Weapon Proliferation Challenges Biodiversity Protection in South Sudan

Jan 7, 2021 | Adrian Garside
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The availability of Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALW) is a factor in the decline of wildlife numbers due to their use in poaching and hunting. This in turn, impacts the methodology employed for protecting biodiversity, especially in designated wildlife Protected Areas (PAs). There are also links between the trafficking of arms and the Illegal Wildlife Trade. Therefore, to call for the control of SALW – as has been the case in a recent IUCN motion – forms part of the equation leading to the protection of wildlife.

This blog examines the matter of arms proliferation in South Sudan and the effect this is having on wildlife populations but more significantly, how it affects the practice of wildlife conservation. After decades of systematic repression and three civil wars, South Sudan remains hugely underdeveloped, including its wildlife sector. As a result, this blog cannot resort to numerical data such as wildlife decline in relation to arms availability, because that baseline data does not exist.

Other evidence of the impact of arms proliferation is however clearer. The culture that comes with weapons, the breakdown in the Rule of Law, and the ease with which situations can rapidly escalate where one generally assumes that every rural household is armed. It is known that the decline of South Sudan’s wildlife is primarily due to poaching, hunting and the consumption of bushmeat – often out of necessity. To turn this around, wildlife management and the control of SALW requires political stability, effective Rule of Law, good governance and as a result, human security.