The illegal trafficking of wild animals, plants and their derivatives poses a significant threat to many species - especially those associated with high value such as elephant ivory.
The CITES Monitoring the Illegal Killing of Elephants (MIKE) Programme is a site-based system designed to monitor trends in the illegal killing of elephants, build management capacity and provide information to help range states make appropriate management and enforcement decisions. It was initiated by the CITES 10th Conference of Parties in June 1997, where African and Asian member states that harbour natural populations of elephants proposed protected areas or ecosystems for consideration as MIKE sites. The sites needed to be places where elephant mortality can be assessed and where changes in the elephant population could be used to assess the status of the whole country. Niassa Special Reserve is one of these sites.
As part of the MIKE initiative, theoretical and practical training for NSR rangers was recently conducted covering how to establish the gender and age of elephants, how to measure their ivory, how to analyze a crime scene and identify the causes of elephant death. This will further equip NSR’s brave rangers in their efforts to protect the landscape’s elephants.