This archive of published media articles about wildlife crime in Namibia aims to:
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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A recent publication by Lindsey et al. reviewed evidence for lion population changes, targeted illegal killing and body parts trafficking incidents in parts of Africa. Although the article admits that "no datasets were generated or analyzed during the current study", it nevertheless concludes that "Lions (Panthera leo) in Africa are targeted for the illegal wildlife trade, driven by demand in African and Asian markets, for their body parts. This threat is distinct from traditional drivers of lion decline.
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| SA_2026_03_Targeted poaching of lions for body parts trade_Patrolling.pdf | 3.83 MB |
A Kenyan court has sentenced four men to one year in prison or pay a fine of $7,700 (£5,800) for trying to smuggle thousands of live queen ants out of the country. The four suspects - two Belgians, a Vietnamese and a Kenyan - were arrested last month with live ants suspected to have been destined for collectors in Europe and Asia. They had pleaded guilty to the charges, with the Belgians telling the court that they were collecting the highly sought-after ants as a hobby and didn't think it was illegal.
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| KEN_2025_05_Gang who smuggled thousands of queen ants sentenced in Kenya_BBC.pdf | 252.9 KB |