Introducing the WACN Kainji Lake National Park Project

On the 27th of October 2023, the wildlife focused organisation that I founded, called WACN, signed a 31 year co-management MOU with the Federal Government of Nigeria via a federal agency called the Nigeria National Park Service. Our objective is to secure and restore the park’s biodiversity.
Introducing the WACN Kainji Lake National Park Project
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WACN Kainji Lake National Park Project

The Kainji Lake National Park is a 2000 square mile park in the northwest of Nigeria close to the border with Benin.  The park is home to diverse wildlife, with 65 mammalian species documented including the northwest African cheetah, northern lion, West African savanna buffalo, West African hartebeest, West African kob, defassa waterbuck, African bush elephant, wild dog, spotted hyena, leopard, side-striped jackal, caracal, serval, hippopotamus, etc.  Birds include the martial eagle and secretary bird.  All three expected savanna primate species are present - olive baboon, patas monkey, and tantalus monkey.

I, Patrick Egwu, am the founder and CEO of WACN (West African Conservation Network).  Within the 31 years of our MOU, our ambitions are to completely turn around the fortunes of the Kainji Lake National Park by first getting it to be absolutely safe, then restoring its wildlife populations to healthy levels, and then eventually reintroducing controlled but sustainable ecotourism so that the park becomes financially self sufficient.

Our project is very difficult to implement due to security challenges in the park.  As I write, the park is riddled with armed bandits that are using the park as a kidnapping den.  We have also been hearing of numerous other illegal activities afflicting the park.  

Our targeted strategy within the next 12 to 36 months is to increase the capacity of the park’s rangers.  We want to adequately equip them, train them, increase their manpower, and increase their remuneration on the basis of performance.

We already have all our equipment suppliers in place, but the equipment and other critical infrastructure required to empower the rangers to recover and protect the park from the bandits etc is resource intensive, and we are now looking for partners that can assist us to mobilise the resources to empower the rangers to recover and protect the park.

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Go to the profile of Thirza Loffeld
30 days ago

Hi Patrick, thanks for sharing this introduction and your request for help from the WildHub community. 

I would like to add some more voices to the conversation to ask for their advice and help you further: @rohit singh at WWF-US who is expert in wildlife enforcement and capacity building, WildHub Advocates @Grace Alawa and @Eberechi Cecilia Osuagwu, Wildhub Advocate in Nigeria, @Thabang Teffo at the Southern African Wildlife College who provide ranger training, @Bob Smith at DICE - expert in capacity building for conservation. 

You may already know of this resource; it was published on WildHub recently, please find an introduction to Human Rights and Conservation published by Helen Newing and co-authors here: https://www.forestpeoples.org/en/report/2024/conservation-and-human-rights I thought it could be a useful additional resource for the rangers during their training.