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A 62-year-old pensioner is expected to appear before the Katima Mulilo Magistrate's Court on Monday after he allegedly transgressed the Nature Conservation Act of 1975, as amended, for hunting of specially protected game without a permit. It is reported that the pensioner "accidentally put down an elephant from a herd of four elephants" that reportedly entered his crop field on Saturday night at Makwatare cattle post in the Makanga area.

In late January, Kenyan authorities arrested two men in possession of more than a hundred kilos of ivory in the town of Namanga, on the border with Tanzania. According to Kenya's Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI), police and wildlife officers were on a covert operation at a hotel when they caught three men - identified as Imani Manasi Msumbwa and Justin Mwalima, both Tanzanian, and Alton Jilaoneka, a Kenyan - likely negotiating a deal. Mwalima escaped; the remaining two led investigators to a car with 20 pieces of elephant tusks, weighing a total 110 kilograms (243…

The Federal Government has arrested a suspected wildlife trafficking kingpin, Shamsideen Abubakar, in a joint enforcement operation involving the National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency (NESREA), Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), and the Wildlife Justice Commission (WJC). Abubakar, who had been declared wanted by the Federal High Court in Lagos, was apprehended after years on the run over his alleged role in large-scale wildlife trafficking.

A young female giraffe that had been suffering for weeks with a snare embedded deep in her leg has been humanely euthanised at Bisley Nature Reserve, reports The Witness. The operation was carried out this morning (April 18) by conservation teams, following days of searching and a co-ordinated effort to secure aerial support.

A disturbing new global report has pulled back the curtain on a booming illegal wildlife trade that is no longer confined to remote markets or hidden backrooms, but operating openly on Facebook. South Africa has been flagged as one of the countries caught in this growing digital trafficking network, where endangered animals and wildlife products are being advertised, bought, and sold with alarming ease.

While Namibia continues to record successes in conservation and revenue, the increasing frequency of severe conflicts between humans and wildlife is putting a strain on rural village communities in particular. In the 2025/2026 financial year, 1,442 incidents were reported, in which 10 people died. The government paid N$1.4 million in compensation and provided additional assistance to the bereaved. Tourism Minister Indileni Daniel reported this as part of her budget justification. For 2026/2027, her ministry received 7% less than in the previous year, with an 8% cut in operational…

At least 110 countries are now involved in illegal trade in wildlife - more than doubling from 49 in 2000. Trade connections jumped by more than 400%, according to a recent analysis of global wildlife seizure data. Asia, rather than Europe, is now the centre of illegal trade for most species, the study found, sparked by extensive trading, business and diplomatic connections with Africa - the source for many wildlife products.

On March 9, wildlife authorities in Zambia arrested 10 people in possession of 550 kilograms (1,212 pounds) of ivory, according to the U.K.-based Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), which provided intelligence that led to the arrests. EIA said the case highlights the impact that international cooperation can have in the fight against the illegal trade of wildlife. In a Mar.

What began as an audacious racket to launder rhino horns has unravelled into the biggest wildlife trafficking bust in years, dragging the Department of Home Affairs into the spotlight and exposing Vietnam's shadowy passport and visa processes. Investigations and reports by the wildlife trade monitoring network TRAFFIC and other conservation bodies have revealed disturbing evidence of organised crime in South Africa, including the frequent involvement of transnational Vietnamese syndicates in wildlife trafficking.

The recent joint operation conducted by the Ministry of Environment, Forestry, and Tourism, alongside the Namibian Police and Namibian Defense Force, led to the apprehension of Zambian individuals engaged in cross-border poaching activities. The operation aimed at a syndicate that utilized the Zambezi region as a pathway for trafficking wildlife products from Botswana. The operation resulted in the seizure of 24 elephant tusks, 12 bundles of elephant tails, two pots, two knives for butchering, one air mattress, and a silver Nissan Latino car.

