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Namibian Wildlife Crimes article archive
This archive of published media articles about wildlife crime in Namibia aims to:
- provide easy public access to published information and statistics
- enable easy stakeholder access to articles
- provide a comprehensive archive of wildlife crime reporting in Namibia
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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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.
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| SA_2025_03_Bleak future for Karoo succulents as desert expands in South Africa_Mongabay.pdf | 602.08 KB |
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.
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| SA_2024_12_Poachers target South Africas miracle plant with near impunity_Mongabay.pdf | 616.41 KB |
The 41-year-old man was arrested by members of the South African Police Service while trying to board a flight to Singapore. A security official at the airport alerted police to suspicious-looking items in the suspect’s hand luggage. Upon further investigation and interrogation of the suspect, police found that the suspect was carrying rhino horn weighing 26kg in his carry-on bag.
According to Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife’s rhino poaching statistics available on the organisation’s website, a total of 99 have fallen victim to poachers this year.
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| SA_2022_05_KZN rhino poaching numbers already high for 2022_Zululand Observer.pdf | 341.26 KB |
Swift justice has been meted out for this unfortunate smuggler on Wednesday, after he was promptly arrested at OR Tambo for being in possession of no more than eleven separate rhino horn packages.
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| SA_2022_02_Gotcha_Smuggler caught with eleven rhino horns at OR Tambo_The South African.pdf | 298.76 KB |
The suspected ivory smuggler from Alberton is facing the full might of the law this week, after two elephant tusks were found in his possession.
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| SA_2021_05_Gauteng man busted for possession of two elephant tusks_The South African.pdf | 906.15 KB |