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Namibian Wildlife Crimes article archive

This archive of published media articles about wildlife crime in Namibia aims to:

  • provide easy public access to published information and statistics
  • enable easy stakeholder access to articles
  • provide a comprehensive archive of wildlife crime reporting in Namibia

Public access to information is a vital component of ensuring community engagement in prevalent issues. Wildlife crime is one of the pressing environmental issues of our time.

Wildlife crime investigations are generally covert operations requiring utmost confidentiality to succeed. Investigations and prosecutions in complex cases may take months or even years to complete. For this reason, the information that can be released to the public without compromising cases is often limited. Nonetheless, the Namibian government strives to share as much information as possible with the public.

The Namibian media has welcomed this approach and regularly publishes statistics and feature articles on wildlife crime. These are entered into the database at regular intervals, creating a comprehensive archive of wildlife crime reporting in Namibia.

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Displaying results 1 - 5 of 5
Sunday, 19 February 2023
Swart M 2023. Two arrested for illegal possession of abalone.

In an unrelated incident, an integrated operation led to the arrest of two suspects in Gansbaai on Friday, 17 February 2023. The team set up a vehicle checkpoint on the R43 between Gansbaai and Stanford and stopped a suspicious minibus taxi. They searched the vehicle and the occupants and confiscated 3608 units of abalone. This has an estimated to have a street value of R1.4 million.

Sunday, 5 February 2023
Swart M 2023. Police on the hunt for rhino poachers who killed two rhinos.

The police in the Eastern Cape are searching for poachers who shot, killed, and dehorned two rhinos on a safari farm in Paterson on Wednesday evening, 1 February.

Monday, 12 September 2022
Truscott R 2022. As poachers poison wildlife, Zimbabwe finds an antidote in tougher laws.

Poisons like cyanide can be a deadly weapon for poachers, allowing them to kill dozens of animals without needing access to firearms or the backing of criminal syndicates. Wildlife poisoning is on the rise across Africa, targeting elephants as well as pushing endangered vultures toward extinction. A new study says Zimbabwe, which a decade ago witnessed some of the deadliest mass poisonings of elephants, has developed a sound basis for curbing poisonings by tightening laws to criminalize intent to use poison to kill wildlife.

Tuesday, 30 November 2021
Kouassi JK 2021. Ivory Coast - ivory trafficker caught in Treichville.

In Côte d'Ivoire, an alleged trafficker operating in the illegal ivory trade was arrested on Friday, November 19, 2021 in the town of Treichville. The alleged trafficker, in possession of two ivory tusks was arrested when he was about to sell the goods in the cables of a jewelry store belonging to him.

Briceno T, Perche J 2021. Namibia Case Study: Cost-Benefit Analysis of Curbing Illegal Wildlife Trade -  Final report for the project "Assessing the economic impact of Illegal Wildlife Trade in the SADC region" funded by USAID's VukaNow Activity, June 2021.

Since 2014, Namibia has seen a surge in wildlife poaching as a result of increasing international demand and depleting wildlife populations in other areas of the world. This has led to the loss of high-value species (such as elephants, rhinos, and pangolins) and concern about ecosystem impacts and associated economic losses. For instance, Namibia has become a key country for illegally sourced rhino horn, with a total of 416 rhino poached between 2013 and 2019, compared to only 13 rhinos poached between 2005 and 2013 (MEFT; 2020b, Milliken, 2014).

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