Three individuals were arrested over the weekend in connection with the alleged illegal hunting of an elephant at Omugulugombashe village in the Tsandi constituency of the Omusati region. According to regional police commander commissioner Ismael Basson, the elephant which later killed a 46-year-old woman was shot last Wednesday at around 22h00 in a mahangu field at the village. "It is alleged that the suspects hunted a specially protected animal, an elephant, in contravention of the Nature Conservation Ordinance," Basson says.

The U.S. Ambassador to Namibia, John Giordano, recently hosted a high-level counter wildlife trafficking roundtable at the United States Embassy in Windhoek, to strengthen cooperation against transnational environmental crime. The meeting brought together local conservation leaders and U.S. government officials. Participants discussed progress in arrests and convictions, regional coordination efforts, investigative capacity-building, and the intersection between wildlife trafficking and other transnational crimes, including narcotics and human trafficking.

On paper, Zimbabwe is winning the fight against poaching. In places such as Hwange National Park, the numbers tell a hopeful story. Elephant poaching has fallen sharply. In the past five years, recorded cases dropped from roughly 100 elephants killed annually in and around Hwange to about 20 animals poached outside the park in 2025, with none killed inside the park for two consecutive years. These are not small gains.

A joint operation by the Special Wildlife Crime Unit and the Uganda Police Force has led to the arrest of a suspected ivory trafficker and the recovery of 154 kilograms of raw elephant ivory in Northern Uganda. The suspect, Francis Opiro, was apprehended on February 22, 2026, in Nwoya District while in possession of ten pieces of raw elephant tusks. Authorities confirmed that he will be arraigned before the Standards, Utilities and Wildlife Court to face charges of unlawful possession of protected wildlife specimens, contrary to the Uganda Wildlife Act Cap 315.

The traffickers was arrested at the border town of Kipushi, between DRC and Zambia and 30kg of elephant ivory seized. This weight of ivory has been put out of the black market of wildlife thanks to the collaboration between ICCN (Institut National pour la conservation de la nature), supported by technically and financially by Conserv Congo, a local Non profit , part of the civil society, the magistrate court of Kipushi and the judicial police.

A total of 40 rhinos were poached last year in Namibia, while four elephants were killed, marking a significant decline compared with previous years. The poaching figures were confirmed by Bennett Kahuure, director of wildlife and national parks. He said that so far this year only one rhino poaching case has been reported, with no elephant poaching incidents recorded. "Overall, there has been a decline in poaching numbers over the past few years," Kahuure said. In 2024, Namibia recorded 81 rhino deaths at the hands of poachers.

Lusaka Agreement Task Force (LATF), working in close collaboration with national law enforcement agencies and a partner (Freeland), successfully concluded a coordinated multi-agency operation that resulted in the arrest of suspected wildlife traffickers and the seizure of illegal elephant ivory in Namanga, a border town between Kenya and Tanzania. The operation, conducted on 24th January 2026, forms part of LATF's ongoing efforts to support Member States in dismantling organised transnational wildlife crime networks operating across Africa.

In a breakthrough against illegal wildlife trade, a swift undercover operation by Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) working in close collaboration with Lusaka Agreement Task Force (LATF), led to the arrest of three (3) suspects attempting to sell elephants tusks in Kiritiri town, Mbeere South Sub-County, on the evening of 28th May 2025. The arrests were made as part of a wider, ongoing search for criminal ivory traffickers in Kenya and beyond. Acting on actionable intelligence, the suspects were seeking buyers for six pieces of elephant tusks, which they were offering at USD 8500.

Two people have been arrested for suspected wildlife trafficking following a multi-agency operation that led to the seizure of elephant tusks valued at about Sh11 million in Namanga. According to the Directorate of Criminal Investigation (DCI), the suspects, Imani Manasi Msumbwa and Justin Mwalima, both Tanzanian nationals, in the company of a Kenyan suspect, Alton Jilaoneka, were caught off guard at a hotel where they were reportedly negotiating a sale.

