From bush patrols to finish lines
Inside the Wildlife Ranger Challenge, where men and women on the frontline of conservation share their struggles, triumphs, and hopes for Africa’s future
Kampala, Uganda | RONALD MUSOKE | On Sept. 20, at dawn, the horizon above Murchison Falls National Park in northwestern Uganda was stitched with jagged lightning, thunder growling over the River Nile as a tropical storm threatened to steal the show.
For a tense half-hour, hundreds of participants including dozens of rangers wearing knee-high gum boots and 22-kilo packs strapped to their backs, waited in the heavy, electric but cool air. They had trained for weeks, but no one trains for bolts that rip open the sky.
Luckily, by 6:42 a.m., the clouds had relented enough for Dr. James Musinguzi, the Uganda Wildlife Authority’s Executive Director to step forward and flag-off the race. Amidst a light drizzle, a ripple of cheers broke the dawn. From the Pakuba Airstrip runway which is in the northern sector of the park, the rangers began their brisk march into stride, feet pounding the damp murram track before spilling onto the grass of Africa’s most storied wilderness. The 2025 Wildlife Ranger Challenge, the continent’s largest endurance race for conservation heroes, was finally underway.
‘What they can do, we can do’
Among the lean, determined faces of youthful rangers in teams of four was Caroline Awor, a ranger from Kidepo Valley National Park in northeastern Uganda, whose team returned to defend their championship title. For Awor, the race was more than just 21 grueling kilometres under the overcast sky–it was a declaration.
“We believe in ourselves,” she told The Indepndent with a calm certainty, shortly after crossing the finish line in first position at the Hippo Pool—a flat spot on the banks of the River Nile delta which is famous for attracting schools of hippopotami. “We are strong and full of endurance. We undergo the same military training with the men, so what they can do, we can do,” she added.
Awor’s words cut through a stereotype that still lingers in conservation; that ranger work is a man’s world. Yet, women rangers are rising across Uganda and Africa, balancing the same long bush patrols with the unique pressures of family life and cultural expectations.
Indeed, Awor admits that “women rangers require a bit of special treatment while doing their work in the wilds.” She told The Independent the job is brutal – days on patrol, nights in the open bush, and threats from both armed poachers and unpredictable wildlife. 
Life between the bush and the village
On the other side of the competition field, Dennis Odong, a youthful ranger representing the Murchison Falls National Park team, unfastened the the straps of his backpack after his team crossed the finishing line and sat on the ground to catch some breath. This was his third time running the Challenge, and though the race itself is punishing, Odong told The Independent that it actually mirrors his daily reality.
“The Challenge is not easy,” he admitted, sweat dripping down his face and down his drenched beige T-Shirt. “But this is our life. We do our work in the bush, not in the town, and that is where we try to control poachers. We monitor animals. We go for extended patrols—two, three, sometimes four days away in the bush. We carry everything: food, warm clothing, plates, saucepans, even jerrycans. So, when you see us running today with heavy luggage, that is just showing the world how we live.” Odong is rooted in this landscape. He grew up in Nwoya District, which borders the park to the Northeast, and still spends time with his community whenever he goes home.
“Whenever I go back, I sit with people to talk about poaching and why it is dangerous. In many communities surrounding this park, people think poaching is the only way to survive. But with sensitisation and education, things are changing,” he told The Independent. “The government is also helping by putting up an electric fence to stop elephants raiding crops. That way, people won’t feel like they must turn to the bush.”
His pride is clear when he speaks about Murchison Falls National Park: “The way you see the park looking nice is because of the rangers. Even now, as we run, our colleagues are out there patrolling. After we rest a bit, we’ll join them again.”
A race bigger than any one team
From the picturesque Murchison Falls National Park to the shadow of Mount Kenya to Zambia’s vast Kafue plains, the 2025 Wildlife Ranger Challenge united more than 1,000 rangers from 24 African countries in a synchronized 21-kilometre run. Each ranger carried 22 kilograms, symbolic of the daily load rangers shoulder.
Now in its sixth year, the Challenge, organised by Tusk and the Game Rangers Association of Africa (GRAA), is the largest celebration of rangers on the continent. Since its pandemic-era beginnings in 2020, it has raised more than US$21 million, connecting 11,500 rangers with supporters across 90 countries.
In a video message, William, the Prince of Wales, reminded participants why the world is watching: “Being a ranger extends far beyond conservation. You are educators, community leaders, researchers, mentors, protectors of cultural and historical heritage; and this remains one of the most dangerous jobs on Earth. Every day you put your lives at risk to protect what is irreplaceable.”
“Without you and your dedication, there is no path to protecting nature, no path to meeting our global goals, no future for the wildlife and natural world we all cherish and rely on. You are all central to the solution, and I stand with you today and always in ensuring that your efforts are recognised, valued and supported.” 
Harsh realities of ranger work
For all its pageantry, the race carries a heavy truth: ranger work remains one of the toughest, and often least rewarded, professions on the continent. Across Africa, rangers patrol some of the planet’s most biodiverse and remote landscapes, working long hours often with limited equipment, minimal insurance, and life-threatening risks. A recent ranger survey revealed that 50% of them have no health insurance, while 60% of them lack long-term disability cover. Most earn less than half the salary of local police officers.
