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The Namibian police at Arandis in the Erongo Region arrested two suspects, aged 33 and 37, on Friday for allegedly illegally harvesting indigenous protected plants. The police said a third suspect managed to flee the scene but is known and can be arrested at any time. During an intelligence-led operation near Arandis, the police discovered a campsite where protected indigenous plants were found, namely 55 Elephant's Foot plants (Adenia pechuelii) and five Namib Corkwood plants (Commiphora dinteri).

A dispute has erupted in the informal settlement of Tumweneni in the Kavango East region, with residents accusing the settlement committee of unilaterally allowing a Chinese company to cut down five mopane trees. This without the wider community being aware of the matter. However, Max Solar Power Trading cc, the Chinese company at the center of the controversy, denied any wrongdoing. Supervisor Peter Sandanda told Network Media Hub (NMH) that the company had simply helped remove the trees that were seen as harmful or an obstacle.

The General Tax Administration (AGT) seized more than 500 pieces of rhinoceros horns and elephant teeth at the 4 de Fevereiro International Airport in Luanda, camouflaged inside three suitcases that were bound for Vietnam.

For the second time in a week, Angolan authorities arrested two Vietnamese nationals on suspicion of illegal poaching and wildlife trafficking, preventing them from leaving the country with over 46 kilograms of elephant ivory, teeth and rhinoceros horns, reports Novo Jornal. The two individuals raised suspicions during check-in, leading authorities to track their movements through Luanda 4 de Fevereiro International Airport using CCTV surveillance.

According to the director of the institutional communication and press office of the general directorate of SIC, Manuel Halaiwa, the goods were on the construction site of a construction company, in the municipality of Camama. Two Vietnamese men, aged 36 and 43, both construction engineers, were arrested at the scene, indicted for the crimes of criminal association and environmental aggression.

Customs officials at Geneva Airport discovered an elephant tusk in the luggage of a 68-year-old US citizen. The protected ivory was confiscated. A fine was also imposed. The American was stopped by customs officials last week as he was about to board a flight from Geneva airport, as the federal customs authorities announced on Wednesday. The employees of the Federal Office for Customs and Border Security had been alerted by the airport security service. Airport employees had reportedly discovered the ivory while x-raying luggage.

Elephants need water - lots of it. Depending on their size, they must drink 100 to 200 litres at least every two to three days to avoid potentially severe dehydration. In hot weather, an elephant can lose as much as 7.5% of its body mass daily due to dehydration. So, water availability, particularly in dry seasons and drought, is critical to elephant survival. Water dictates where elephants roam, limiting their foraging range to areas close to rivers, lakes, pans, and other wetlands. For example, elephant herds with calves stray no further than 10 kilometres from water.

At a smugglers' "den" near the Lebombo post between South Africa and Mozambique, a former rhino horn smuggler described how border officials receive bribes to ensure safe passage for illicit goods. "If you know the right police manning the border crossing, no problems are encountered. Money talks," he said. Atanasio* said he currently works as a mechanic in the border area and manages a drug-smuggling operation. He has multiple identities and has gone undetected by law enforcement agencies.

On March 23, 2025, a critical wildlife crime operation unfolded in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, a known hub for organized crime and wildlife trafficking. With assistance from Focused Conservation, the Nigeria Special Wildlife Office (NSWO), supported by the Nigeria Customs Police, executed Operation Willow - an intelligence-driven sting to dismantle a key trafficking network supplying pangolin scales. The NSWO acted on intelligence indicating that a trafficker in the region was actively supplying pangolin scales for the illegal wildlife trade.

Like the menace of farmer-herder clashes and kidnapping for ransom affecting many rural communities across Nigeria, the destruction of crops by elephants has become a significant problem for many farmers in Nigeria's tropical rainforest and savanna ecological zones. These elephants' activities are fueling hostile behaviours among locals and posing significant threats to the population of the elephants. The farmers who spoke to our correspondent did not admit to killing elephants, perhaps because they know that the law prohibits this.

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.

The draft strategy is skewed in favour of anthropocentric benefits - economic, spiritual and cultural - and cannot function in practical terms. South Africa's Draft National Elephant Heritage Strategy, which closed to public comment at the end of February, demands that South Africa's elephants must depend on human social and economic development for their future survival.

