He more than played his part in bringing down elephant poaching with his PAMS Foundation, an anti-poaching activist group, dedicated to protecting wildlife. The World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF) notably joined scores of other conservationists around the world in mourning Lotter, a South African conservationist and anti-poaching crusader. There was no question he was the star of the crusade in Tanzania.
WWF said in a statement that Lotter, the from his early days as a ranger in South Africa to his most recent efforts against poaching syndicates in Tanzania, his commitment was inspiring to all who had the opportunity to work with him. As it were, most newspaper readers in Tanzania had never heard his name, and many will remember it with some ease because a celebrity namesake was in the country a few weeks before he met with fate. Still there were a few write ups including on at midweek in this newspaper where a correspondent gave an in-depth account of his work as a crusader for protecting elephants, just on time….
One aspect of his work which has been amply heralded in eulogies of his work in Tanzania as well as other parts of southern Africa was his belief in working with local communities. The thinking he apparently introduced or at least propagated that without local communities seeing the value of conservation the war against poaching could not be won was a sea change in local thinking on conservation. Until that time limited to training rangers and supplying four wheel drives, helicopters and night vision goggles, more or less, with wildlife work being rattled by Norway’s move in 2006 to scuttle direct subsidies for wildlife conservation.
The crusader’s success was so evident that the government and UN agencies started working with him on the strength of his field initiatives, for instance using his rural support networks to lay bare the routes of ivory trafficking and elephant killings. WWF Tanzania partnered with PAMS Foundation in supporting the training of village game scouts and anti-poaching patrol efforts in the Selous-Niassa Wildlife Corridor in Mbarang’andu and Nalika wildlife management areas in Namtumbo and Tunduru districts in Ruvuma region. He is especially credited with leading intelligence-led anti-poaching patrols resulted in success in curbing elephant poaching from notorious areas and hotspots in both Tunduru and Namtumbo areas.
Eulogies from various conservationist authorities around the world were unanimous on the surprisingly effective and dedicated with of Wayne Lotter, and paradoxically it was only fair that he meets with his destiny in Tanzania, where he chose to conduct the most important portion of his career engagements. The reason is that it is in Tanzania where the future of elephants living in the wild is being decided rather than in South Africa or Mozambique, as their nature outlays and game protected areas are miniscule compared to Tanzania. Dr Margaret Kinnaird, wildlife practice leader for WWF International said: “Wayne was both a personal friend to many in WWF and a highly respected and admired conservation partner.”
Lotter had received death threats while battling international ivory-trafficking networks, while efforts to combat the network remained somewhat secretive. Many people are just hearing about the National and Transnational Serious Crimes Investigation Unit (NTSCIU) which he fed with data, leading to arrests of notorious traffickers. They wished him out. It is clear replacing him will not be easy even for world conservationists, and elephants will die.
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