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Six people have been jailed for their involvement in the illegal trade of more than 2.8 tonnes of pangolin scales, one of the country's largest such seizures ever recorded. The People's Court of Nghệ An handed a seven-year prison term to Hồ Văn Mạnh and a three-year sentence to Trần Thị Ngọc for trading prohibited goods and violating regulations on the protection of endangered wildlife. Four other defendants - Phạm Thị Lập, Hồ Mai Yên, Cao Xuân Quý, and Nguyễn Thị Long - received sentences ranging from 15 months to three years. Quý and Long were given suspended sentences.

Wildlife trafficking in Việt Nam has grown increasingly sophisticated and harder to detect in recent years as traders shift their operations to digital platforms. According to a Wildlife Trade Monitoring Network's (TRAFFIC) report, Việt Nam recorded approximately 22,500 online advertisements for wildlife and wildlife products from June 2021 to July 2023. Facebook dominates as the primary platform, accounting for 51.3 per cent of the activity, followed by Zalo at 35.5 per cent.

In the latest case, people living around the arid northern community of Khorixas looked out one morning last month to find a new road being bulldozed through an area they had been managing, together with the tourism company Ultimate Safaris and the nonprofit Save The Rhinos Trust, as habitat for black rhinos, an endangered species. The conservancies, together with the tourism company, went to court, alleging that the road, and mining project it will serve, showed up on the scene "without any consultation" with them.

The number of endangered rhinos poached in Namibia reached a record high in 2022 after 87 animals were killed compared to 45 in 2021, official government data showed on Monday. Africa's rhino population has been decimated over the decades to feed demand for rhino horn, which, despite being made of the same stuff as rhino hair and fingernails, is prized in East Asia as jewellery and fake medicine. The horns are worth tens of thousands of dollars in illegal Asian markets. The ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism spokesperson Romeo Muyunda said poachers…

Strides made with hefty sentences and fines for criminals endangering game rangers and animals. When Jimmy Mashopane of Winterveld, north of Pretoria, was arrested for shooting, killing and mutilating nine white rhino in a Free State game reserve, taking 14 horns estimated at more than R500,000, veteran prosecutor Antoinette Ferreira threw the book at him. That one of the rhino was a month away from giving birth "only enhances one's sense of abomination", judge Phillip Loubser said.