Protect the protectors

Rangers are nature’s first responders. They risk their lives to protect our planet, yet some don’t even own a pair of boots. So, why are rangers not respected and supported? And what’s being done about it?

- Sarah McPherson

Can you name another profession that, all in a day’s work, fights wildlife crime, prevents extinction and mitigates against climate change and zoonotic disease? No, you can’t, because there isn’t one,” says Sean Willmore, managing director of ranger support charity the Thin Green Line Foundation (TGLF). “Wildlife rangers are the missing link in saving our planet.”

Global biodiversity loss has reached unprecedented levels, with one million species estimated to be threatened with extinction. Protected areas are key to saving wildlife, but they cannot function without rangers. Whether on the icy wastes of Russia’s Wrangel Island, where they prevent conflict between polar bears and people; on the ragged slopes of Mongolia’s Gobi Gurvansaikhan National Park, where they’re camera-trapping snow leopards; or in the high fells of our very own Lake District, where they manage a landscape shared with thousands of visitors, rangers defend ecosystems across the globe.

“If you imagine the planet as a house, then every park is a brick in its foundation,” says Barney Long, senior director of species conservation at Re:wild and contributor to Life on the Frontline 2019, a global survey on the working conditions of rangers. “By looking after those bricks, rangers provide essential services for humankind: the clean air we breathe, the freshwater we drink, the biodiversity that gives us new drugs every year. The planet would be pretty much unliveable without them.”