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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It could have been the proverbial pot of gold. Instead, it became at best, an opportunity lost in the fight against transnational organized wildlife crime. On February 2, a Nairobi area court acquitted Hoang Thi Diu, a female of apparent Vietnamese/Chinese dual citizenship, of charges relating to the dealing and possession of 145 kilograms of ivory, rhino horn, lion's teeth, and claws. Objectively, and considering the evidence before the court, the verdict was not incorrect.
It was a mistake. Ten tons of ivory and 190 kilograms of rhino horn were sold over a seven-year period, according to the indictment. It was actually much more than that. Much, much more. Moazu Kromah, a Liberian national, had pled guilty in March to three charges relating to wildlife trafficking in Africa. In his letter pleading for leniency submitted to the Southern District of New York, he thanked the court for the opportunity to "give some information about myself and the circumstances that led me to make the mistakes which bring me before you."
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AFR_2022_09_African courts need to take the lead in trying traffickers_International Policy Digest.pdf | 748.55 KB |
A three-year investigation has led authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo to 2 metric tons of ivory hidden in a stash house in the southern city of Lubumbashi. The tusks are valued at $6 million on the international market and estimated to have come from more than 150 elephants. The three people arrested in the May 14 raid are allegedly members of a major wildlife trafficking ring in the Southern African region.
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DRC_2022_05_Ivory from at least 150 poached elephants seized in the DRC raid_Mongabay.pdf | 397.68 KB |
Free State police are on the hunt for poachers who killed and dehorned two white rhinos and injured a third at a farm in Steynsrus. Police spokesperson Brigadier Motantsi Makhele said a case of rhino poaching was registered in terms of Section 57 of the Bioversity Act 10 of 2004 "after two rhino bulls were killed and one injured in Geduldfontein Farm". "The value of the two killed rhino bulls is R800 000," Makhele added.
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SA_2021_08_Poachers kill and dehorn two white rhinos on Free State farm_injure a third_News24.pdf | 320.73 KB |
Elephant ivory is still being sold on eBay despite the online marketplace introducing a ban more than a decade ago, researchers have found. Sellers are misrepresenting the materials used in certain items and sometimes using "code words" to disguise illicit listings, researchers from the Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology at the University of Kent, in England, said in a statement on Monday. In 2008, eBay announced it was introducing a global ban on the sale of ivory starting on January 1, 2009. "Despite eBay's strict policy on…
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INT_2021_01_Elephant ivory still being sold on eBay despite 12_year ban, research finds_CNN.pdf | 180.51 KB |