The South African Police Service (SAPS) has pledged its resolute commitment to continue the fight against poaching.
This reaffirmation follows a recent intelligence-driven operation on Saturday, July 14, where members of the South African Police Service’s Special Task Force (STF) and the local stock theft unit acted on intelligence, and tracked down two suspected poachers at the Loskop Nature Reserve, north of Middleburg in Mpumalanga.
Injuries and casualties were sustained in a shootout that commenced just after 9pm, and the police recovered a rifle that was fitted with a silencer.
The Tourism Conservation Fund (TCF), a non-profit company established by Peace Parks Foundation and the Southern Africa Tourism Services Association (Satsa) has a mission to “protect biodiversity and enhance the conservation of South Africa’s wildlife areas through effective economic and social development programmes which contribute to sustainable poverty reduction, economic opportunity and broad-based economic growth in communities suffering from or at a high risk of wildlife crime.”
CEO of the TCF, Paul Zille, says: “The TCF fully supports the anti-poaching effort of the SAPS and other authorities and deeply regrets the casualties incurred. In doing so, we need to recall that poachers are typically very poor people who are exploited by criminal syndicates. They frequently have no alternative livelihood opportunities, and fall prey to the quick money offered by local King Pins. To defeat poaching we need to eliminate the incentives that drive it. This means we need to invest in the communities which host poaching to ensure they share more in the value generated by our wildlife areas. If enough people in adjacent communities have a direct stake in the ongoing health and viability of our parks, they will make it difficult for criminal syndicates to source poachers and to operate. Once animals have more value for these communities alive rather than dead, you begin to eliminate the incentives that drive poaching and enable criminal syndicates to operate.”
SAPS concurs: “We continue to call upon our communities to support the South African Police Service in our effort to protect the natural resources of our country, so that our children and children's children can enjoy them for generations to come.”
