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t's a grim and all too common sight for rangers at some of Africa’s nature reserves: the bullet-riddled carcass of an elephant, its tusks removed by poachers. African elephant populations have fallen by about 30% since 2006. Poaching has driven the decline. Some reserves, like Garamba in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Selous in Tanzania, have lost hundreds of elephants to poachers over the last decade. But others, like Etosha National Park in Namibia, have been targeted far less.

Cameroon has deployed its military forces to help rangers crack down on poachers on its eastern border with the Central African Republic. Cameroon wildlife officials say poaching is again increasing after pandemic restrictions saw a drop in the number of animals being killed. Officials say in the last week alone, poachers have killed at least eight elephants along the border. Cameroon's Forestry and Wildlife ministry says several dozen armed poachers are attacking elephants along the CAR border.

There was a 50% increase in the number of rhinoceroses killed in the first six months of 2021 in South Africa compared to the same period last year, but the figure is still lower than pre-pandemic years, the country's government announced Saturday. Barbara Creecy, the Minister of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries, said 249 rhinos have been poached for their horns from Jan. 1 through the end of June. That's up from the 166 poached in the same time period in 2020, but still a marked decline from 2019, which saw 318 rhino poaching.

Cameroonian police say they have for the first time during the pandemic seized parts of an estimated 2,000 pangolins poached in Cameroon and neighboring Equatorial Guinea and Gabon. Police say travel restrictions had slowed trafficking of the endangered anteater to Asia, where its meat is considered a delicacy and the scales are used in traditional medicine. At least 12 bags of Pangolin scales and leopard skin are in a police warehouse at Nlonkak, a neighborhood in Cameroon's capital, Yaounde.

The highest office in the country has joined the outcry against the spate of poaching and plundering of wildlife resources currently experienced in the country. President Hage Geingob, during the opening of the 2017 legal year, called upon parliament to send him the necessary amendments to the relevant laws to increase penalties so that he can sign them into law for the courts to enforce them.

Lawyers appearing for a Chinese national and a Namibian man accused of wildlife crimes, say their clients have not received a list of State witnesses, and were in difficult position, as their bail conditions include that they should not contact or interfere with those who will testify against them.

A Chinese national and a Namibian appeared before the Windhoek Magistrate’s Court on Wednesday on charges of dealing in protected game products and possession of controlled wildlife products with a combined valued of N$320 000. The two men, Zhi Geng (37) and James Barron Wallace (47), were not asked to plead to the charges Geng was arrested in Windhoek on February 1 for dealing in 1.5kg rhino horn valued at N$232 000 and abalone valued at N$91 000. Wallace is charged only with the possession of abalone.