Poachers Burn One-Third of Rwandan Park
Thu Jul 8, 2004 03:05 PM ET

By Ed Stoddard
JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Poachers have burned a third of Rwanda's largest national park, hampering efforts to protect wildlife from dangers posed by the country's surging rural population.

"It's true, one third of Akagera National Park has burned over the past week...(but) the fires are under control as I'm speaking," park warden David Mugisha told Reuters on Thursday by telephone from Rwanda.

Akagera is a haven for wildlife in overcrowded Rwanda, where over 8 million people are squeezed into just 26,300 sq kms (10,160 sq miles) and deforestation is already widespread.

The sprawling 900 sq km park in the east of the country is home to elephants, giraffes, zebra, and various species of antelope and monkey.

Mugisha said poachers lit the fires to scatter animals and then set snares to catch them should they return to feed on vegetation that grows back.

"We are very much concerned...it's very damaging and very abrupt for the biodiversity of the park," Mugisha said.

He said the poachers were both commercial hunters working in the bushmeat trade and subsistence hunters trying to feed themselves. Rwanda's swelling rural population is among the poorest in the world.