Three Rwandan Rangers are celebrating the Paradise Foundation African Rangers Award which they were given on November 15,2019.
The rangers including Leonidas Mpumuje, Anthony Nzuki and Jean Nepomuscene Musekura are among the 50 park rangers that were recognised in this year’s African Rangers Award, a ceremony that was held on November 15, 2019, in Accra, Ghana.
Mpumuje is the head of Rhino Monitoring of Akagera National Park where his colleague, Nzuki, is a ranger post leader.
Musekura is a ranger in Volcanoes National Park. The African Ranger Awards was initiated in 2017 by Jack Ma, the co-founder and former Executive Chairman of Alibaba Group, through the Paradise Foundation; an environmental conservation organisation.
This programme recognizes park rangers for their extraordinary contribution towards protecting the continent’s wildlife and conservation areas.
In the region, Kenya won the largest number of awards with 19 rangers awarded. Tanzania got five awards while Uganda got one.
The annual event seeks to raise awareness in the world about the need to conserve Africa’s wildlife, emphasising the critical role that front-line rangers play in conservation, and help to stem the current decline in populations of Africa’s wildlife.