There has been poaching in Africa since antiquity. People hunted in areas claimed by other states or reserved for royalty or killed protected animals. Some of the European big game hunters who came to Africa in the 1800s were guilty of poaching and some were actually tried and found guilty by the African kings on whose land they had hunted without permission.

In 1900, the new, European colonial states enacted game preservation laws that forbid most Africans from hunting.

Subsequently most forms of African hunting, including hunting for food, were officially deemed poaching. Commercial poaching was an issue in these years and a threat to animal populations, but it was not at the crisis levels seen in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.

1970s and 80s: the first crisis

After independence in the 1950s and 60s, most African countries retained these game laws, but poaching for food, or bush meat, continued, as did poaching for commercial gain. Those hunting for food present a threat to animal populations, but not on the same level as those who did so for international markets. In the 1970s and 1980s, poaching in Africa reached crisis levels. The continents elephant and rhinoceros populations in particular faced potential extinction.

in 1973, 80 countries agreed to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (commonly known as CITES) governing the trade in endangered animals and plants. Several African animals, including rhinoceroses, were among the initially protected animals.

In 1990, most African elephants were added to the list of animals that could not be traded for commercial purposes.

The ban had a rapid and significant impact on ivory poaching, which rapidly declined to more manageable levels. Rhinoceros poaching, however, continued to threaten the existence of that species.

In the early 2000s, Asian demand for ivory began to rise steeply, and poaching in Africa rose again to crisis levels.

The Congo Conflict also created a perfect environment for

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