The Poacher Hunters | Newsbeat Documentaries

[Music] 50:51 I'll just unpack them run away let's just charge straight how you say [Music] your mission patrol the park beef feds to rest pictures and be prepared to assist with casualties no matter where you are on whether you think we are losing or not losing the fight is that the situation is not good fueled by greed no matter what the cost [Music] it's a problem with no easy fix because most jobs out here don't pay well whereas if they get a rhino horn it's a it's a pretty big big payday this is where poaching happens on the ground but above us is a whole network of syndicates and cartels I've never seen a rhino up close before kilo of rhino horn and a four hundred thousand pounds and now the British Army has got involved in Malawi in trying to protect some of the world's most threatened species what's important for us is to make sure that our Rangers on the ground are fully equipped and trained and there's position to fulfill their duties to protect the area when we leave for patrols to celebrate that we've come back alive we're going to attack the enemy yeah needs to be stopped two types of patrol we're engaged him over here one is strictly on control where the CP is the soldiers will go out with two Rangers and work through mentoring them on various professional skills come on we'll decide between the ones DeMuth yeah either lift right he moves right no no position clear yeah go the other bit where we're trying to learn as much as we can off these guys is where we attached the rhino trackers it's all of the Park elite and their proper Bushmen their field craft is phenomenal they know everything there is to know about finding rhino and tracking Ronie like running are not dosa short-sighted and bad-tempered they're very good hearing who's in fragrance as I smell they're territorial and they don't like depend things being in their area they know what humans smell like on a date like something and no respond to your presence very goodly so you need to be able to get in close enough to them stay downwind and get myself to take a picture to confirm that it is the Mona you're after so want to go on now I want you to check domination states and casualties and the equipment people of your base yeah yeah yeah that's one of the things that we're emphasizing is improving communication particularly for clear reporting primarily for medical or educational purposes 9 well I guess I'll fight with the rap side for this is intense very extremely enthusiastic general need to train across the board particularly yeah pressing an accord my hand yeah so he's there working there are 14 British soldiers in all this section are in the machete reserve in the south of Halawa situation then it's near the end of month were getting place to pay day so you can expect some increased demand for bush meat whether that translates into increased pedro city in the south of this area waits out Vera miles from the bomber out this way there were two lines released this week although you avoiding padding line encounters in the north those two lines I'd be released here on males so the lion risk is very live during this patrol one of the jobs joining the experienced Mauryan rhino trackers expect to see may be to encounter poachers which he they need rhino so always will be ready these black rhino are just some of the two and a half thousand animals relocated here since 2003 we have to be armed because there are there are poachers in the area but also as a last resort as an immediate threat to life through dangerous game they also aren't that keen on humans the point of the patrol is to check the Rhinos health and see that see their general behavior a device around their neck tells the trackers what direction they're in and how far away they are so it is within about four or five hundred meters but the problem is is we've got ma we're picking up a signal elephant just to the north and the elephant is known to charge so as soon as it smells human so we need to watch off a lot as well Rhino trackers they they know the Rhinos and they can tell just by looking at them if there is they're healthy or not wind is a massive factor in this you've always got to be going sort of against the wind and the wind can change pretty quickly I'm very subtle it as well without you realising so you get close to the Rhino all of a sudden the wind changes it's coming just unpack the runaway let's just charge straight are you so you always copies looking around some basis you decide to charge it's pretty dangerous it is a couple of months ago an experienced Rhino expert was killed after being charged by one in nearby Rwanda each I wish to get up on the trees around here for example that what was a secret good trip to climb this one is please we just got a lot of bridges sorry bye avoid to steppin yeah what is then it's time to get out of the way I was a young boy voice wanted to work with animals veterinary kind of work and then when I was growing up I did a project with them's and Hwanhee lions after I seen the wildlife and what it's actually like out in the bush I just really really bit into it and as soon as this came across the table across the army took it straight away on a patrol that lasts for days Chad trains the Rangers on the skills of being a soldier we communicate mostly with that with hand signals we try to minimize the talking as much as possible if we do end up talking it's a very soft whisper there is a closed unit in turn the Rangers show him how best to find the animals under threat like lions elephants and rhinos and what is a challenging environment you don't really have time to think most of the time you're just concentrating on the environment itself constantly looking watching dangerous game anything that might sneak up on you at the moment there's there's not that many incursions into the park but from what I understand there's been a couple incursions into the park people walking in with dogs there's been a couple Spears they use after they've chased the animals with the dogs they come in with snares chin traps they lay them along the animal trails towards water holes put your foot in in no puppies not gonna get it back then these guys they're coming with muzzle loaders improvised weapon normally made metal plumbing parts wire elastic bands pretty much anything they can get their hands on they come into the park with those and shoot the animals and if need be they can shoot us as well if I was to come across a perch out in the community and I was introduced to him I would ask his reasons for doing it and what what he thinks the consequences will be if he does get caught it's not a matter of if he gets caught it's a matter of when gets caught and he will go to jail that's the hope at least the illegal wildlife trade is a big business with up to 17 billion pounds a year take a rhino horn it's more expensive than cocaine heroin or gold that up to 50,000 pounds a kilo in the last 50 years black rhino numbers have dropped from 70,000 to five and a half thousand the country's elephant population has halved from four thousand in the 1980s to two thousand in 2015 not only that Malawi is one of the poorest countries in the world historically people have poached to either make a small bit of money or just to eat and the number coupon llaman I became a poacher in 1995 Emily Mokey's and Shiro used to make guns so go into the game reserve with our traditionally made guns and kill the animals there were different kinds of animals which would include a hare the antelopes and some high LAX's what prompted us to do that was we were facing a number of problems we had so many challenges within her food in our homes so the only option which we had was to go and poach into the