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Cameroon ranked seventh out of 29 African nations in terms of being a source or transit point for illegal wildlife trafficking (IWT) during the decade spanning from 2009 to 2019, according to a new report. This is despite the measures taken by the law enforcement to curb the menace as increased involvement from the Ministry of Forestry and Wildlife (MINFOF), CITES authorities and various other stakeholders, according to the report titled Analysis of Wildlife Court Cases in Cameroon: Jan 2010-Dec 2022. The most frequently…

A federal court in Lagos on Friday sentenced a Vietnamese, Nguyen Huy, to three months in prison for trafficking in 200 kiogrammes of Pangolin scales.

The man, who was arrested on Friday (July 8), will face charges of rhino poaching, the possession of rhino horns and the illegal possession of a firearm. Police spokesperson Motlafela Mojapelo explained in a statement that the man is one of three men suspected of rhino poaching near Gravelotte.

A single transnational criminal network may be poaching elephants across southern and eastern Africa, a new study has claimed. The criminals may be trying to shift base to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) from east Africa, warned the report published February 14, 2022, in the journal Nature Human Behaviour. Such criminal networks may be seeking to use porous borders of the DRC as well as the weak rule of law there to their advantage, the study said.

Limpopo - The Bela-Bela Magistrate’s court last week granted bail to a Vietnamese national who was arrested earlier this month on charges related to the illegal trade of wildlife. According to Mashudu Malabi Dzhangi, the regional spokesperson for the National Prosecuting Authority the accused in the case, Guyen van Phong, was granted R10 000 bail and is expected to reappear on November 30. Phong was apprehended on August 12 in Bela-Bela after a four-month investigation by the Department of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries (DEFF) into the illegal trade of wildlife in the…

Authorities put the value of the seizure at N952million and say the items were headed to Vietnam. Mohammed Abba-Kura, Customs Comptroller, said at a media briefing on Tuesday in Lagos that the items were contained in a one-unit 20-feet container with number CSLU 2362640 heading to Haiphong, Vietnam. He said the items, falsely declared as furniture, comprised 162 sacks of pangolin scales weighing 8,800kg and 57 sacks of mixed endangered species of various sizes such as ivory/animal horns, lion bones and others.

In South Africa, the COVID-19 pandemic and strict government-imposed lockdown have led to an unexpected consequence: a major decline in rhino poaching. More than 80% of African rhinos remaining in the world are in South Africa, making it the hotspot for rhino poaching. The number of rhinos killed for their horns has been slowly declining over recent years, but the pandemic and lockdown have quelled rhino poaching even more.