The country's uncontrolled growth of the seal population is a direct result of quota holders focusing only on harvesting bulls for their genitals, leaving the rest of theanimal, including the meat and valuable by-products, unused due to lack of a market. This is what the chairman of the parliamentary standing committee on natural resources, Tjekero Tweya, said in parliament on Monday during the presentation of the committee's findings. He argued that the current system benefits only a handful of investors, while ignoring the potential for industrial development.

BirdLife South Africa and SANCCOB today secured a historic victory for South Africa's Critically Endangered African Penguin when the Pretoria High Court issued an order of court after a hard-won settlement agreement was reached by the two conservation NGOs with commercial sardine and anchovy purse-seine fishers (subsequently endorsed by the State). The order provides for the delineations of no-take zones for the commercial sardine and anchovy fishery around six key African Penguin breeding colonies that lie within coastal areas where this commercial fishery operates.

The sale of lion bones is heading back to court with a 235-page application by lion breeders demanding that the Environment Department set a CITES export quota for 2025. The subtext is a clash between free trade and animal wellbeing. In 2019, a Gauteng Division of the High Court judge found an application by breeders to renew the lion bone export quota to be "unlawful and constitutionally invalid". He said it failed to consider the welfare of captive lions raised and killed for their bones. Lion breeders have been simmering with anger ever since.

The Executive Director of the Pangolin Conservation Foundation, Kelsey Prediger, says that the illegal hunting and trade of pangolins has escalated into a crisis requiring global attention. Prediger made this remark during the celebration of World Pangolin Day, which takes place on February 15. This year's celebration was postponed due to a national mourning period following the passing of Namibia's Founding President, Sam Nujoma. Pangolins are hunted and sold illegally; their scales are used in traditional medicine, and their meat is considered a delicacy in some cultures.

Dr Dion George, the Minister of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment, welcomes the sentencing of Silas Mathebula, a 38-year-old Mozambican national, to 30 years in prison by the Skukuza Regional Court for his role in the illegal killing of three rhinos and related offences in the Kruger National Park in 2019. The Minister views this significant sentence as a clear indication that poaching and wildlife crime will not be tolerated in South Africa, and that those who threaten the nation’s natural heritage will face the full might of the law.

Wildlife crime poses a serious threat to conservation efforts across Africa that rob communities of high-value resources and reduce their benefits from natural resources. The just-released 2023 State of Municipal Conservation Report warns that wildlife crime is occurring at multiple levels, necessitating a widespread response from multiple agencies. "Some wildlife crime takes place at a subsistence level for food or at a commercial level, which then involves crime syndicates and illegal international smuggling, which increases the stakes," the report said.

The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) Zambia on Thursday expressed deep concern over the resurgence of rhino poaching in the southern African country. The concern followed the killing of a three-year-old white rhino by poachers in Mosi-Oa-Tunya National Park on March 11, who fled with its horns. This incident came after two rhinos were killed last year at a ranch in the southern district of Kazungula. WWF Zambia Country Director Nalucha Nganga-Ziba described the recent rhino killing as a major setback in the country's ongoing efforts to restore its rhino population.

The Ministry of Tourism has offered an undisclosed reward to anyone with information that may lead to the arrest of poachers who killed a White Rhino in Mosi-oa-Tunya National Park, Livingstone, on Tuesday. In a statement, Ministry of Tourism Principal Public Relations Officer Nelly Banda, through the Department of National Parks and Wildlife (DNPW), revealed that the incident occurred in the early hours of Tuesday between 02:00 and 03:00 hours.

Two Windhoek High Court judges have reduced an effective prison term of nine years to which a Zambezi region resident was sentenced for dealing in elephant tusks to five years’ imprisonment. Sipangule Kushonya's sentence was lowered in an appeal judgement delivered by judges Naomi Shivute and Philanda Christiaan yesterday. Kushonya (39) was sentenced to 12 years' imprisonment, of which three years were suspended for a period of five years, in April 2022, after he had been found guilty in the Katima Mulilo Magistrate's Court on a charge of dealing in two elephant tusks.

Vietnam has launched a public awareness campaign highlighting the illegality of ivory trade, specifically targeting international tourists, as part of its broader efforts to combat wildlife trafficking. The campaign is spearheaded by the Vietnam Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) Management Authority, in collaboration with the World Wide Fund for Nature in Vietnam (WWF-Vietnam).

