jihadist threat that has steadily grown since 2012, when al Qaeda-linked fighters first seized parts of Mali. Thousands have been killed in the insurgency and millions displaced. Asked about the report, African Parks’ Chief Operations Officer Charles Wells told Reuters the rangers’ actions were consistent with the group’s mandate of “ensuring park integrity and countering all threats to it.” “This is an extreme situation, where both the national security as well as the last functioning conservation system at scale in West Africa are at grave risk.” He added that African Parks’ role sometimes went beyond its main aim of preserving the natural habitat and supporting local communities’ needs. “In a simplistic and ideal world, there might be such a line. In reality this is indeed blurred.” There have been several attacks in northern Benin since December, including two on Feb. 8 and Feb. 10 by suspected al Qaeda-linked militants that killed four rangers, their French instructor, two African Parks drivers and one Beninese soldier. Benin’s government and defence ministry did not respond to requests for comment about using African Parks to counter the militant threat. Some other conservation groups have been involved in incidents with suspected militants in the region, but African Parks is by far the biggest. Regional powers have struggled to contain
56 | ABA Publications | Africa TRAVEL | May 2022
