Elephant Losses in Uganda – and Some Gains

In the eight years of Idi Amin's rule, law enforcement in the national parks and reserves completely collapsed, and poaching and human encroachment increased. Last year, Robert Malpas, working for the New York Zoological Society and World Wildlife Fund/IUCN, and with some help from ffPS, spent nine months on a survey of Uganda's national parks and reserves to determine just how bad the situation really was. He found the elephant situation so desperate in both the Rwenzori and Kabalega Falls National Parks, except in one area, that there is no certainty of their survival in either even if the poaching can be controlled.