The 18-year prison sentence handed to Chinese national Cong Yangzhong in late 2025 cast fresh light and exposed the scale of illicit financial flows fueling wildlife crime in Zimbabwe. Arrested in Harare on July 16, 2025, the 47-year-old was found in possession of three rhino horns and four pieces of raw ivory with a combined street value exceeding US$246 000. While Cong's case stood out because of the quantities of ivory involved, conservationists said such matters are becoming a permanent feature in courts around Zimbabwe.

From vaults holding rhino horn stockpiles to pens of captive-bred lions, and from the elusive pangolin to plundered seas, an expanding illicit wildlife economy is eroding biodiversity, undermining sustainable livelihoods and fuelling transnational criminal networks. Legal loopholes, under-resourced enforcement agencies and the high value of wildlife products have created fertile ground for trafficking syndicates, allowing them to move endangered animals and derivatives across borders with alarming efficiency.

Illegal wildlife trade is a growing global crisis and the largest direct threat to the future of many of the worl's most threatened species. Recent UN data (2015-2021) shows around 4,000 species impacted, including 3,250 listed under CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora). With an estimated annual value of up to $20 billion, it is the fourth most lucrative criminal enterprise in the world.

South Africa's newly released professional hunting statistics tell a story that is rarely stated plainly: trophy hunting is not a conservation tool, nor a reluctant compromise at the edges of wildlife management. It is a large, industrialised system of wildlife extraction, normalised through regulation, sanitised by conservation language and sustained by political accommodation.

Poaching endangers the populations of endangered species worldwide, and species native to Namibia also suffer from illegal hunting. A key problem that keeps poaching persistent and growing is the continued demand for wildlife products from wildlife crime. And this demand is being fed - among other things by TikTok. TikTok is booming - and the platform is also being misused for the illegal sale of bushmeat. A recent study shows that public TikTok accounts in Africa advertise meat from wild animals, even from highly endangered species such as pangolins.

Chinese national Lin Yunhua, the notorious kingpin of a wildlife trafficking syndicate convicted in 2021 for smuggling 2.6 tons of ivory, rhino horns, and pangolin scales worth millions, entered a not-guilty plea Monday to seven corruption-related counts before High Court Judge Redson Kapindu, capping a saga marked by a controversial presidential pardon, international outcry from conservation groups, and allegations of deep-rooted bribery within Malawi's justice and prison systems, writes Winston Mwale.

In eastern Democratic Republic of Congo's Maiko National Park, a few committed rangers have succeeded in protecting gorillas, elephants and other animals from the surrounding fighting. RFI spoke to the park's assistant director, Alain Mukiranya, about guarding wildlife in the middle of a war zone. The Democratic Republic of Congo's mineral-rich east has been ravaged by three decades of conflict. Since taking up arms again in 2021, the M23 rebel group, backed by Rwanda, has seized swathes of territory, leading to a spiralling humanitarian crisis.

Two Tanzania People's Defence Force (TPDF) officers and three civilians appeared before the Moshi Resident Magistrate's Court, charged with economic sabotage after allegedly possessing government trophies valued at Sh591.3 million. The criminal case, before Senior Resident Magistrate Ally Mkama, is scheduled for mention at the preliminary stage on January 9, 2025. The first count involves two TPDF officers, Sergeant Andrew Ndaga (Number MT.76601) and Staff Sergeant Chumu Rajabu (Number 76764), along with a civilian identified as Mzee Ally Mzee.

African wildlife will not be protected through Western conservation approaches but through the involvement of local communities, says conservationist Margaret Jacobsohn. She said this last week following the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora's (Cites) recent rejection of Namibia's proposal to be allowed to trade in ivory. "The only way to conserve is by letting all African countries care for our wildlife," said Jacobsohn.

