Signs of poverty are everywhere in Malawi, a landlocked country the size of Pennsylvania in southern Africa. Modest homes of corrugated tin or mud brick dot the countryside, which is virtually bereft of intact nature outside of protected areas. More than 70 percent of Malawi’s 21 million citizens live on less than US $2.15 per day, and rampant corruption, increasingly severe droughts, recurring fuel crises, and rapidly growing populations all contribute to the country’s status as one of the world’s poorest.

While Africa as a whole is losing habitat for wildlife at an accelerating rate, in Malawi, poverty has pushed deforestation into overdrive. Many trees have been cut down to make way for small farms or for charcoal production, and the wildlife has been poached for food or profit. Over the past few decades, Malawi’s five relatively small national parks have become islands of nature surrounded by a sea of humanity. If a park is not fenced, then conflict between humans and wildlife, including elephants, is nearly guaranteed. (While both forest and savanna elephants can come into conflict with humans, in Malawi, only savanna elephants—an endangered species estimated in 2016 to number around 350,000 continent-wide—occur.)

As such, the best practice for managing protected areas in Malawi is to install electric fences, says Jes Gruner, Malawi’s regional operations manager for African Parks, a nonprofit organization that manages parks on behalf of African governments and that worked with DNPW and IFAW to supply the elephants to Kasungu.

Fencing a park introduces new issues, however. When resources become scarce, elephants can transform habitats in ways that negatively impact biodiversity overall. As an elephant population grows, managers often face difficult decisions. Do they cull some elephants to allow others to survive and risk public backlash? Or do they allow elephant populations to grow unchecked and risk longer-term impacts on the ecosystem and other species—as well as the potential starvation of even greater numbers of animals?

Enter translocations, which are becoming increasingly popular because they can seem like a simple way to bypass less-palatable options. As part of research for a study of elephant translocations that he and his colleagues are working on, Thouless found records of 13 large-scale elephant translocations in Africa since 2016, almost all of which were overseen and paid for by international nonprofit groups in partnership with African governments. While these events are usually celebrated on social media and in fundraising campaigns, they are “high-risk projects” that often result in negative impacts, Thouless says.

Feasibility studies are essential for determining whether a translocation is a good idea to begin with, and post-release monitoring is also vitally important for understanding the outcome of a release. Yet these things rarely seem to happen, and, if they do, their results are often not shared publicly, including with other scientists or conservationists. Thouless knows of just one example of post-release information being shared since 2013. “In other cases, monitoring may have been carried out, but results were not made public,” he says. “Sharing lessons would be of great value in minimizing future risk to elephants and people.” 

African Parks has conducted five elephant translocations between two of the protected areas it manages in Malawi, and Gruner says all were successful. One of these places is Liwonde National Park, where the elephant population has grown at a rate of about 10 percent per year since African Parks stepped in in 2015. At one point, as many as 1,000 elephants were crammed into just 548 square kilometers—nearly two animals per square kilometer, compared to the approximately one animal per square kilometer that elephant biologists consider to be high. Liwonde’s elephants were having a “huge impact” on the environment, Gruner says, including decimating the park’s iconic baobab trees.

All elephants in Malawi are considered the legal property of the government, which has the ultimate say in what happens to them. African Parks raised a number of ideas with DNPW to provide a solution for Liwonde. Contraception was one, but the government did not approve it. Officials were not willing, either, to move elephants out of the country. Culling, an extreme option, was something everyone wanted to avoid. So in 2017, African Parks and IFAW began discussing another idea: relocating some of the elephants to Kasungu, which IFAW was helping to manage.

Soon after, government officials began developing a bold plan in collaboration with the two nonprofit organizations to move more than 250 elephants from Liwonde to Kasungu.

Mike Labuschagne, Kasungu’s former field operations manager, credits everything he’s achieved in conservation to the Black subsistence farmers he has spent his career working alongside. After joining the South African Army in 1976, at age 17, Labuschagne fought in multiple regional wars where his units primarily consisted of these men. The respect he developed for them continues to guide his actions today. “Their incredible hardiness, their faith, their sense of community—it was like they had gone through a 400-year boot camp,” he says.

