LEAD Ranger – setting up secure foundations for success in conservation

LEAD Ranger trained a record number of rangers last year and in more countries than they’ve reached before. 185 rangers participated in this intensive train-the-trainer program with 173 graduates. Rangers from nine countries took part – D R Congo, Indonesia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, South Sudan, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

Thin Green Line is a founding partner of LEAD, a program with a vision to develop and support experienced rangers as trainers with an outstanding set of competencies, who are then embedded in established ranger teams.

The two Indonesia courses were LEAD’s first full courses outside of Africa. According to LEAD’s Dominique Noome, the DRC training was a notable achievement considering the scale of ranger fatalities in that country each year.

The course was run in Upemba National Parks, in partnership with ICCN (DRC’s department of conservation) and Forgotten Parks Foundation.

“We don’t have credible numbers of training reach, but we can roughly say around 2000 additional rangers will benefit from this training capacity, which will be embedded within the beneficiary organisations throughout 2024,” Dominique said.

Training will continue in 2024 with three experienced African trainers becoming increasingly self-reliant.

“We are also using past graduates to support our training delivery, providing past graduates extra experience at training delivery before they start embedding within their own organisations.”