The first authoritative population assessment for African forest elephants estimates there are more than 145,000 individuals. Researchers say new survey techniques relying on sampling DNA from elephant dung provide the most accurate estimate of a species that's difficult to count in its rainforest habitat. Central Africa remains the species' stronghold, home to nearly 96% of forest elephants, with densely forested Gabon hosting 95,000 individuals. Conservationists say the findings can help inform the design of targeted conservation actions and national plans for forest elephants…

INTERPOL recently executed the largest-ever edition of its annual series of coordinated of raids to dismantle criminal shipments and networks of trafficked and poached wildlife. Called Operation Thunder, some 30,000 live animals were seized in 4,620 raids across 134 countries, 30% more than last year. INTERPOL identified 1,100 suspects and issued 69 notices of criminal activity to participating nations’ police forces. Operation Thunder took place between September 15th and October 15th.

According to Will Travers, cofounder and executive president of Born Free, a wildlife charity, Botswana's expanded elephant trophy hunting quota "raises deep biological concerns", however. "Biological, because, as the name suggests, trophy hunters target individual animals they regard as 'trophies', in the case of elephants, those with the largest tusks, the mature males," he told Al Jazeera in an emailed statement.

When poaching amplifies the effect of higher hunting quotas, it is bad news for the future of Botswana's elephant population and its contribution to the economy, according to research just in. Botswana - home to the world's largest remaining population of African elephants - is losing its most valuable wildlife asset at a rate far higher than officials have acknowledged, according to a major new report released by Elephants Without Borders (EWB).

Southern Africa's conservation story - the one the region has been selling internationally for years - finally met a hard wall at the 20th CITES Conference of the Parties in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. The collapse of ivory, rhino horn and giraffe trade proposals at CITES CoP20 was not a surprise to most observers in the room. What was surprising is how thoroughly the region’s long-standing justifications fell apart under scrutiny. These weren't strategic setbacks.

In 2021 investigators in South Africa received a tip that a Vietnamese organized crime ring was operating out of a local farm. When they raided the property, they found more than 800 pounds of lion "cake" - a traditional medicine product made by boiling lion bones to remove the gelatin from joints. The investigators also found 13 gallons of opium that the suspects had been adding to their lion cake. Illegal wildlife trade is a multibillion-dollar industry carried out by organized criminal gangs with operations spanning continents.

From sharks, rhinos to giraffes - they are the focus of the species conservation conference in Samarkand. As of November 24, 185 states in Uzbekistan will be wrestling over trade bans and restrictions. There is a lot at stake: the fate of more than 230 animal and plant species is being decided. The organization Pro Wildlife warns in advance of dangerous steps backwards in the Washington Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), which regulates or even prohibits the international trade in plants and animals.

Although the CBNRM programme has played a central role in the success of conservation in Namibia since 1998, it has not been modernised to reflect rapidly changing economic and environmental realities, according to the report. The nature reserves continue to operate according to the original framework conditions, which no longer meet new threats such as escalating human-wildlife conflicts, illegal logging, poaching, land occupation and increasing competition for land from other sectors.

From 24 November to 5 December 2025, governments from around the world will gather in Samarkand, Uzbekistan for the 20th meeting of the Conference of the Parties (CoP20) to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). This meeting comes at a moment of great consequence for some of the world's most threatened species - elephants, rhinos, pangolins, Asian big cats and the critically endangered vaquita porpoise.

The decline in elephant numbers across most of Africa has not been uniform, with many populations growing rapidly in the southern part of the continent. The recent 'Elephant in the Room' conference in Zimbabwe focused on three main options - chopping elephant numbers; limiting further growth via contraception, or finding more space for a species that has already lost 85% of its historic living range due to human expansion. There was also a more limited discussion on the 'do nothing' option.

Facing possible contempt of court charges for illegal elephant hunting in Botswana and violation of court interdicts, Dawie Groenewald's alleged proxy in Botswana, the now-disgraced former Justice Minister Ronald Machana Shamukuni and his dodgy shelf company DK Superior (PTY) Limited, are done and dusted.

