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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 - 25 of 25
Friday, 30 September 2022
Davie M, Henry M 2022. The wildlife sanctuary bringing rhinos back from the brink.

Rhinos were poached to near extinction in Zimbabwe. Now a private wildlife sanctuary is reintroducing them to places.

Friday, 15 October 2021
Ncube L 2021. Suspended sentences for wire snare poachers.

Two Victoria Falls men, one of them a neighbourhood watch committee (NWC) member, have been fined $6 000 each for trapping animals with wire snares.

Wednesday, 24 February 2021
Grobler J 2021. Calls for a special wildlife crime court in Namibia.

Namibia's over-burdened criminal justice system is struggling to keep up with rhino-poaching court cases, some of them delayed by up to six years. Is a special wildlife crime court the answer? 

Saturday, 3 October 2020
Ncube L 2020. Pangolin peddling villagers arrested.

Two villagers from Binga who were caught trying to sell a live pangolin in Zambia have been sentenced to a mandatory five years in jail each in the neighbouring country.

Wednesday, 30 September 2020
Ncube L 2020. Two Binga villagers arrested for trying to sell pangolin.

Two villagers from Binga who were caught trying to sell a live pangolin in Zambia have been sentenced to a mandatory five years in jail each in the neighbouring country. Ephrain Mugande (35) and Simple Mugande (32) both of Manjolo Village under Chief Sikalenge illegally hunted the pangolin in Chizarira National Park on the boundary of Binga and Gokwe before crossing the Zambezi River with it to Sinazongwe town in Zambia with the intention to sell it.

Wednesday, 26 August 2020
Ncube L 2020. 2 Binga folks arrested for possessing live pangolin.

Two villagers from Binga have been arrested in Zambia after they were found in possession of a live pangolin they allegedly intended to sell in the neighbouring country.

Wednesday, 29 July 2020
Ncube L 2020. Zimbabwe - Dete man in court for illegal possession of elephant tusks 28 Jul, 2020 - 17:07.

A 53-year-old villager from Dete in Matabeleland North has appeared in court for unlawful possession of four elephant tusks.

Wednesday, 29 July 2020
Ncube L 2020. 53-year-old in court for illegal possession of elephant tusks (Zimbabwe).

A 53-year-old villager from Dete in Matabeleland North has appeared in court for unlawful possession of four elephant tusks. Similo Vundla of Mambanje village under Chief Nekatambe was arrested by an anti-poaching team in March.

Wednesday, 27 May 2020
Ncube L 2020. Footie star arrested over elephant tusks.

Football Club player Craven Banda has been arrested after he was allegedly found with eight raw elephant tusks.

Friday, 20 March 2020
Ncube L 2020. Four elephants poisoned, tusks removed.

Four elephants were found dead, three of them without tusks in Woodlands Farm resettlement area on Monday.

Wednesday, 24 April 2019
Grobler J 2019. Troubled times for Namibian wildlife.

There are worrying signs that Namibia's legendary wild game numbers may be plummeting.

Monday, 25 March 2019
Grobler J 2019. Troubled times for Namibian wildlife - conservancy stock dwindling.

There are worrying signs that Namibia’s legendary wild game numbers may be plummeting. Four years ago the Namibian Professional Hunters Association raised an alarm about the lack of huntable elephant bulls in the Caprivi region, where the number of communal conservancies had grown from one in 1997 to 15 today.

Wednesday, 21 February 2018
Grobler J, Sharife K 2018. Christo Wiese’s Namibian rhino deal under scrutiny.

How did 13 rhino bulls from the Kruger National Park end up on a hunting farm owned by a reclusive Russian billionaire in Namibia? John Grobler and Khadija Sharife follow the trail

Tuesday, 7 February 2017
Grobler J 2017. Chinese 'mafia boss' turns to timber in Namibia.

Xuecheng Hou, a wealthy Chinese businessman linked to wildlife contraband trafficking, has emerged as a major player in the illegal trade in rare African timber in sub-Saharan Africa. John Grobler investigates.

Friday, 2 December 2016
Grobler J 2016. The horn scam at Windhoek's airport.

The Namibian authorities don’t seem to be in any hurry to shut down a rhino horn smuggling syndicate that has infiltrated security at Windhoek’s airport, writes John Grobler.

Tuesday, 4 October 2016
Grobler J 2016. Namibia diaries: the good, the bad, the ugly.

Depending on your views about legal trade in wildlife products, the past week was either a good week or a very good week for Namibian conservation, writes John Grobler.

Thursday, 15 September 2016
Grobler J 2016. A mysterious dead hand driving Namibia’s poaching.

After a two-year investigation, John Grobler exposes the totem-based networks facilitating transnational rhino horn smuggling and defeating the criminal justice system’s pursuit of suspects.

Monday, 11 July 2016
Grobler J 2016. The epicentre of Namibia's rhino poaching.

John Grobler visits Okahao, a sleepy settlement near Etosha National Park at the centre of the poaching plague threatening the world’s last viable population of critically endangered black rhinos.

Wednesday, 1 June 2016
Grobler J 2016. Bling king accused in Namibian rhino poaching.

The second recent court development followed the sensational arrest of a young, up-and-coming Windhoek businessman named “Mox” Namwandi. Who is he? John Grobler tracks his connections.

Friday, 23 October 2015
Grobler J 2015. Inner workings of a Chinese poaching syndicate.

Court evidence reveals the typical methdology deployed by one of five organised crime syndicates believed to be active in Namibian wildlife trafficking, reports John Grobler.

Friday, 17 July 2015
Grobler J 2015. Caught in the crossfire: how cattle and Chinese mining interests are killing off Namibia’s black rhinos.

A 10-month-long investigation by John Grobler uncovers the political and commercial agendas driving the world’s largest black rhino population towards extinction.

Friday, 6 March 2015
Grobler J 2015. Namibia's national soccer medic linked to rhino poaching and murder.
Monday, 19 January 2015
Grobler J 2015. Wildlife staff probed in Kunene rhino poaching.

The Save the Rhino Trust (SRT) has launched an internal investigation after it was presented with a letter in mid-December outlining possible collusion between some staff members and poachers who have killed at least 18 critically endangered Kunene black rhinos since late 2012. The crisis at the SRT is however just part of a larger one in anti-poaching law enforcement and natural resource management in the so-called “Big Three” communal conservancies - Palmwag, Abenab and Sesfontein - in southern Kunene.

Thursday, 20 November 2014
Grobler J 2014. Strange death of a rhino protector.

How did ‘Boxer’ die? Why are dead rhinos being found in the area his team patrolled? John Grobler digs up strange secrets surrounding the deaths of black rhinos in the Kunene region of Namibia.

Ncube L 2021. Father and son arrested for poaching.

A Hwange man and his son have been arrested for poaching after they were allegedly caught trapping animals and birds at the edge of Hwange National Park. Smart Shoko (48) and Ferdinand Shoko (26) both of Number F98 Madumabisa were found in possession of four impala carcasses, a baboon carcass and 79 fowl birds when they were ambushed by an anti-poaching unit in Bumbusi area outside Hwange town on Tuesday.

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