Labuschagne left the military in 1996, but the barbed wire tattoos on his wrist, ankle, and biceps—the latter of which are overlaid with the words “Honor” and “Duty”—still speak to his army background, as does the raptor-like intensity of his blue eyes. He pivoted to conservation in part because serving in the military had given him a deep appreciation of nature. “[It] gave me the opportunity to walk through pristine wilderness and provided the experience of being amongst wildlife, on foot, in an intimate way,” he says.

His first conservation job was with Malawi’s DNPW, where he specialized in bringing order to dysfunctional national parks, as he puts it. He recruited new rangers from nearby farming communities and trained them in anti-poaching and intelligence techniques. When Labuschagne left for the next job at another park, he would hand over the managerial reins to his trainees. IFAW headhunted him in 2008 to become their director of law enforcement for southern Africa. When the organization partnered with DNPW to rehabilitate Kasungu in 2015, it put Labuschagne in charge of that effort.

Kasungu, which is more than 2,000 square kilometers (at least 770 square miles), isn’t the easiest habitat for wildlife to survive in. The park’s sandy soil produces grasslands that are low in nutrients, and the trees in its woodlands grow leaves that are high in defensive, unpalatable tannins. Water can be scarce in the dry season; rivers form only when the rains arrive in December and then vanish after April. Despite these ecological challenges, in the early 1980s Kasungu was home to a thriving population of around 1,000 elephants. But then, mismanagement of the park and “massive corruption” within DNPW in the early aughts caused poaching to increase, Labuschagne says, and fewer than 50 elephants survived when he took over.

Labuschagne’s old-school, military-style tactics could be polarizing, but he was highly effective in Kasungu, according to multiple sources. He weeded out corrupt rangers; gave honest rangers additional training and recruited new ones from nearby communities; grew his informant network in Malawi and Zambia; increased arrests and convictions of poachers; installed an operations center and an airfield; and launched an electric-fence-building project that was overseen by the same people whose properties the fence would protect. Poaching plummeted. By 2020, 121 elephants lived in Kasungu, and populations of other large mammals had doubled. “The solutions are easy, and they’re straightforward. The difficulty is implementing them in a hostile environment,” Labuschagne explained in a promotional video about Kasungu that IFAW released in 2016.

Despite the successes, a couple of years after assuming responsibility for Kasungu, Labuschagne started to butt heads with IFAW’s U.S.-based leadership. One point of contention was the elephant translocation. He was concerned about the ability of the Liwonde elephants—which were coming from a verdant, nutrient-rich habitat with plenty of water—to adapt to Kasungu’s dry, sandy woodlands. He said he would only support the project if certain precautions were put in place first. One was fencing the entire park. According to Labuschagne, IFAW initially agreed to many of the precautions he outlined, but then failed to follow through. In January 2022, he resigned in protest. “At the heart of this is a very simple matter,” he says. “IFAW showed criminal disregard for human rights and animal welfare.”

In his resignation, Labuschagne asked for a formal inquiry into what he saw as negligent behavior and gross mismanagement of funds, including of an $8 million U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) grant that he had helped IFAW secure in 2017. The inquiry did not happen, but in July of 2022, the translocation—one of the largest ever undertaken—did. These complex, expensive operations involve shooting elephants with a tranquilizer from a helicopter or vehicle, then using a crane to load them onto a flatbed truck. The animals are then kept under sedation as they are moved to the release site—in the case of Liwonde to Kasungu, a 350-kilometer (217-mile) drive away.

When the elephants were released in Kasungu, only 47 kilometers (29 miles) of the park’s perimeter had been fenced, leaving approximately 220 kilometers (136 miles) open. Within 24 hours, two bull elephants walked out of the park and trampled two men to death. IFAW pledged to add more fencing—but only enough to cover about half of the park. Three years later, that project is complete. But there is still no plan to fence the remaining half the park.