The Skukuza Regional Court sentenced Silas Mathebula (38), a Mozambican national, to 30 years behind bars on March 10 for poaching-related offences committed in 2019. According to a provincial National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) spokesperson, Monica Nyuswa, Mathebula was convicted on multiple charges, including trespassing, conspiracy to commit a crime, killing three rhinos, possession of a prohibited firearm, possession of an unlicensed firearm, and possession of a hunting rifle and ammunition.

A seal products company owner accused of illegally trying to export seal genitals from Namibia has been granted bail in an amount of N$50 000, after spending two months in custody. Chinese citizen Hou Xuecheng (48) was granted bail in the Windhoek Magistrate's Court at Katutura on Friday. Magistrate Wilka Amalwa ordered that Hou should surrender all of his travelling documents to the police officer investigating the case in which he was arrested nearly nine weeks ago and that he may not interfere with state witnesses or the investigation of his case while free on bail.

A disturbing poaching incident has shaken the conservation community in Victoria Falls, with a lion found brutally killed and mutilated. Advertisement According to a statement released by the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority (ZimParks), a team from the Vic Falls Wildlife Trust was tracking a collared lion when they stumbled upon a gruesome scene. The poached lion’s flesh had been removed, and its claws and head were missing. However, in a heartening turn of events, a second lion, an adult male, was found caught in a snare but still alive.

South Africa continues to see a downward trend in rhino poaching, with the 2024 statistics showing that 499 rhinos were poached in 2023, compared to 420 last year - a decrease of 79. "As we intensify the fight against wildlife poaching, it is encouraging to see that the work of the rangers, the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment and other key role players is steadily gaining momentum," the Minister of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment, Dr Dion George, said on Thursday.

The Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority (ZimParks) has opposed a proposed mining project targeting the Sinamatella Black Rhino Intensive Protection Zone in Hwange National Park. ZimParks has called on the Ministry of Mines and Mining Development to reject such applications. The Authority's spokesperson, Mr Tinashe Farawo said allowing mining in the ecologically sensitive area will pose a threat to the endangered black rhino population, disrupt wildlife habitats and undermine Zimbabwe's reputation as a leader in sustainable conservation.

South Africa continues to see a downward trend in rhino poaching, with the 2024 statistics showing that 499 rhinos were poached in 2023, compared to 420 last year: a decrease of 79. "As we intensify the fight against wildlife poaching, it is encouraging to see that the work of the rangers, the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment and other key role players is steadily gaining momentum," the Minister of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment, Dr Dion George, said on Thursday.

Tiny plants in plastic pots, each carefully labeled, cram a South African greenhouse. Each is the evidence of at least one crime. These are strange plants without typical stems or leaves. Some look like greenish thumb-tips, others like grapes or rounded stones. Some sprout small, bright flowers. Few are more than an inch tall. I've agreed not to disclose this location because the plants, confiscated from poachers and smugglers, are valuable and could be re-stolen by the same criminal networks that first dug them from their natural habitats to traffic overseas.

Chinese businesswoman and property mogul, Qiaoxa Stina Wu, has said that she is not aware of any criminal investigation being carried out against herself or business partner Charlie Xie, after a seal genital cargo of 20 kilos was flagged in Hong Kong, China, after being exported from Namibia without the relevant export documents for listed species under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). It is further reported that the cargo was undervalued to evade tax and that the true nature of the cargo was concealed.

With rising cases of human-wildlife conflict across Namibia, a recent report has recommended that the Ministry of Environment, Forestry, and Tourism introduce annual culling of problematic wildlife in all regions. This measure, determined by each region's carrying capacity, aims to reduce conflicts and safeguard both human lives and livelihoods. This recommendation is part of a report by the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Natural Resources on the Motion on Human-Wildlife Conflict.

The general director of Mozambique’s National Administration of Conservation Areas (ANAC), Pejul Calenga, believes that poaching in the country is now virtually under control. "10 or 15 years ago, we were losing between 1,000 and 1,500 elephants every year", said Calenga, interviewed by Radio Mozambique on Monday. "But currently the losses are less than 100 a year". He added that, in some conservation areas, there had been no deaths at all of elephants at the hands of poachers for two consecutive years.

