Fifty years ago, South Sudan was home to an estimated 133,500 elephants. Today, that number has plummeted to around 5% of its historic level, according to US conservationist Mike Fay. In Badingilo National Park, a protected area covering nearly 9,000 sq km, the last remaining bull elephant is so isolated that it travels with a herd of giraffes, tracked via a GPS collar.
Meanwhile, in southern Africa, the opposite problem exists. In the Kavango Zambezi transfrontier conservation area (Kaza), which spans parts of Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Angola, successful conservation efforts have led to elephant overpopulation. As humans and elephants are squeezed into smaller areas, human-wildlife conflict is rising, prompting debates over culling, hunting, fencing or translocation.
The contrast was documented by a journalist and photographer who travelled to both regions. In South Sudan, a hunter in Boma’s Maruwa village admitted killing an elephant for food two years ago, earning $50 per tusk split among five men. 'We’re really poor. We have nothing,' he said. African Parks, which manages 150,000 sq km of land in South Sudan, calls the area 'the greatest conservation opportunity on Earth' but acknowledges the immense challenge.
David Liwaya, an African Parks community officer and former refugee, summed up the dilemma: 'It’s really difficult. Who cares about an elephant when you’re losing your brothers?' Yet he insisted that giving up on the future is not an option. The discovery in 2023 that the region hosts the world’s largest land mammal migration, dominated by white-eared kob, offers some hope, but elephants continue to vanish due to poaching and poverty.