IFAW declined multiple interview requests for this story and did not provide answers to specific questions sent by email. In a set of emailed statements, an IFAW spokesperson insisted that the nonprofit’s role in Kasungu has been limited to financial and technical support. “IFAW works at the invitation of the government of Malawi, and does not have any management responsibility in relation to the park,” the spokesperson wrote.

Labuschagne calls this characterization “pure rubbish.” He was brought to Kasungu to lead management efforts there, he says, and others at IFAW made key decisions about the translocation after he departed. The USAID agreement for the $8 million grant also reiterated IFAW’s managerial responsibilities. 

In a phone interview, Kumchedwa at DNPW dismissed the Kasungu elephants as a non-issue. Compared to 2022 when the elephants were moved, he said, complaints are “rarely heard,” and the number of injuries and deaths have been “completely reduced.”

“These animals have settled down,” he added.

This is not what I heard from a group of around 40 Zambians and Malawians who gathered in Kamkomole, a farming village in Zambia, on an overcast afternoon in January 2025 to share their grievances with me. Some had traveled for 11 hours to be there. They ranged in age from 20-somethings to elderly, and many had dressed up for the occasion, wearing button-down shirts and brightly patterned skirts. Sitting on the ground under a shade structure made from branches and dried grass, their expressions were weary and demoralized. Across the dirt road behind us, visible just beyond orange fields sporting young shoots of maize, a wall of thick green bushes marked the edge of Kasungu.

It was difficult not to become emotional hearing the stories people shared that afternoon. Luckson Tembo, a father of 12, said he could no longer afford to send his children to school because elephants had destroyed his entire farm. Rachael Sakala recounted the night an elephant crashed through the walls of her home, terrorizing her children. Kumbi Nyirenda, a single mother, described digging her 2-year-old daughter out of the rubble after an elephant knocked down their house. Multiple widows and widowers told me about the difficulties they now faced as single parents. “It hurts so much, because the person I loved has left me,” said Kanoki Phiri. His wife, Masiye Banda, was chased down and killed by elephants while collecting pumpkin leaves on their farm. Their infant daughter had been strapped to her back and survived with a broken leg.

Kumchedwa told me that Malawi has no legislation requiring the government to compensate victims of human-wildlife conflict, but that the Malawi government has voluntarily assisted “almost 90 percent of the affected people” on its side of the park. In a 2023 statement, IFAW likewise claimed to provide “immediate support” to those impacted by elephants. However, none of the people I spoke to from either side of the park said they had received assistance. “They are lying to say they are helping people,” says Sheila Phiri. “Nobody has come to our aid.”

When I asked Phiri and other community members what they wanted, their answer was clear: The elephants needed to be controlled. Ideally, that would entail fencing the rest of the park. If that couldn’t happen, then they wanted the animals to be taken back to where they came from.

Neither is likely. IFAW has stated that the Zambian side of the park will never be fenced because it is part of “Room to Roam”—an ambitious initiative the group launched in 2019 to connect disparate patches of habitat in an effort to restore historical ranges for elephants. On the Room to Roam map, a wildlife corridor links Kasungu with Zambia’s Lukusuzi National Park. In reality, the corridor isn’t a corridor at all. As I saw firsthand, it’s miles of farmland, and anything but a safe space for elephants to roam.

Retaliatory killings are becoming more frequent, and at least 50 elephants have been poached since the translocation took place, says a Zambian government employee who collaborates with Labuschagne. “So it’s not only people who are suffering,” he says. “The elephants are suffering, too.”

“They’ve started poisoning them,” Sheila Phiri says. “Elephants are dying now.”

At the time of the translocation, Kumchedwa predicted that the arrival of elephants would fuel “a conservation-driven economy” around Kasungu. And according to his assessment, that has come to pass. “Tourism has started picking up, because people know that in Kasungu, elephants are back,” he says. “So indeed, they’re positively contributing to the economy.” Kumchedwa did not know the number of visitors to the park. Based on what I saw there, though, it does not seem to be thriving.

