Poaching in Uganda: The WILD LEO Project

Andrew Lemieux has developed the ‘Wildlife Intelligence and Leadership Development program’ (WILD) to provide law enforcement officers (LEOs) of the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) in the protected Queen Elizabeth Conservation Area with advanced intelligence gathering and analysis training. Using technology donated by the NSCR, a select team of rangers, known as WILD LEOs, will collect photographic evidence of poaching activity using digital cameras embedded with GPS units.
By photographing signs of poaching such as snares and animal carcasses, the rangers will create a spatial database that describes where poachers are operating within the reserve. Moreover, arrested poachers will be photographed at the hunting site and the photograph, that shows the latitude and longitude where it was taken, will be used in court to prove the hunting occurred inside protected area. The goals of the project are twofold: (1) increase poacher apprehension using crime mapping and analysis techniques and (2) increase poacher conviction rates using better courtroom evidence.