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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Despite declining national rhino poaching statistics, KwaZulu-Natal is becoming a new hotspot for these illegal activities.
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SA_23023_10_KwaZulu_Natal becomes new hotspot for rhino poaching_CityPress.pdf | 261.01 KB |
Even though wildlife criminals the world over use money-laundering techniques to disguise the origin of their proceeds, there is only one case in South Africa in which money laundering related to poaching is being investigated. According to the Wildlife Justice Commission's July report - Dirty Money: The Role of Corruption in Enabling Wildlife Crime - tackling financial flows and recovering proceeds from these crimes is key to removing profits from criminality and preventing investments to perpetuate crimes. The report said: …
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SA_2023_07_SA police praised for following illegal wildlife money_City Press.pdf | 279.15 KB |
The trial of a former Kruger National Park ranger and a state veterinary technician accused of rhino poaching has been postponed to November 22 because the court dates of the accused's legal representative clash with another trial. The ranger, Rodney Landela, and state vet Kenneth Motshotso appeared in court on Tuesday for the trial, which was meant to run until Friday. Landela and Motshotso were arrested on July 27 2016 for the possession of two rhino horns, a rifle and ammunition.
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SA_2022_08_Rhino poaching case of former park ranger and state vet postponed again_City Press.pdf | 446.57 KB |
Six years after two rhinos were killed and poached, a former Kruger National Park ranger and state veterinarian technician could soon hear their fate. Their trial dates have been set for Tuesday until Friday. Former ranger Rodney Landela and former state vet Kenneth Motshotso were arrested on July 27 2016. The pair were arrested for the possession of two rhino horns, a firearm and ammunition.
Zambia is leading a push for African countries to obtain a CITES waiver that would allow them to legally export ivory stockpiles. The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) has an international ban on trade and sale of ivory and related products. Southern African countries have accrued huge stockpiles of ivory worth millions of dollars over the decades. The stockpiles mostly constitute ivory from elephants culled for conservation and ecological purposes.
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ZAM_2020-11_Zambia lobbies hard for ivory sales_Southern Times Africa.pdf | 407.37 KB |
Anti-poaching initiatives instituted by Zimbabwe are bearing fruits as the country recorded a 78 percent decline in rhino poaching incidents in the first six months of 2020 compared to same period last year. Statistics from the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority (ZimParks) show that four rhinos were poached from January to June 2020. The figure for January - June 2019 was 19.
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ZIM_2020-10_Anti-poaching initiatives pay dividends_The Southern Times.pdf | 164.87 KB |
Zambia is exploring the possibility of domestically selling its US$100 million ivory stockpile.
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ZAM_2020-08_Zambia wants to sell US100m ivory_TheSouthernTimes.pdf | 331.59 KB |
Namibia has recorded a drastic reduction in poaching in the past three years because of improved response mechanisms. Most of the success is attributed to the Environment and Tourism Ministry's efforts to upscale law enforcement components of conservation. Environment and Tourism Minister Pohamba Shifeta said anti-poaching canine units (the Ministry of Environment and Tourism Dog Unit) had been deployed to good effect. "The Dog Unit is part of our anti-poaching initiatives.
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NAM_2020-07_Nam anti_poaching gets bite_Southern Times.pdf | 404.87 KB |
Botswana began removing the horns from its rhinos and moving them away from the iconic Okavango Delta as an unprecedented poaching crisis threatens their survival in the country. The government said that at least 56 of the animals had been killed by poachers in the past two years, marking the worst onslaught since Botswana’s black rhino population was wiped out in 1992 and the number of white rhinos dropped to just 27.
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BOT_2020-06_Botswana saws off horns to save rhinos from poachers_Citypress.pdf | 3.12 MB |
South Africa’s drive to use wild animals as commercial trade goods has been ratcheted up a notch with the appointment of a high-level panel to review the policies, legislation and practices of breeding, hunting and trading of elephants, lions, leopards and rhinos. The panel’s terms of reference and the people appointed by Environment, Forestry and Fisheries Minister Barbara Creecy make it extremely unlikely to support wildlife welfare and conservation. The appointment of the panel follows the almost surreptitious listing late last year of 32 wild animals under the…
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SA_2020-05_Barbara Creecys wildlife panel is trying to reinvent the wheel _City Press.pdf | 1.05 MB |