Illegal wildlife trade | WCS Congo Blog

Meet Frank Moutengue, a Ranger on the Frontline

Posted on May 22, 2017

Frank Moutengue is one of 50 rangers working to protect the Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park from a relentless onslaught of poaching. Frank started out working for the Park as a young and enthusiastic construction worker. Bright and motivated, he was quickly noticed and was recruited as a research assistant at the Mondika Gorilla Project. Despite enjoying the work, particularly being part of the habituation process of...

taking to the sky

Posted on May 11, 2017

by Zanne Labuschagne

On the 31st of April 2017, Jean Pierre Sagette, took WCS Congo to the air on its first surveillance flight. Jean Pierre, an experienced pilot with more than ten years of flying experience in Africa, is the newest member of the WCS Congo family. From his last position piloting charter planes in Mozambique, Jean Pierre is applying skills to the conservation realm for the first...

investigation leads to 70 kg ivory seizure

Posted on February 6, 2017

by Zanne Labuschagne

On the 27th of January 2017 seventy kilograms of ivory was seized near a residential home in Ouesso, northern Congo. The group responsible for obtaining and selling the ivory is an ivory trafficking network that has been closely followed by WCS’s Wildlife Crime Unit (WCU) since September 2016, when four members of the network were arrested following collaboration between the Rapid Response Unit (RRU) and...

over 100 African grey parrots seized in northern Congo

Posted on January 29, 2017

by Zanne Labuschagne

Last month over one hundred illegally captured African Grey Parrots (Psittacus erithacus) were seized in northern Republic of Congo, not long after the world’s most trafficked bird was offered extra protection at the CITES CoP in September 2016. The seizures, leading to the arrest of three trans-boundary traffickers, took place during operations carried out by teams of rangers and investigators working under the Nouabale-Ndoki Foundation,...

A VITAL PIECE OF NATURAL HERITAGE TO BE SAVED

Posted on January 11, 2017

by Tim Rayden

Ten years ago, in 2006, the government of Congo committed to the creation of a new protected area: the Ogooué Leketi National Park, to make a trans-frontier protected zone with the Plateau Batéké National Park in Gabon. The forest was, at the time, one of the last intact areas in southern Congo, naturally protected by the two rivers, the Ogooué and the Leketi, from which...

Dismantling northern Congo’s trafficking networks

Posted on September 13, 2016

by Zanne Labuschagne

The fight to protect northern Congo’s forest elephants has reached boiling point. In the past two months 32 poachers have been arrested, over 100 kilograms of ivory seized and six semi-automatic weapons detained across the Ndoki landscape. This includes the arrest of an ivory trafficker tied to one the most notorious poaching rings in northern Congo. ...

world elephant day 2016

Posted on August 12, 2016

by Zanne Labuschagne

Over the last decade central Africa has lost 60% of its elephants; a staggering loss owed mainly to the unrelenting ivory trade. World Elephant Day offers a critical opportunity to take stock of their plight whilst also recognizing the hard work teams of men and woman are putting in in the field to protect these giants across their range. ...

Putting Ecoguards inREACH

Posted on May 23, 2016

by Forrest Hogg

Christian and Brel are ecoguards working for the Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park, Northern Congo. Their job is highly varied – from manning strategic check points on logging roads to conducting river patrols in search of illegal wildlife traffickers operating in the areas around the Park....

Two arrested with 15 kg of ivory

Posted on March 10, 2016

by Zanne Labuschagne

On the 3rd of March 2016 two men were arrested in northern Congo in the possession of 15 kilograms of ivory, an automatic weapon and nearly two hundred rounds of ammunition. Fitting that this arrest occurred on World Wildlife Day, which this year emphasized the importance of taking the future of wildlife, and specifically that of African elephants, into our hands. WCS supported the investigation...

Ivory inventory

Posted on February 26, 2016

by Zanne Labuschagne

The annual inventory of all government-stockpiled ivory in the Republic of Congo took place this week in the country’s capital city, Brazzaville. A team of government staff responsible for ivory management from across Congo’s parks and regional offices, together with NGO partners, assembled to learn about the inventory process with technical and financial support from WCS and Stop Ivory. Together the group counted, weighed, measured...