Animal Welfare in Burkina Faso: Deep Dive

Burkina Faso's Wildlife and Welfare Context

Burkina Faso — literally "Land of Upright People" — faces extraordinary challenges that directly impact animal welfare: it is among West Africa's poorest countries, experiencing severe jihadist insurgency since 2016, with massive internal displacement and a humanitarian crisis. Yet it also hosts critically important wildlife in the W-Arly-Pendjari (WAP) transfrontier complex and has significant livestock populations central to national livelihoods.

W-Arly-Pendjari Complex: The WAP complex — spanning Burkina Faso, Benin, and Niger — is West Africa's largest protected area complex and the region's most important habitat for lions, elephants, hippopotamuses, and West African cheetahs. Burkina Faso's Arli and W national parks form the heart of this complex. The WAP hosts the largest remaining West African lion population.

Conservation Under Conflict

Burkina Faso has experienced a catastrophic security deterioration since 2015. Jihadist groups have killed over 20,000 civilians, displaced over 2 million people, and created vast ungoverned spaces. The WAP complex has been severely affected: rangers have been killed, park infrastructure destroyed, and effective management suspended in many areas.

Ranger Deaths: Multiple park rangers have been killed by jihadist groups in and around the WAP complex. These attacks have devastated ranger morale and reduced patrol capacity. With rangers unable to operate, poaching of elephants, lions, and other species has increased dramatically. The security crisis represents an existential threat to wildlife conservation in the region.

African Parks Response: African Parks Network manages Pendjari National Park (in adjacent Benin) and has maintained more consistent conservation capacity on the Beninese side of the border. Cross-border collaboration and support for Burkinabe authorities aims to maintain connectivity and some management capacity despite the security crisis.

Pastoral Welfare Crisis

The security crisis has devastated pastoral communities. Farmers and herders have been displaced from traditional territories. Livestock — the primary assets of rural families — have been looted by armed groups, killed during attacks, or lost during chaotic displacement. The welfare of both the animals and the people who depend on them has been severely compromised.

Displacement and Animals: When families are displaced by violence, their livestock often cannot accompany them. Animals may be abandoned, taken by armed groups, or die without care. The humanitarian response to Burkina Faso's crisis has been primarily focused on human needs, with limited capacity to address the livestock welfare dimensions of displacement.

Donkey Skin Trade

Like Mali and Niger, Burkina Faso has been significantly affected by the Chinese ejiao-driven donkey skin trade. Donkeys are being slaughtered illegally for skin export at rates that threaten donkey availability. This has direct welfare implications (poor slaughter conditions, stress during transport) and socioeconomic implications for communities that depend on donkeys for transport and agriculture.

Community Conservation Legacy

Before the current crisis, Burkina Faso had developed some interesting community conservation models. Community hunting zones (Zones Villageoises d'Intérêt Cynégétique — ZVICs) gave local communities rights over wildlife in buffer zones, creating conservation incentives. These models — disrupted by the security crisis — represent templates for future reconstruction when stability is restored.

Pathways Forward

Animal welfare improvement in Burkina Faso is fundamentally contingent on political stabilization and security restoration. Conservation organizations are maintaining what presence they safely can, supporting communities when possible, and preparing for future recovery. International solidarity with Burkinabe conservation staff who continue working under extreme conditions is important. When stability is restored, rebuilding the WAP complex management capacity must be a priority — West Africa's most important wildlife complex cannot be allowed to collapse.