This archive of published media articles about wildlife crime in Namibia aims to:
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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The Minister of Environment, Forestry, and Tourism, Pohamba Shifeta, provided a detailed overview of ongoing efforts in wildlife protection and law enforcement at the 2024 Annual National Stakeholder Forum held this week. According to Shifeta, Namibia has long been recognized for its successful conservation strategies, which have significantly reduced poaching rates since the late 1980s and early 1990s, particularly targeting iconic species such as rhinos and elephants.
Namibia's precious wildlife is under threat from criminals, as illegal wildlife trade has become the world's fourth-largest form of transnational crime. This was said by Ana Beatriz Martins, the European Union's ambassador to Namibia, at a press debriefing for 'Operation Saving Wildlife through Multilateral Cooperation in Africa' (Sama) in Windhoek yesterday. She said dozens of wildlife species have been pushed ever closer to extinction by habitat loss and illegal trade.
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NAM_2024_05_Namibian precious wildlife is under threat from criminals_The Namibian.pdf | 550.94 KB |
Chief of the Namibian Police, Lieutenant General Joseph Shikongo confirmed a deadly encounter between poachers and members of the anti-poaching operation in Etosha National Park. According to Shikongo, the incident occurred on 1 May between 12:00 and 13:00 at Scorpionbelt – Western Zone within the confines of the park. While conducting patrols alongside the park's fence, members of the poaching unit spotted shoeprints indicating the illegal entry of individuals into the park.
In less than eight years, white sharks in South Africa have all but disappeared from their historical hotspots in False Bay and Gansbaai, on the Western Cape coast. These areas were once known as the "white shark capital of the world" and were home to a flourishing ecotourism industry. One possible explanation for this change would be a declining white shark population. We are part of an international research team with expertise in shark ecology, genetics, fisheries and conservation, researching sharks for more than 20 years.
A furious row has blown up in the UK's leading succulent society over the practice of taking desirable specimens from the wild, with the chair resigning in protest over the behaviour of his fellow enthusiasts. Succulents have risen in popularity in recent years: they are attractive and hardy. A succulent won the Royal Horticultural Society plant of the year award in the UK in 2022, while the plants have also become wildly popular in Asian countries, leading to a massive boom in demand. However, the drought-tolerant plants are often sourced from the wild.
Rhinos were poached to near extinction in Zimbabwe. Now a private wildlife sanctuary is reintroducing them to places.
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ZIM_2022_09_The wildlife sanctuary bringing rhinos back from the brink_ABC News.pdf | 890.05 KB |
Prosecutor general Martha Imalwa has responded to articles published in the New Era and The Namibian about the trial of a Chinese businessman, Hou Xue Cheng, and his Namibian co-accused Hamutenja Hamutenya, whose cases were struck from the court roll recently. The reason the charges on dealing in controlled wildlife products were dismissed was that neither the witnesses nor the docket was before the court. According to the PG, the information contained in the articles was incorrect.
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NAM_2022_09_PG explains missing dockets case_New Era.pdf | 366.5 KB |
Regional Court Magistrate Leopoldt Hangalo yesterday struck the case of a Chinese businessman, Hou Xue Cheng and his Namibian co-accused Hamutenja Hamutenya on a count of dealing in controlled wildlife products, from the court roll. The reason was that no docket nor witnesses were before the court. The magistrate said the matter has been coming from 2014, and the State failed to get their affairs in order for it to start. He cancelled the bail of N$100 000 for Cheng and N$5 000 for Hamutenya, and ordered it to be refunded to the depositors.
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NAM_2022_09_Chinese nationals docket disappears_New Era.pdf | 400.12 KB |
Windhoek High Court Judge Herman January on Friday dismissed an appeal against the ruling of magistrate Linus Samunzala to release self-styled prophet Jackson Babi on bail pending his trial. Babi faces charges of possessing or dealing in two rhino horns, hunting a rhinoceros that is protected by law and possessing a hunting rifle and ammunition without a licence. The State claims Babi and Frizans Naululu Dumeni were in possession or dealt in two rhino horns at Babi’s residence in Kleine Kuppe in Windhoek between 26-27 May 2020.
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NAM_2021_08_Babi to remain in custody bail appeal dismissed_New Era.pdf | 391.57 KB |
A bail appeal by three men accused of smuggling rhino horns failed in the Oshakati High Court when acting Judge David Munsu dismissed their appeal against the refusal of bail, by the Opuwo magistrate's court.
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NAM_2021_07_Rhino horn accused bail appeal fails_New Era.pdf | 513.36 KB |
A former Brave Warriors chiropractor, who was later charged with murder as well as poaching, has died in custody. Kandjii was being held in custody with two others suspected of killing two adult white rhinos on the farm Khainas near Gobabis in December 2016. They have also been accused of wounding two more rhinos
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NAM_2021_07_Murder_poaching accused dies in custody_New Era.pdf | 378.14 KB |
Flamboyant preacher Jackson Babi yesterday withdrew an urgent application that his lawyer Kadhila Amoomo had filed in the High Court last week to have his arrest and the search at his house declared as unlawful.
Just as Judge Harald Geier was ready to hear evidence, Amoomo filed the request to withdraw the matter and offered costs to the lawyers of the prosecutor general, the inspector general of the Namibian Police and the magistrate of the district of Gobabis, who had indicated that they would oppose the application.
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NAM_2020-06_Preacher withdraws urgent application_New Era.pdf | 319.77 KB |
The Namibian Chamber of Environment has launched an outreach programme to educate Namibians about the precarious status of the pangolin. The initiative, which involves producing large posters and thousands of business card-sized mini-posters for distribution countrywide, is to raise awareness and appeal to every Namibian to help stop the illegal trade in the animal.
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NAM_2017-10_Initiative to save the pangolin_The Namibian_0.pdf | 209.72 KB |
The Namibian Chamber of Environment has launched an outreach programme to educate Namibians about the precarious status of the pangolin. The initiative, which involves producing large posters and thousands of business card-sized mini-posters for distribution countrywide, is to raise awareness and appeal to every Namibian to help stop the illegal trade in the animal.
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NAM_2017-10_Initiative to save the pangolin_The Namibian.pdf | 209.72 KB |
Oxpeckers Associate Shi Yi set out to investigate Chinese links in Namibia’s poaching crisis, and ended up in the middle of a sting operation that nabbed a former policeman.
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Oxpeckers_Namibias secret ivory business.pdf | 265.83 KB |
Chinese journalist Shi Yi has been following the trial of four alleged rhino horn traffickers in Namibia. She paid a visit to their home villages in China to investigate their backgrounds
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Oxpeckers_Who are Namibias Chinese smugglers.pdf | 244.36 KB |