Africa’s National Parks, like most national parks, were set aside to protect a special piece of the landscape and the wildlife that live there. But biologists say Africa’s parks aren’t doing the job…
Africa’s national parks aren’t protecting the animals they were set up for anywhere near as well as they’re supposed to, report scientists.
African national parks are meant to play a vital role in defending some of the best-known species on the planet. But, until now, no one has looked in detail at whether or not they work.
Numbers of zebras, giraffes, lions and other large mammals have plummeted by a staggering 59 percent across the continent’s national parks since the 1970s, the first study of its kind has found.
The team behind it say the likeliest explanation for the decline is over-hunting and changing habitats, both of which are driven by fast-expanding human populations…
‘There’s still a very strong hunting culture in many countries in Africa. Local people hunt illegally in reserves for bushmeat,’ explains Ian Craigie, who led the research during his PhD at the University of Cambridge and the Zoological Society of London (ZSL).
National parks are the cornerstones of most countries’ conservation strategies, set up to protect charismatic creatures from hunting, poaching and habitat decline.
‘Conservationists have known for a long time that there’s a problem, that some parks don’t work. But we were surprised at the scale of the problem.’
Ian Craigie, the Zoological Society of London
