Pangolin Conservation in Chad: Sahel, Savanna, and Survival

Chad presents one of the most challenging conservation environments on the African continent. A vast, landlocked country spanning desert, Sahel, and savanna from its northern border with Libya to its southern forests adjacent to the Central African Republic and Cameroon, Chad has experienced prolonged political instability, recurring armed conflict, and governance challenges that have severely limited investment in wildlife management. Yet within this difficult context, pangolins persist — quietly foraging through southern savannas and forest margins, surviving in landscapes where conservation institutions have only intermittent reach. Understanding pangolin conservation in Chad means understanding both the severity of the threats and the limited but real conservation foundations that exist.

Pangolin Species in Chad

Two pangolin species are documented in southern Chad. Temminck's ground pangolin (Smutsia temminckii) occurs across the country's southern savanna zone, ranging through the Sudanian woodland and Guinea savanna habitats that characterise this part of the country. It is a terrestrial, nocturnal species that digs for subterranean ant and termite colonies, and has been recorded within Zakouma National Park — Chad's most important protected area — and in the surrounding hunting zones and community areas. Its range extends northward into the Sahel where suitable habitat exists, but population density declines sharply with increasing aridity.

The white-bellied pangolin (Phataginus tricuspis) occurs in the forested zones of Chad's far south, in the Logone valley and the forest-savanna transition zone bordering the CAR and Cameroon. This smaller, arboreal species requires tree cover that is largely absent across the majority of Chad's territory, restricting it to the southernmost part of the country. Documentary records of this species in Chad are sparse, and its presence in the country is confirmed by regional range maps and occasional field records rather than systematic surveys.

Threats

Hunting and Bushmeat Trade

In Chad's southern communities, pangolins are hunted for bushmeat, both for household consumption and for sale in local markets. The southern town of Sarh and the Logone Occidental region are areas where bushmeat markets have been documented to include pangolin products alongside other savanna wildlife. Hunting methods include wire snares set along animal movement corridors, night hunting with dogs and torches, and opportunistic capture during agricultural activities. The low density of pangolin populations in many areas, combined with the species' nocturnal habits, means that individual hunters encounter pangolins relatively rarely — but even low-intensity hunting can significantly affect small, isolated populations.

The transition from subsistence bushmeat hunting to commercial hunting for the international scale trade represents an escalating risk. Although Chad's remoteness from major export infrastructure reduces the immediate threat from organised international trafficking networks, the expansion of mobile phone coverage and informal trader networks into previously isolated areas has begun to connect rural hunters in Chad's south with brokers capable of linking them to the international supply chain. This connectivity risk is not yet well documented in Chad but parallels processes observed in other Central African countries over the past decade.

Conflict, Instability, and Governance Gaps

Chad has experienced periodic armed conflict along its borders with Sudan, the CAR, and Libya, and has hosted large refugee populations that place additional pressure on natural resources in affected areas. Military activity, population displacement, and the breakdown of local governance structures in conflict-affected zones create conditions under which wildlife can be exploited without accountability. Armed groups and militia have been implicated in wildlife poaching in conflict-affected areas of Central Africa more broadly, and while direct evidence of organised pangolin poaching by armed groups in Chad is limited, the governance environment provides little protection against such exploitation.

The Chadian government's capacity to manage wildlife is severely constrained by limited fiscal resources, competing priorities, and the geographic scale of the country. Chad covers over 1.2 million square kilometres — roughly twice the size of France — with a wildlife management infrastructure that could not meaningfully patrol even a small fraction of potentially important wildlife habitat outside the main protected areas. Enforcement in rural areas depends primarily on local social norms and community attitudes rather than formal law enforcement, creating both vulnerability and potential for community-based conservation approaches.

