How a controversial conservation experiment in burkina faso saved elephants from extinction

In the late 1970s, southern Burkina Faso faced a conservation crisis. Elephants had nearly vanished, wildlife populations were crashing, and subsistence hunting had turned into widespread eradication. When conservationist Clark Lungren proposed an unorthodox solution—allowing local communities to retain controlled hunting rights in exchange for protecting wildlife and habitat—experts dismissed the idea as destined for failure.

Lungren, who grew up in what was then Upper Volta and spent most of his life there, understood something the international development community missed: turning former poachers into conservation partners could work better than traditional exclusion-based approaches. His proposal ran counter to prevailing conservation doctrine, which typically banned local communities from accessing natural resources entirely.

The results at Nazinga game reserve, south of Ouagadougou, proved the skeptics wrong. Over the following years, wildlife populations rebounded dramatically. Elephants returned to areas where they had been eliminated, and other species followed suit. The conservation success eventually attracted tourism to the region, creating additional economic incentives for protection.

Perhaps most remarkably, some of the men who became wardens and guides at Nazinga were former poachers—individuals who had once been part of the problem but became integral to the solution. Lungren’s approach demonstrates that effective conservation in West Africa often requires compromises that may seem unconventional to outsiders but make practical sense for communities living with wildlife. His success story offers a rare example of enduring recovery in a region more often associated with environmental loss.