NAIROBI, Kenya, Jul 21 — Africa needs more than 345,000 wildlife rangers to effectively safeguard its protected areas but currently has only about 65,000, conservation organisations have warned as the continent’s largest annual wildlife ranger campaign gets underway.

📻 Breaking It Down

The warning came as the seventh Wildlife Ranger Challenge officially launched on Monday, celebrating a milestone of raising more than US$25 million since its inception in 2020 while highlighting the severe shortage of frontline conservation personnel across Africa.

Over the next two months, more than 150 ranger teams from over 20 African countries will compete in a series of physical, mental and technical challenges before culminating in the annual 21-kilometre Wildlife Ranger Challenge on September 19.

More than 2,000 rangers are expected to participate simultaneously across Africa’s protected landscapes.

📌 What You Need to Know

Organised by conservation charity Tusk and the Game Rangers Association of Africa (GRAA), the initiative was launched during the COVID-19 pandemic to keep ranger operations running amid funding cuts. It has since grown into Africa’s largest annual campaign dedicated to supporting wildlife rangers through fundraising and public awareness.

The campaign’s organisers say the fundraising milestone is significant but masks a much larger crisis.

Despite protecting globally important ecosystems and endangered wildlife, Africa’s ranger workforce remains critically understaffed and under-resourced.

According to Tusk, the continent requires approximately 345,000 terrestrial and marine rangers to manage its protected and conserved areas effectively—more than five times the current workforce of around 65,000.

At the same time, the risks facing rangers continue to escalate as they confront organised wildlife crime, armed conflicts, expanding human settlements around conservation areas and the growing impacts of climate change.

Many also continue working without adequate protective equipment, insurance, training or welfare support.

📰 Source: Capital FM Kenya