Habitat Change in Southern Chad

Agricultural expansion, firewood and charcoal production, and overgrazing by livestock have degraded savanna and gallery forest habitats in Chad's south over recent decades. Population growth in the Lake Chad basin and the southern agricultural zone has intensified land use pressure, reducing the quality and extent of habitat available to pangolins and other wildlife. Climate variability — with shifting rainfall patterns affecting the extent of productive savanna — adds an additional layer of uncertainty to habitat availability projections. The Logone floodplain, historically one of the most productive wildlife habitats in the region, has been significantly modified by upstream water management and agricultural encroachment.

Legal Framework

Chad's domestic wildlife legislation classifies pangolins as protected species and prohibits their hunting, trade, and possession. The country is a party to CITES, and both species occurring within its borders are listed under Appendix I. In practice, wildlife law enforcement capacity outside Zakouma National Park and its immediate buffer zone is minimal. The national Direction des Aires Protegees et de la Faune Sauvage is chronically under-resourced, and judicial processing of wildlife crime cases is slow and inconsistent. The effective legal protection of pangolins in Chad depends far more on the presence of functioning conservation institutions — particularly in Zakouma — than on formal legislative provisions.

Conservation Initiatives

Zakouma National Park and African Parks

Zakouma National Park is the centrepiece of wildlife conservation in Chad and the country's most important context for pangolin protection. African Parks assumed management of Zakouma in 2010 under a partnership agreement with the Chadian government, and has since transformed the park from a site experiencing severe poaching pressure into one of Africa's conservation success stories. African Parks' intervention reversed decades of elephant decline through dramatically improved anti-poaching operations, restored ranger morale and capacity, and rebuilt community relations around the park's periphery.

While Zakouma's conservation narrative has centred on its elephant population recovery, the improvements in ranger patrol capacity and coverage benefit the full suite of species within the park, including Temminck's ground pangolin. Camera trap monitoring programmes within Zakouma have recorded pangolin activity, and the park's improved anti-poaching infrastructure reduces the risk of organised hunting operations within its boundaries. The Zakouma model demonstrates that significant conservation improvement is achievable in a challenging governance environment when professional management and adequate resources are applied.

Siniaka-Minia Wildlife Reserve

Siniaka-Minia Wildlife Reserve, adjacent to Zakouma in the south of Chad, forms part of the broader protected area complex that anchors wildlife conservation in the country's southern zone. Less well-resourced than Zakouma, Siniaka-Minia has experienced more significant encroachment and hunting pressure. Its potential as a pangolin conservation area has not been systematically assessed, but its location in the savanna-forest transition zone makes it ecologically significant for both Temminck's ground pangolin and potentially the white-bellied pangolin at its southern margins.

Lake Chad Basin Commission

The Lake Chad Basin Commission (LCBC) coordinates transboundary natural resource management among the countries sharing the Lake Chad basin — Nigeria, Niger, Chad, and Cameroon. While the LCBC's primary focus has been on water resource management and food security, it provides an institutional framework for transboundary wildlife coordination that could, in principle, extend to pangolin conservation in the basin. The ecological connectivity between Chad's savanna zone and adjacent areas of Cameroon, Niger, and Nigeria means that national conservation efforts are most effective when coordinated at the regional level.

Research Deficits and the Path Forward

Chad is among the least-researched pangolin range states on the continent. No systematic national survey of either pangolin species has been conducted, and the available records are primarily incidental observations and market survey data rather than population assessments. The absence of baseline data makes it impossible to quantify the scale of hunting pressure or model population viability with any confidence. Addressing this research deficit requires collaboration between Zakouma's monitoring programmes, Chad's universities and research institutions, and international partners with pangolin survey expertise.

The conservation outlook for Chad's pangolins is not hopeless, but it requires realistic expectations. The country's institutional limitations mean that formal law enforcement cannot be the primary mechanism of protection across most of the national territory. Community-based approaches — working with hunting communities to shift norms and incentives around pangolin hunting — and the extension of conservation infrastructure from protected area anchors like Zakouma into adjacent buffer zones offer the most practical pathways for improving outcomes. In a country where conservation resources are scarce and competing pressures severe, protecting the core areas first and building outward from those foundations is the most tractable strategy available.