Satellite Sentinel protecting elephant slaughter by militia in Congo

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Clooney Project Fights Elephant Killing by Christian Militia



(Bloomberg) -- A project co-founded by actor George Clooney is providing data to Congolese rangers who are fighting the Lord’s Resistance Army and other poachers who are shooting elephants from helicopters and cutting off their tusks with chainsaws.

Clooney’s Satellite Sentinel Project, the Enough Project and DigitalGlobe are providing satellite data and field research to help rangers in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Garamba National Park identify and patrol areas where poachers are operating, the groups said in a report released on Wednesday.

The LRA, which was founded in Uganda three decades ago by its leader Joseph Kony, is funding its activities through poaching, the groups said in the report. The militia says it’s inspired by the Christian Bible’s 10 commandments and it now operates in Congo, South Sudan and the Central African Republic.


Elephant poaching is now keeping Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army alive,” Sasha Lezhnev, an associate director for policy at Enough Project, said in a statement accompanying the report. “To stop this, the park rangers in Garamba must be aided with greater U.S. and international assistance.”
Armed poachers from Sudan and South Sudan as well as renegade elements of the Congolese army are also hunting elephants, the groups say in the report entitled ‘Poachers Without Borders.’ Rangers in the park have found the bodies of 131 elephants killed since April for their tusks, which can sell for as much as $175,500 each in east Asia.

Combat Experience

DigitalGlobe analysts cross referenced data including location of elephant remains, elephant movements tracked with GPS collars, ranger patrol routes and LRA camp locations. They established four probable poaching areas of less than 32 square kilometers (12.4 square miles) in the 4,920-square-kilometer park.
The groups also used satellite images to identify places that provide forest cover and are away from ranger stations, where poachers are likely to pass through. Random checks or stations “into and out of the poaching areas will likely provide the rangers with a better means of controlling who travels into these areas,” they said.
In recent attacks, the groups with significant combat experience have killed up to eight elephants at a time, sometimes shooting them from helicopters, the groups said.
The militia “use their revenues from poaching in part to fund their continuing military activities through purchases of food, weapons, ammunition and other supplies,” they said.

Child Soldiers

Kony has been charged by the International Criminal Court in The Hague with crimes including turning thousands of children into sex slaves and child soldiers.
Poaching is also used to fund other rebel groups in east and central Africa, the groups said.
“The notorious Lord’s Resistance Army and the Somalia based al-Shabaab partly fund their deadly activities through the killing of elephants,” Kasper Agger, a field researcher for the Washington, D.C.-based Enough Project, said in a the statement.
Africa’s biggest elephant populations are in southern Africa.
The Satellite Sentinel Project monitors Sudan and South Sudan to assess the human security situation, identify threats to civilians, and document war crimes, according to its website. The Enough Project provides field research and DigitalGlobe provides imagery from its constellation of satellites and geospatial analysis from the DigitalGlobe Analysis Center.

It would be a real positive if the SSP is able to zoom in on these poachers. Then the authorities could intervene and help to cut off a source of revenue to the LRA. In some small way to help defeat LRA's cruel and violent activities by circumventing a revenue source would be a small success for George and Enough Project's satellite program. They both have acknowledged that the program has had mixed success in the past and they were going to refocus their efforts to go after the money that was funding some of the atrocities taking place in the Sudan, the Congo, etc.

I love elephants. They are my favourite animals after dogs. I got a painted elephant picture on my wall. Great to hear thex Support elephants too

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George Clooney Uses Satellite Sentinel Project To Catch Poachers


Although actor and activist George Clooney co-founded the Satellite Sentinel Project (SSP) as a way to systematically monitor threats to human security over Sudan and South Sudan, it is now also being used, in cooperation with ENOUGH Project and DigitalGlobe, to keep watch over elephants in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

There is good reason for this, according to the groups’ report Poachers Without Borders, which claims that Sudanese and South Sudanese poachers are killing elephants in Garamba National Park and selling their ivory tusks to the Asian black market.

The lucrative return ($1,000 to $1,300 per pound, which means up to $175,500 per tusk for an adult male) is used as funding for weapons, ammunition and supplies. Using high powered weaponry to kill several elephants at once, and then quickly removing the tusks by chainsaw, the animals are being butchered at an unprecedented rate.

Using satellite imagery and predictive analytics, SSP and its partners aim to assist park rangers in tracking the migrating herds through the vast park, as well as help focus patrol efforts on probable areas according to “historical geospatial trend analysis, cost surface travel analysis, key terrain analysis, and predictive analysis”.

“If the application of the predictive analysis helps to slow the slaughter of elephants,” says the report, “the analytical method and tools could be used elsewhere in Africa to stem the increasingly rapid slaughter that is taking a heavy toll on the continent’s elephant population.”

Wow!

Oh that is Brilliant News.  

I merged this thread with the other elephant article.

I love elephants and I love George

Wonder how long it's been going on? Remember His Nibs alluding to it in an article a while ago........

Mm, and there was a certain safari a year ago too.....

That's great that it is helping to catch the elephant poachers. I love elephants too. They are amazing animals. A few years back I was on a safari holiday in Kenya and it was wonderful to watch the elephants ambling to the water holes. So thanks George and the SSP for all you are doing.