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A number of Botswana Community Trusts are unwittingly part of a huge international wildlife criminal network - Sunday Standard investigations have revealed. Documents passed to the Sunday Standard have revealed how the trusts are used as "grey" nodes (legal players who participate in illegal activities) in criminal hunting schemes by the international wildlife mafia.

A fromer police officer who was kicked out of the Namibian Police after being arrested on rhino-poaching and firearms charges has lost a Supreme Court appeal about his dismissal. Former detective inspector Wersimus Haipa’s appeal to the Supreme Court was dismissed in a judgement delivered on Friday. Haipa appealed against a High Court judgement in which an application by him to have his discharge from the police reviewed and set aside was dismissed in May this year.

The blurb for an editorial in The Namibian newspaper on 9 November read: "From Kavango to Kunene, down south across the breadth and width of Namibia, the scramble for the country’s mineral, oil and energy sources is in overdrive." The article ended: "Government officials have turned Namibia into an unsustainable El Dorado with a vicious cycle of short-term searches for riches dishing out mining exploration licences to a select few." As you read this, graders, excavators and tipper trucks are hacking a road through three conservancies famous for their conservation of endangered,…

Two Namibian community conservancies and a tourism operator have turned to the courts to block development of a tin mine. The conservancies say the environmental impact assessments for the open-pit mine are flawed and will disturb wildlife, including critically endangered southern black rhinos. In a similiar case in the //Huab Conservancy, a copper mine disturbed wildlife in the area, forcing rhino-based tourism to shut down.

The Namibian Police Force (NamPol) in the Kunene Region is investigating a case of rhino poaching after a cow and calf were found dead in the top Barab Plamwag Concession towards Mbakondja camel camp.

The three Chinese men accused of trying to smuggle 14 rhino horns out of Namibia in March this year will have to stand trial on three main charges in the Windhoek Regional Court, the prosecutor general has decided.

The case of three Chinese men accused of trying to smuggle 14 rhino horns worth about N$2.3 million out of Namibia has been transferred to the Windhoek Regional Court in Katutura for plea and trial. Li Xiaoliang, Li Zhibing and Pu Xuexin were caught with the rhino horns, as well as a leopard skin valued about N$50 000, stashed in their luggage at the Hosea Kutako International Airport on March 23.

The Minister of Environment and Tourism, Uahekua Herunga, has warned Namibians who are collaborating with international poaching syndicates that they must stop with this illegal practice or face the consequences. Namibia is in the process of establishing an anti-poaching unit and Herunga stressed the urgency of getting this unit up and running as soon as possible. He said the country experienced a spill-over of poaching from South Africa, where large numbers of rhinos and elephants have been killed in the past two years.