About this Episode
For years, poaching pushed Rwanda’s Akagera National Park towards a dangerous tipping point. But after 15 years of sustained conservation work, the park has achieved something remarkable: not a single elephant, lion or rhino has been poached there for more than a decade.
The results go far beyond stopping poaching. Between 2010 and 2023, Akagera’s large-mammal population more than doubled, from 4,476 to 11,338 animals. Species that had disappeared from the park have also returned: lions were reintroduced in 2015 and 2017, black rhinos in 2017 and 2019, and white rhinos in 2021 and 2025. With those animals back, Akagera once again has Africa’s famous Big Five.
The secret wasn’t simply putting more armed rangers in the park. Conservation authorities combined patrols and intelligence operations with fencing, snare removal, stronger law enforcement and—perhaps most importantly—working with the communities living around the park. Nearly 2,000 wire snares had been removed by 2012; today, only a small number are found each year.
Former poachers have even become conservationists. One cooperative led by a former poacher helped persuade almost 60 others to abandon hunting, surrender weapons and traps, and find alternative livelihoods through farming and coffee production.
Tourism is benefiting too: Akagera now welcomes more than 51,700 paying visitors a year, generating over $5 million in annual revenue, while surrounding communities receive jobs, development projects and a share of tourism income.
It’s a powerful reminder that conservation works best when wildlife protection also gives people a reason—and an opportunity—to protect it.
A park once threatened by poaching has become a place where animals are multiplying, communities are benefiting, and species once lost are coming home.
