Edmore Ndou

In the vast savanna bushlands spanning Zimbabwe and South Africa’s border region, Edmore Ndou, 28, was shot one afternoon in April 2017 after pursuing two men who were supposed to be working as his colleagues. He was killed as he tried to stop the poachers from laying snares to trap wild animals on Nengasha Safaris’ hunting concession in Zimbabwe’s southern borderlands.

A local wildlife ranger, Ndou had trained at the Mushandike College of Wildlife Management. In 2013, he joined Nottingham Estate, a private fruit and ecotourism estate, as a ranger and worked for the company’s subsidiary, Nengasha Safaris.

On the day Ndou was killed, the poacher patrol unit had been tracking a pair of poachers for more than 12 hours. Ndou and two other rangers had discovered that two guards, Petros Sifelani, 35, and Bino Ndou, 42 – employed as seasonal workers to protect the solar pumps of a dam – were in fact laying snares to trap impalas for sale as bushmeat. 

A pack of seven rangers had set out to find the pair but, as the hours wore on and day turned to night, three scouts were left. Armed with batons and a shotgun, Ndou and his two remaining partners were ambushed by the poachers. Sifelani and Bino Ndou were waiting at the top of the hill for the rangers, then charged down towards the trio as soon as they were spotted. The game scouts ordered the pair to surrender, but an argument ensued and Ndou was shot in the thigh by Bino Ndou’s Remington shotgun, and fell to the ground. The poachers fled the scene as Ndou lay bleeding profusely.

His colleagues immediately sent an SOS to Ishmael Tshabalala, the head of security at Nottingham Estate. ‘I received a text message saying someone had been shot. I didn’t even think to ask who. I just drove straight to the station,’ he recalled. Although he followed company safety procedures, looking back, Tshabalala said he wished he could have done more. ‘I regret not going there sooner. Maybe I could’ve been able to save Eddie’s life. By the time [I arrived] it was too late – he’d lost too much blood – he’d lost too much blood. We tried to rush him to our [Nottingham Estate] clinic. That’s where he died, 20 minutes later,’ said Tshabalala.

Tshabalala said he was aware that the two guards were involved in poaching.

Seasonal workers regularly move across the border between South Africa and Zimbabwe, resulting in the frequent passage of poached wildlife and smuggled goods. Locally, poachers sell game meat to restaurants in Beitbridge, but their networks also extend to South Africa.

According to Phil Palmer, owner of Nengasha Safaris, Ndou is one of dozens of rangers shot every year by poachers belonging to Zimbabwe’s poaching networks in the country’s south; meanwhile, in northern Zimbabwe, poaching operations have transnational networks that reach as far as China. Palmer said that in recent months Beitbridge’s poachers had become more sophisticated in their approach to stealing wild game and firewood. ‘These are well-organized poachers. It’s a strong concern that they move around with large packs of dogs and getaway vehicles. In one night, we can lose up to 10 impala or a kudu bull, which is worth quite a lot of money,’ he said. Since 2018, Nengasha’s rangers have retrieved more than 500 snares.

As a local whose family had lived on the land for generations, Bino Ndou felt he was entitled to hunt game and sell it as a livelihood. ‘It’s my right,’ he reportedly said to Tshabalala a few days after Ndou’s murder. According to Tshabalala, people in the surrounding villages, such as Makhakhule, or Nzambe, where Bino came from, claim they have a perpetual right to the wildlife that thrives on their traditional land. As Palmer points out, Nottingham Estates’ hunting concession entitles the local communities to only a portion of the profits made by wildlife activities, such as hunting paid for by tourists, or to buy hunted carcasses at a subsidized rate.