I arrived at the park in the afternoon, passing an entry gate displaying prominent logos for IFAW, USAID, and DNPW next to two sun-faded images of children and friendly-looking elephants separated by a cartoon fence. “Good fences make good neighbors,” the sign read. At the guest lodge, the reception desk was deserted and the white walls were mottled with black mold. The floor was wet from being flooded in a recent storm. I finally found a dour staff member in the dining hall. A guest book I filled out indicated that it had been over three weeks since a foreign visitor had stayed overnight, and the staff member informed me that the electricity had been off for two days. Fortunately, Labuschagne had advised that I should bring my own food, which I asked to store. I was directed to a freezer full of thawed chicken sitting in a puddle of meat juice.

It quickly became apparent there was nothing to do. The swimming pool—which I later learned had never been functional—was neon green with eutrophication and bustling with water beetles. I started to explore the lodge grounds, but a ranger in civilian clothes ran over to stop me. He pointed to the white tusks of a male elephant peeking out from a bush less than 100 meters (about 330 feet) away. “This elephant is fond of running after people,” he said.

With walks out of the question, I spent the evening drinking warm beer and chatting with park personnel who had worked with Labuschagne. “Things have gone down,” one person lamented. “I wish you could come back when it’s better.” Management is hiding the “big truth” about elephants killing people and destroying property, she added, because “they don’t want to lose money from the donors.”

Another told me that where the electric fence has been installed, it functions well. “But where it’s not finished, it’s terrible,” he said. “It’s raids after raids after raids,” he said, referring to elephant intrusions in nearby villages.

I arose early the next morning for a two-hour game drive. In the golden light of dawn, the landscape was beautiful. But the bumpy, tsetse fly-filled ride resulted in sightings of only a few reedbuck, hartebeest, and guinea fowl—no elephants.

No one seems to know, or at least be willing to share, how many elephants remain in Kasungu. Prior to the translocation, 29 of the animals were equipped with tracking collars, but it’s unclear whether anyone is still receiving the data. Rudi van Aarde, a researcher from South Africa’s University of Pretoria who oversaw the collaring effort, died in 2023. A postdoctoral researcher in van Aarde’s former group told me by email that he was not allowed to talk to the media about anything Kasungu related, including whether the elephants were still being tracked.

Answers to questions like this could soon be coming out in court, though. In December 2024, Leigh Day, a law firm in the United Kingdom, initiated a group action suit against IFAW. The suit alleges, among other things, negligence, private and public nuisance, and breach of constitutional rights. Leigh Day is currently representing 10 community members seeking damages, and others may join as the case moves toward court. In a press release, IFAW called the allegations “false and unfounded.”

Labuschagne hopes that IFAW will both be held responsible for the damage already caused and be required to fund permanent solutions that protect both the communities and the elephants. Such solutions would, first and foremost, include fencing the entire park and setting up a permanent patrol by community members. Additionally, he wants a new board to supervise the flow of development-aid funding to local management and a thorough game count to determine how many of the translocated elephants still survive today.

Even if the situation is resolved in Kasungu, though, the impact of the translocation will be enduring. Communities have been traumatized, people have been killed, and thousands now view conservation efforts like this one with animosity. An untold number of elephants have also suffered and lost their lives. An aerial survey last November commissioned by IFAW did not find a single elephant, according to someone familiar with the survey.

Malawi, in a way, is a harbinger of what is likely to come for many other parts of Africa: development pressures constraining nature into ever-smaller pockets and space running out for elephants. It might be time to consider other options for conserving and restoring elephant populations. Whatever the path managers choose to take, though, presenting a vision to potential funders of an Africa where elephants and other wildlife roam completely free is becoming increasingly untenable. As Thouless of Save the Elephants says, “one has to be realistic about where this is achievable and not try to impose one’s own mythologized dream on real African people struggling to survive and make a living.”

One thing does seem clear: If we want to live in a world where humans and wildlife can peacefully and fruitfully coexist in places as complicated as Malawi, then we will need to work all the harder to find solutions that genuinely serve the best interests of all.