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Two Zimbabwean men have earned themselves jail time after being caught in possession of a pangolin, a specially protected species, without a permit. The pair were arrested on 10 July in a joint operation conducted by the police's Stock Theft and Endangered Species Unit in Musina and private security. Abednego Nyathi (51) and Personal Sibanda (41), both from the Mangwe District in Zimbabwe, were arrested and charged on two counts. Count 1 was for contravening the National Environmental Management: Biodiversity Act, Act 10 of 2004, by being in possession of a specially protected…

The illegal wildlife trade threatens many species worldwide but also jeopardizes local communities' well-being and livelihoods, breaks down law and order in society, compromises people’s safety and security, and promotes corruption, a new op-ed argues. Organized criminal networks typically depend on vulnerable, cash-poor people in local communities to capture and transport wildlife across borders, but even when they’re not caught, the damage to their families and communities can be great.

Plant poaching has been the final straw for some. Conservationists say there’s no time to lose, as they consider an ecological triage for the most at-risk species here. "The most important thing we can do is to reduce other threats on these species, to make sure that the pressure of land transformation, for agriculture, for mining, overgrazing, and, of course, succulent plant poaching, all of these disrupt those systems and really reduce the resilience and the opportunities they have to adapt on their own.

South Africa has faced a surge in poaching of rare succulents by criminal syndicates since 2019. A recent spike in prices paid for a different kind of plant, a drylands-adapted lily, the miracle clivia (Clivia mirabilis), has drawn the attention of plant-trafficking syndicates to the lone reserve where it grows. Large numbers of clivias have been seized by law enforcement, raising fears that this rare plant is quickly being wiped out from the limited range where it’s known to occur.