game reserve and after we do that after we kill the animals will bring it here we sell it would get a little income and from there we could find something to eat so that made us to go and do poaching we first a lot of problems when we were caught they would beat us severely and they didn't consider whether you are small or very odd they would beat you and then if you survived it's your luck if you die that you fit Craig Hayes in charge of the machete reserve which is run by an organization called African parks it has three of them in Malawi in majet ii in particular the poaching is is low and on sustainable levels magette e we haven't lost rhino elephant to poaching since African started managing majesty in partnership with Malawi government prior days when there was still a lot of illegal activities and availability of firearms in Mozambique the threats may come from the west and we deploy our Rangers strategically around the reserve randomly so that there's no if no predictable cycles we here are really on the ground level so you know we you know this is where poaching happens on the ground but above us is a whole network of syndicates and cartels and you know a whole whole trade of wildlife and you know that's essentially what's what's driving the the business what's important for us is to make sure that our Rangers on the ground are fully equipped and trained and you know best position to fulfill their duties to protect the area populations in Africa are you know its rapidly growing I think Malawi's population growth is about 3 percent per year I think they say the population will double from 17 million about 2030 it should double in Malawi so clear science is going to be there's already immense pressure on the environment and we you know with double those numbers it's gonna be even more the case so you know even more the reason to make sure that we protect these areas so that you know those people in 2030 have you know have a natural heritage to enjoy and to be part of now Craig talks about a new threat which has been compared to climate change disease and weapons of mass destruction international organized crime powered by a wealthy black market mostly in Asian countries like China and Vietnam for thousands of years some believe the body parts from animals like tigers and rhinoceroses helped do things like cure and improve your sex drive which has never been scientifically backed up then there's the illegal ivory trade as well while machete looks totally wild it's very controlled the armed Rangers and electric fence mean most people have to pay to get in however because of that there have been no rhinos or elephants poached for 15 years but it's not always been like this quite terrible here I can assure you that we lost a few Rangers being shot at cord blood in the line of duty and I think that wasn't pleasant at all I think our family is always when we leave for patrols I mean when they come back they really celebrate that we've come back a life you know and that was a kind of situation that was in most of the parks in Malawi and you've seen communities coming here you seen that there is no poaching you've seen that rode in a park some infrastructure some business enterprises this is where we wanted the park to be the idea is that other than people sitting out there expecting to harvest from the park then they have alternatives of generating income conservation has to have a holistic approach dimension and not only protecting wildlife for the sake of it but there has to be a utility in utility component in it I think some models have been tried and they haven't worked and this one basically to us is a model is a model that is working there's no doubt poachers are being put off by these patrols along with tougher sentences yes the money coming in through tourism is helping change attitudes although in neighboring Zimbabwe and Mozambique poor communities still don't like the fact that more cash goes into protecting the reserve for wealthy white tourists instead of them the situation is very serious are they losing the fight not losing the fight they bet you know it's hard to say what do we base that on but I think one thing we do need to think about is it's not simply about how many numbers of elephants or rhinos are being lost or how many poachers are being caught and arrested but the broader picture of what this poaching conflict means for conservation in these areas both in an ecological and social sense I think training and capacity building and building the skills of Rangers is a great thing I'm quite skeptical of the use of the military and training Rangers especially the use of a foreign military that doesn't necessarily know the context in which they're operating and that is not trained in conservation at the beginning you don't really you don't really know what to expect like I've never seen a rhino up close before it's strange to see how big they are and how fast they can move towards you as well it's quite quite frightening it to start off with where we're doing the Rhino tracking it's it's normally pretty dense and the grasses it's quite high which is a problem if you start breaking twigs and making noise they'll come towards you and also you only want them to come towards you on your terms the Rhino didn't charge this time so it's safe to come down crucially though they got their pick the relationships great with the Rangers they're the experts out here in the bush then they know everything you can spend as much time out here as you like but they've lived there all their lives probably here maybe was just looking at me and there was Matthews in the tree behind ya and they said that and then he just hadn't run off yeah you can get unstuck quite quickly out there if you if you don't really know what you're doing yes yeah good good pictures yeah that's very successful yeah got everything we needed we've seen seen two rhinos today both all in good health I think is really successful [Music] these areas they're actually really important to me and I think they should be important to everyone for the future generations [Music] [Music] killing animals what what's gonna be left for future generations just a bunch of pictures in the book these British soldiers have been welcomed here and the Rangers say they have benefited they're only here for a few months though so what about when they're gone so the facts are wide open we've got people you aren't aware of how under that money well the first step is to make sure we don't lose more protected areas the big worry is that organized crime could corrupt some of the key people fighting against them people we are relocated from the park so that that drew a bit of controversy and people were asked to confirm unhappy that they they left the land off of their sisters I have a real concern that the future of conservation in Africa is going to not take a step back to that hard fortress conservation model but it's going to bring that model forward and intensify it UK ministers have praised the Armed Forces for playing their part against what they've called a sickening and illegal industry at times you just want to be with your family sometimes you just can't but poaching is a problem far from being solved and we can be asking does the British military have the background and the skills itself to train Rangers beyond that hardline anti poaching [Music] you [Music]

Channel: BBC Newsbeat

Views: 307,081

Keywords: Newsbeat, Radio 1, BBC, poaching, rhino, elephant, hunt, malawi, Majete, reserve, animal, conservation, safari, ivory, horns, wildlife, african animals, illegal animal trade, smiggling, british army, park rangers

Id: eMmsaWyZpTY

Length: 22min 49sec (1369 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 15 2018