Odzala-Kokoua National Park, Republic of Congo (CNN) -- "The poachers are usually hiding firearms in the fishing camps," Mathieu Eckel briefs us as his anti-poaching unit's shaky metal boats speed down one of the rivers that snakes it way through the Odzala-Kokoua National Park.

The river's dark waters are stunningly framed by shades of green and cascading vines in this remote corner of the Republic of Congo.

As Eckel's eco-guard unit turns a corner, he gives the order to cut the engines. We're approaching the first suspected site. The boats coast silently against the hum of the forest.

The team quietly assaults, but the camp is deserted.
A member of the team checks the ashes. "It's still warm, they must have left early morning, we missed them by a couple hours," he says.

For the next grueling, hot eight hours, the same scenario repeats itself.

Then, suddenly around a bend, the unit spots rising smoke. They rush ashore, fan out and within seconds the first gunshot rings out. The men sprint through the dense and disorienting terrain, forcing their way though the undergrowth and knee-deep water as even more bursts of gunfire echo through the forest.

Pumped on adrenaline, eco-guard Brice Moupele animatedly re-enacts what happened when he saw the poachers.

"I yelled 'Stop, stop!' and shot in the air," he says.

"The man tried to shoot at me. I tackled him and grabbed his gun, but he was able to escape." Moupele happily displays the captured weapon.

The team finds the poachers' canoe, weighed down with fresh elephant meat. An eco-guard lifts up a portion of the elephant's trunk, still dripping blood. He lifts up heavy chunks of elephant flesh, searching for weapons and tusk on the bottom of the wooden canoe.

"This is what they use to cut off the tusks" Eckel says, holding up a bloodied ax.
t's a sickening reminder of a trade that has decimated the park's elephant population. The non-profit group African Parks -- which runs Odzala -- estimates that Central Africa has lost 62% of its forest elephant population in the last decade. In the week we spent at the park, we only saw one alive.
"The ivory we get, it's less than 1%" Eckel estimates. "In this area, it makes a lot of money. It's very difficult to say, maybe one or more elephant is killed a day."

Eckel describes the fight to protect what's left as guerrilla warfare carried out by just 76 eco-guards patrolling an area that is 13,500 km2 (8,390 square miles) -- about the size of Connecticut. Hardly enough, but around 40% of the team members are former poachers themselves.

"They are really motivated to stop the poaching and they know how the poachers work, so it's easy for them to think like them," Eckel explains.

It's part of a program developed by Eckel in the past year in which poachers are given amnesty if they hand over their weapons and confess. But it's still a tough sell in an area where villages live off poaching and there are no other alternatives.

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