Joash Kigera, 38, had been a wildlife poacher for 15 years. He grew up in extreme poverty, having been orphaned at a young age in Rwanda's violent genocide. He poached mostly gorillas along the Volcanoes National Park in northwest Rwanda and chimpanzees inside Nyungwe National Park at the south tip of the small landlocked country in the Great Rift Valley where the African Great Lakes region and East Africa converge.

"I would kill the animals with my fellow poachers for bushmeat, then sell the meat for consumption in nearby towns. The money earned would be used to buy food for my two younger siblings. Both of my parents were massacred during the 1994 infamous genocide. We survived this violent time as we were sheltered in a protected hidden place at the time," said Kigera, who was also recruited as a child soldier during the period of civil wars. 

"During those hard times in our country, wildlife poaching was very rampant as a result of lawlessness and bribery. I also poached buffalo along with the primates until I was arrested and convicted in 2010," he said. 

After spending two years in prison, Kigera became a beneficiary of a government program that reforms poachers and trains them as conservationists. In this program, reformed poachers are either given jobs as community rangers, or receive training to study a related course on environmental conservation. 

The poacher reform program involves the Rwandan Government signing agreements with different countries, including China, for its citizens to receive advanced education in prestigious institutions on conservation related courses.

"When a convicted poacher is released from prison, we don't usually abandon them as they may revert to their old ways of irresponsible behavior. Instead, we tend to nurture and motivate them to be responsible citizens. This we do by giving them professional conservation training," said Juliet Kabera, Director General of the Rwanda Environment Management Authority.

They are provided with a variety of jobs after the training, mostly as community rangers or other posts depending on educational levels, according to Kabera. 

"We do this with agreements with different governments, especially China," she said. 

Kabera said that since this program began in 2012, over 463 former poachers have benefited from it. 

Some of the institutions in China that have trained these conservationists include Nanjing University, Fudan University, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Peking University, and another 30 universities across China. 

A big number of these institutions offer four-year degree courses in ecology and other related fields. The institutions offer partial scholarships, with the Rwandan Government making up the shortfall in costs, according to Kabera.

"Such conservation efforts are strongly boosting tourism revenue in Rwanda. Actually, tourism revenue rose in 2019 by 8.9 percent to $28.9 million, attracting 111,136 local and international visitors last year. This year, because of COVID-19, numbers have dropped and along with it a 76-percent drop in revenue - but it will slowly rise leading up to December.

“But we do expect from next year things to return to normalcy as COVID-19 global restrictions ease up, [with hopefully] a 10-percent annual growth rate," said Kabera. 

 

According to the African Wildlife Foundation (AWF), wildlife poaching has reduced greatly since 2014, due to such initiatives as reforming poachers coupled with technological innovation such as the use of drones to monitor poaching activities. AWF is a wildlife conservation organization headquartered in Nairobi, but it manages conservation efforts across Africa.

According to the newly appointed CEO Kaddu Sebunya, poaching activities have dropped by 100 percent in the Akugera National Park and the Volcanoes National Park. Many reformed poachers are now rangers in those parks.

"But importantly, the newly recruited rangers further help both local and international police track down fugitives and identify newly recruited poachers. Sometimes when they [poachers] are arrested, the government gives them amnesty, so that they may not to be prosecuted and possibly get economic empowerment through wildlife ranger jobs," said Sebunya. 

He said that despite other factors having reduced poaching in Rwanda, this initiative has been the most contributing factor.

Almost every wildlife species can be found across Rwanda, from elephants to leopards; yet poaching has been reducing generally by as much as 85 percent, not just in Rwanda, but the entire East Africa Region, according to Sebunya. 

"While not all [ex-poachers] have gotten [conservation] jobs, others have gained self-employment by entertaining tourists in different ways, such as singing or performing traditional dancing or acrobatics in different conservation hotspots around the country," said Sebunya. 

The number of elephants has grown in Rwanda partly due to this initiative, although Sebunya has no specific figures. 

"Elephants can be found in the Akagera National Park and poaching activities there have gone down almost to zero during the last six years. They are breeding well and many former poachers have been employed as rangers in the park," he said. 

Felicien Kabatsi is another reformed poacher. He said he had been a poacher for over 30 years. He was not fortunate to benefit from the reform program, but he sings about gorilla conservation at the Gorilla Guardians Village and is paid for his entertainment performances by tourists who visit the facility near the Volcanoes National Park. 

"I was caught killing a buffalo for bushmeat and my brother was killed in the process by the same animal. I served almost five months in jail. It was there I decided to reform. I sing about conservation and on a good day I can make about $200," he said. "We have formed cooperative savings groups with other former poachers we work with. I have already managed to buy a small piece of land and built rental houses," he said.

Other countries in the region are thinking of following the Rwandan example. Kenya is already in discussions with China and the United States to begin such a program. 

Zimbabwe has also considered putting such a program in place as it is the country with the second highest rates of poaching in Africa, according to the United Nations Environmental Program.

Rwanda will also be conducting a wildlife census in 2021 to determine the amount of biodiversity it boasts. 

"There have been very few and minor poaching cases of wildlife in Rwanda for more than half a decade and that is why the government plans to relocate some wildlife such as giraffe, elephant, and zebra to other parks with more space to roam," said Kabera. CA

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