In a major breakthrough last week, scouts from the Melako Community Conservancy and the Northern Rangelands Trust Security Team arrested three suspected elephant poachers in Merille and recovered 43kg of elephant ivory.

Zoos Victoria's Coordinator of Conservation Partnerships, Chris Banks said Melako's head of security, Sangida, was instrumental in gathering the intelligence information that led to this arrest.

"Like our colleagues in Kenya, we now hope that the court system will follow through so that these people are properly charged," Chris said.

This comes at a time when there is an increase in elephant poaching in Kenya, particularly in the north. The conservancy scouts have been instrumental in finding these carcasses, most of which are in areas outside the conservancies so far, but the threat within the conservancies is also high and considering the limited personnel and resources that conservancies have and the vast areas they cover, it is difficult for them to be everywhere. Nine poached elephants were found in Melako towards the end of last year - the first in many years, most likely because there are now scouts on the ground in areas where they haven't been before, so the carcasses are now being located. Global trade monitoring agencies have reported a significant increase in the volume of elephant ivory being traded over the last year, in both Africa and Asia.

The Melako Community Conservancy is the focus of Zoos Victoria's in situ conservation support in Africa.

Find out more about Zoos Victoria's partnership with The Melako Community Conservancy.