About the Wildlife Ranger Challenge: 

COVID-19 has brought tourism revenue to a halt across Africa, threatening the important work and livelihoods of the rangers who protect iconic African wildlife such as elephants, pangolins, rhinos, lions, and more. Ranger teams are now uniting around the Wildlife Ranger Challenge, a running race with one goal: to raise money to support thousands of their fellow rangers. Now is the time to go the extra mile—it’s time to race to support our rangers. Every dollar donated will be matched by the Scheinberg Relief Fund, doubling your generous contribution.

Your contribution will help support 19 rangers and an estimated 108 livelihoods in and around the Wechiau Community Hippo Sanctuary in Ghana, helping them to protect the Sanctuary's hippos.

These hippos are some of the last remaining in Ghana and would likely long be gone if it were not for the amazing conservation efforts over the last two decades by the people and communities that constitute our community protected area.

The role of rangers:

Our rangers enforce hunting bans and restrictions on farming, fishing, and other natural resource extraction. Their patrols cover the aquatic habitat and adjacent terrestrial, strictly protected core zone that preserve the area’s riverine forest and grazing plains -- key habitats for hippos. Their work is critical in detecting and mitigating threats from incursions by farmland or livestock, adjacent agricultural burns, use of pesticides or certain fishing gear, and poaching. They are also instrumental in population monitoring for the target species via a regular boat-based hippo census. Furthermore, the rangers monitor bird species richness as an indicator of wider conservation benefits, assist with environmental awareness campaigns, and ordinarily support the eco-tourism program.

How your donation will help:

Additional funding will allow rangers to continue bi-weekly bylaw enforcement patrols as well as critical monitoring activities, such as the quarterly hippo census, and bi-annual avifaunal survey. Wechiau rangers will have the resources to resume re-establishment and maintenance of the fire belt protecting the sanctuary's core zone from both accidental fires and agricultural burns in neighboring farmland that spiral out of control. Moreover, the funds will support continuation of environmental awareness campaigns implemented via (safe, outdoor, physically distanced) in-person community meetings and radio broadcasts.

Effects of the pandemic:

Since 2004, Wechiau Community Hippo Sanctuary staff salaries and basic operating costs have been covered by revenue generated from eco-tourism. With tourism halted due to the pandemic, the sanctuary was facing the risk of being unable to pay its staff. Emergency funding from long-term donors has helped secure salaries for the Sanctuary's rangers for now, helping them retain their livelihoods and maintain patrolling activities in as far as this has been possible and safe given no to minimal deployment budgets and pandemic mitigation measures. To keep going, and effectively continue to protect and monitor the Sanctuary's hippos and core zone habitats, we need your help.

The economic outfall of the pandemic is having devastating effects on the livelihoods of the already marginalized communities of the Wechiau area, so we expect pressure on the Sanctuary's natural resources to mount. We therefore hope to strengthen enforcement, monitoring and community outreach to ensure that we do not compromise our future by allowing destruction of our natural treasures during these difficult times. Any amount you can give will help sustain livelihoods and safeguard the hippos and their habitat in the Wechiau Community Hippo Sanctuary. 

Thank you for your support!

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Tusk is registered with JustGiving in the UK (or GoFundMe.com in the USA). Our online fundraising sites allow you to create a sponsorship form with easy access for your supporters, knowing their money is going directly to Tusk. UK tax-paying donors can enhance their contribution by agreeing to Gift Aid their sponsorship (for every £10 you raise, Tusk will receive another £2.50 from the Government provided you are a UK taxpayer). US supporters wishing to make a tax deductible donation can do so via GoFundMe.com.