Armed militants have taken over Bafing Faunal Reserve and its surrounding areas in Southwestern Mali, forcing park rangers and many residents to flee.
Created in 1990, the Bafing reserve is a landmark wildlife attraction in Mali, that provided visitors with the chance to view lions, leopards, otters, hippos, crocodiles and a healthy population of chimpanzees.
This reserve, along with neighbouring Guinea, Moyen-Bafing national park, are strongholds for chimpanzees, predicting to house 2 000 chimpanzees, 12% of the world’s population.
What makes this matter even more concerning, is that just 17% of the world’s chimpanzees live in protected reserves, and the Bafing reserve was one of the few protected places where chimpanzees could be safe.
Location of the Bafir reserve in Southwestern Mali. Picture: Wikimedia Commons
Forestry officer, Karim Kamisoko, who used to patrol to reserve in Southwestern Mali, told Mongabay that he, and his fellow rangers, had to flee the reserve after Islamist militants seized much of Southwestern Mali.
Bafing Faunal Reserve covers 176 00 hectares, including open grassland, gallery forests, thickets, and seasonal water channels carved out of the steep plateaus. All of this provides a suitable habitat for western chimpanzees, as well as armed groups.
‘The habitat of the chimpanzees has become the stronghold of the jihadists, and the animals are left on their own,’ says Kamisoko. Protection of Bafing’s chimpanzees was reliant on patrols and NGO’s raising awareness amongst surrounding communities. These activities came to an end after frequent, and repeated attacks on forestry staff, government officials, and NGO workers.
These activities have come to a halt because of frequent, repeated attacks on forestry staff and other government officials, as well as NGO workers.
Mali’s national directorate of Water & Forests estimates that there were 2 000 chimpanzees in the reserve in 2013, but that it is difficult to know how many remain after the militants gained control.
The militant group goes by the name of Katiba Macina, which emerged in 2015 and claims to be affiliated with the larger and better known Ansar DIne, which has carried out attacks on soldiers and civilians in northern Mali since 2012.
According to Mongabay, the number of wildlife traffickers and militants in Mali increased after the fall of Moammar Gadaffi in neighbouring Libya in 2011. As civil war broke out, it increased the circulation of weapons in Mali, for militant groups as well as traffickers.
There are four subspecies of chimpanzees, with the western chimpanzee the most threatened. Between 1990 and 2014, their numbers declined by 80% across West Africa. Even though the 2019 IUCN assessment revealed that the estimated number of these primates across West Africa to be 53 000, only 17% live in protected areas.
This insurrection adds a threat, where Mali’s forestry officials claim that militants are working together with traffickers to hunt wildlife, which could prove to be a lucrative venture for militant groups.
ALSO READ