The Criminal Investigation Service (SIC), through its Central Directorate for Combating the Illicit Trafficking of Precious Stones, Metals and Crimes against the Environment, in operational coordination with other defense and security forces, and in close collaboration with the General Tax Administration (AGT), international organizations, and NGOs dedicated to wildlife protection, conducted a micro-operation on Thursday, 6 November, on the outskirts of Luanda.

"We have tons of ivory sitting in vaults, gathering dust. Let us sell it. If we flood the market, prices will drop, and poachers will have no reason to kill our elephants." It sounds like a solution, logical, understandable, the kind of idea that fits neatly into an economics textbook: more supply, lower prices, less crime. But the world of ivory doesn't play by those rules. It isn't a clean market driven by transparency and rational behavior. It's a shadow economy built on secrecy, speculation, and status.

South Africa's Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE) has dismissed reports suggesting that the country intends to support reopening the international trade in ivory and rhino horn. The department reaffirmed its commitment to the global ban on ivory trade and rhino horn trade ahead of the upcoming CITES COP20 summit. In a statement, the department said: "South Africa remains fully committed to the international ban on commercial trade of ivory and rhino horn. Our policy is guided by science, ethics, and global cooperation, not by commercial interest."

Across Africa, the greatest killers of elephants are poaching, illegal ivory trade, habitat loss, and government-sanctioned hunting. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and TRAFFIC have repeatedly identified organized wildlife trafficking networks as the main drivers of elephant declines. The African Elephant Status Report shows tens of thousands of elephants slaughtered over the past decades due to ivory demand, not activism.

Traffickers of ivory, pangolin scales, and other endangered wildlife in Nigeria now risk up to 10 years in prison and fines of up to N12 million if found guilty. These penalties are contained in the Endangered Species Conservation and Protection Bill, 2024, which was approved by the Senate on Tuesday. The Bill, already passed by the House of Representatives in May 2025, has been forwarded to the President for assent.

California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) law enforcement from the Special Operations Unit (SOU) uncovered extensive evidence linking a business in Los Angeles County to suspected trafficking of animal parts, including rhino horn and elephant ivory. CDFW investigators discovered what appears to be at least nine rhino horns, thousands of pieces of elephant ivory, several large, intricately carved tusks and a sea turtle shell. All samples will be tested and identified at CDFW's Wildlife Forensics Lab.

Namibia's big ivory gambit: The flashpoint is Namibia's Proposal 13, which seeks CITES approval to sell more than 46 tonnes of government-owned raw ivory stockpiles for commercial purposes. Namibia argues the sale would be a one-off transaction with CITES Secretariat-verified trading partners, generating conservation revenue. The funds, they argue, would support conservation and rural communities. The secretariat, however, has raised serious concerns.

Despite Africa's elephants and rhinos still living under serious threat from poaching and illegal trade, Namibia is pushing hard to resume ivory and horn sales. From 23 November to 5 December, representatives of the 185 countries that are signatories to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) will gather in Samarkand, Uzbekistan for the 20th meeting of the Conference of the Parties (CoP20).

Nairobi - The National Police Service (NPS) officers, in collaboration with the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS), have arrested two suspects in Maralal Town, Samburu County, for possession of elephant tusks valued at approximately Sh1.1 million. According to a statement from the NPS, the joint operation was conducted on Sunday, following an intelligence-led mission by officers from Samburu Central Sub-County. The two suspects were intercepted while transporting seven pieces of elephant tusks weighing about 11.33 kilograms, which had been concealed inside a bag.

In recent years, traders in west Africa have used social media to advertise wild meat directly and connect with customers. Platforms like TikTok and Facebook act as online storefronts linked to physical markets, enabling sellers to reach much larger audiences than they would have by selling at traditional stalls. This change is bringing new, often urban, buyers into the market and altering how wild meat is sold and the overall scale of the trade. A screenshot of a wild meat TikTok channel. Supplied We are wildlife researchers studying the trade in wild animals in west Africa.