The Challenge shines a light on the need to make the job of being a ranger more attractive to new recruits. Rangers often still patrol without life insurance, health coverage, or adequate training or gear. The message is that rangering must become a profession that young people aspire to join and can sustain as a lifelong career. There are fewer than 300,000 rangers on active duty today, about 60,000 of them in Africa. But as many as 1.5 million are needed to meet global nature protection targets.
As Nick Bubb, the Chief Executive at Tusk, put it: “Rangers are not just safeguarding wildlife. They are integral members of their communities, protecting ecosystems that support all life. They respond to emergencies, protect livelihoods, and promote peace. The Challenge honours their bravery, urging the international community to invest in their future.”
Remembering Murchison Falls Park’s glory
Few places symbolise the stakes more clearly than Murchison Falls National Park. Once the most visited park in Africa during the 1960s with the highest density of megafauna anywhere on the continent, the park suffered decades of poaching and instability.
“We seem as a country to have forgotten all of this,” reflected Michael Keigwin, the founder of the Uganda Conservation Foundation, the organizers of the race in Uganda.
“Tourism was booming, and so was biodiversity. If we want to triple tourism now, as the President (Yoweri Museveni) says we can, we must put rangers first. They are not just anti-poachers; they are community partners, educators, and guardians of our heritage.”
“We must work together and we must also respect the rangers and the people working on the front line of conservation,” he said. “By the front line of conservation, we don’t just mean anti-poaching. We mean working with our closest partners, the communities. It means we employ from the local communities.”
“It means we share the benefits with the local communities and it means we involve them in the everyday life that works here. It is not for just tourists from external, international places. It’s for everybody. Our people in Uganda need to start to realise just how much is out there that is of incredible importance to them.
“So, it comes down to the question of why do we look after these parks? Yes, tourism is the biggest GDP and forex earner in the country. And it could triple, as the President so rightly says. But it also looks after our watercourses, our clean water, so is health. It looks after our soil. It looks after the soil’s fertility, where we grow our crops, our forestry, our biodiversity, our climate.
“If we don’t look after this, the economic areas that we talk of as regions will not prosper. Our people will not be able to look after themselves. And what is it we’re giving to our children and our grandchildren? That’s the question we’re really asking here. For the economy is one thing. Their health is another. So, we have to look after these areas,” he added. 
What UWA is doing for rangers
At this year’s Challenge, Dr. James Musinguzi, the Executive Director of the Uganda Wildlife Authority, didn’t just flag-off the race, he joined the rangers on the 21km walk. “We are here to celebrate ranger welfare, ranger training, ranger capacity building,” he said. “These men and women put their lives on the frontline. Without them, we cannot have the animals that support conservation and tourism.”
Musinguzi outlined a series of efforts to improve ranger welfare including the pledge to increasing ranger monthly salaries to at least Shs 1 million and equipping them with better field gear. Dr. Musinguzi said, the wildlife agency will soon embark on beefing up the ranger numbers to reduce the strain.
“We are trying hard to improve their welfare by giving them equipment, by giving them warm clothing, by increasing their salary. We also would like to see that the rangers are trained adequately in technology management. We are now working hard to ensure that we recruit more 500 rangers this financial year, but also upping our game in terms of use of technology to fight poaching, to gather real-time data and intelligence,” he said. “Conservation is expensive, but without it, there is no tourism, no jobs, no future.”
Behind him, Jimmy Mugisa, UWA’s Director of Finance, spoke about the Fallen Rangers Education Fund, which supports the children of Uganda’s rangers who lose their lives in the line of duty.
“The resources in the Fund definitely are not sufficient at the moment and yet we cannot say we have supported them for nursery and primary school, and then university we are not going to support them. As an institution, we have this drive to ensure that every year we put aside resources into this fund, and we pay school fees for those families,” Mugisa told The Independent, on the sidelines of the prize giving ceremony.
“We have reached out to stakeholders, those who are willing, especially through the wildlife marathon that we usually have every year, and the proceeds we get from that marathon also go into that fund…A ranger may be gone, but their family should not suffer,” Mugisa said. He said UWA is currently supporting more than 70 families, and the need is still growing.
Global solidarity
This year’s race drew powerful allies including Lisa Chesney, the British High Commissioner to Uganda and Frederieke Quispel, the Netherlands Ambassador to Uganda, into attending the event.
“Uganda is a biodiversity superpower. Half the continent’s mammal species, 40% of its bird species are here. None of this exists without rangers. Supporting them is not a cost, it’s an investment in livelihoods and climate resilience,” she said.
“These women rangers are doing amazing work. They protect wildlife, but they also make Uganda welcoming. Tourism works both ways; it preserves nature and grows the economy,” added Amb. Quispel.
Without doubt, the Wildlife Ranger Challenge is more than a race. It’s a reminder that conservation depends not just on beautiful landscapes and iconic animals, but on people; men and women like Awor and Odong, whose names rarely make the news.
As Louise de Bruin, the Chief Executive of GRAA, said: “Both the Challenge and the African Ranger Congress highlight the importance of uplifting rangers. By empowering them with tools and skills, we safeguard Africa’s natural heritage. Unity and collaboration are key.”
And as the rangers streamed in, crossing the finish line at the Hippo Pool, backpacks soaked with sweat and faces streaked with dust, that sense of unity was clear as Odong told The Independent. “This race is about showing people who rarely see us what we do every single day.”