Influential Chinese businesswoman Qiaoxia 'Stina' Wu is under investigation for allegedly attempting to smuggle seal genitals from Namibia to China in December. The shipment, which was not accompanied by the proper documentation, was discovered to be undervalued. Chinese authorities in Hong Kong had flagged the shipment and alerted Namibia that suspicious cargo from Namibia, not accompanied by the relevant Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (Cites) documentation, had been intercepted.

Spanning three countries, the vast W-Arly-Pendjari Complex is being used to facilitate organised crime, terrorism and local conflicts. The W-Arly-Pendjari (WAP) Complex is a vast wildlife sanctuary spanning the intersecting borders of Benin, Burkina Faso and Niger. With one of the most diverse ecosystems in West Africa's savanna belt, it is a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization World Heritage Site and shelters threatened species such as cheetah, giraffe, wild dog, elephant, lion and leopard.

On 31 December 2017, the ban on legal ivory trade in China, which represents the world's largest market for ivory, finally came into effect! This is the greatest single step toward reducing the brutal poaching which kills on average 100 elephants every day in Africa. Until recently South Africa had escaped ivory poachers trying to cash-in on the illicit global trade, which is estimated to be worth more than one billion dollars.

Environmental conservation organisation, EMS Foundation, wants the government to permanently ban the trade of lion bones in South Africa. The foundation's director, Michele Pickover, says their study shows that the lion bone sale is linked to the Asian big cat market operated by syndicates without permits. The foundation will be a friend of the court to oppose the application by the South African Predators Association (SAPA) to force the Environmental Department to allow them a quota to trade in lion bones.

Surveying elephants is hard, risky work. Dedicated biologists have been doing this challenging task across Africa for decades. Systematic surveying started in the late 1960s but has been sporadic, as access to remote areas takes logistical planning, funding and well-trained teams. Surveys can easily be derailed by civil unrest or lack of available survey teams. Consequently, the information on the numbers of elephants across Africa is spotty. Even for a single population, survey effort and coverage can change over the years.

"Controlled trade in rhino horn should be permitted". The Wildlife Vets Namibia team recently dehorned rhinos from the Rhino Momma project. According to Wildlife Vets, the CITES ban on the trade in rhino horn has caused a rhino to be worth more dead than alive.

Snaring in the Kruger National Park has spiked dramatically and poachers are profiting from the growing demand of bush meat. The laying of snares to trap wild animals whose meat is used not only to eat, but also by sangomas as muthi, has become a huge concern. Rangers and honorary rangers have their hands full in finding and removing these snares. Skukuza section ranger, Kally Ubisi, told of a recent incident in which a pregnant giraffe was found with a snare around her neck. While this animal was saved, most others are not so fortunate. A new problem has now reared its ugly head…

Just a few days after World Pangolin Day, the Pangolin Conservation & Research Foundation (PCRF) has once again drawn attention to the devastating situation of pangolins in Namibia in an urgent appeal. On Pangolin Day itself, February 15, a Namibian pangolin fell victim to an electric fence - "just one of countless silent deaths that go unnoticed. This pangolin survived the illegal wildlife trade, only to be killed by another human-made threat," said PCRF Director Kelsey Prediger. Since 2018, 570 pangolins have been killed by poaching in Namibia alone (AZ reported).

A 36-YEAR-OLD man was arrested at Oromauua village near Etosha National Park on Friday for conspiracy to commit a crime and hunting specially protected game without a permit. According to the police, the arrest came after the suspect, who was driving a white Toyota Hilux GD6 Double Cab with three passengers, failed to stop at a mobile roadblock set up by Anti-Poaching members at Oromauua village. The police later intercepted the vehicle at Werda Police Station and discovered that there was only one occupant (the driver) in the vehicle.

Harare - Two Chinese nationals, Lin Wang and Fuxi Wang, have been arrested for allegedly attempting to smuggle rhino horns worth a combined US$480,000 out of Zimbabwe through Robert Gabriel Mugabe International Airport in Harare. The illicit wildlife contraband was concealed inside sculptures, including a plastic owl, and intercepted by authorities following a series of investigations and surveillance operations.

A total of 77 suspects arrested, but no word is said about how many have already been tried, and what the sentences are. This leaves no doubt that cases are still in the investigation stages, and it leaves no doubt that cases will drag on for days to come. Bringing a case to court and having it successfully tried is supposed to be the pride of any detective/investigator. It breaks my heart to see no positive reporting, with the amount of settled/conviction cases' feedback.