The government convened a stakeholder forum on wildlife protection and relevant law enforcement issues. This initiative comes in response to the increasing concerns highlighted by international financial institutions, which have listed environmental crimes, including wildlife crimes and money laundering, among the top threats in Namibia’s national risk assessment. The forum is also partly aimed at preventing Namibia from being grey-listed by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF). Pohamba Shifeta, the Minister of Environment, Forestry, and Tourism, opened the special forum and pointed to Namibia’s historical success in wildlife protection post-independence. "Since controlling a surge in poaching in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Namibia has experienced comparatively low levels of illegal killing of wildlife, particularly rhinos and elephants," Shifeta said. He credited the changes in protected areas and wildlife management policies, as well as the rapid growth of community-based natural resource management programs, for the upward trends in wildlife populations. Despite these successes, Shifeta acknowledged that criminal activities related to wildlife and other natural resources are escalating globally and nationally. He said that rhino poaching is still a critical issue, with 83 rhinos poached in 2023, a slight increase from the 79 poached in 2022.