Zakouma is a 3,000km2 park of central African savannah. Even 30 years ago this habitat stretched uninterrupted from Sudan to Cameroon and was home to some 150,000 elephants. Today, only 550 remain.
Zakouma is also home to about 100 lions, a significant giraffe population, leopards, and 6,000 buffalos. It is a birder's paradise, with large numbers of black-crowned cranes, pink and white backed pelicans and quelea.
In 2005 there were almost 4,000 elephants but poaching has devastated the park since then. At one point in 2006, an average of three elephants a day were being killed. Ten guards have been killed trying to protect them.
Conservationists believe most of the poaching is carried out by Arab nomads who move their cattle through this area. They travel on horseback and use AK47s to kill the elephants and hacksaws to remove the tusks.
In 2009 about 40 elephants were shot for their ivory � most recently three young males in mid-November. It is believed a kilo of ivory sells locally for about 25,000 CFA ($42).
Zakouma lies in the middle of the "transhumance corridor" which the nomads have used for many years to guide their cows from the rich pasture of northern Chad to northern Central African Republic during the dry season.
Most illegal ivory eventually makes its way to China, where it is in huge demand for traditional medicine. It is believed that some of Zakouma's ivory is smuggled out through Nigerian ports, where it is hidden inside containers going to China.
There is also a long tradition of selling ivory through Sudanese markets which are connected with trans-Saharan caravan routes.
Mike Fay from the Wildlife Conservation Society, which funds a plane for aerial surveillance of the park, says there may be a connection between the increase in poaching and the one-off legal sale of ivory by southern African nations.
He believes that one of the biggest problems is that even when poachers have been arrested in the park, they have rarely been prosecuted.
President Idriss Deby is known to be personally concerned about the poaching problem. About 70 guards work in teams, often spending four or five days in the bush tracking poachers - they have recently been given new rifles and training.
Although the death of 40 elephants in 2009 is about twice the natural mortality rate, it is believed if anti-poaching teams are successful, the population could recover to pre-2005 levels. (Photos by Darren Potgieter and words by the BBC's Celeste Hicks)
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