US grant boosts anti-poaching muscle
Government's efforts to slash poaching rates of rhino by 50% by the end of 2018 and to double the number of arrests during the same time were boosted by a N$23.4 million grant from the United States this week.
Although almost 44% of Namibia is under some sort of conservation management, the infiltration of organised wildlife trafficking syndicates five years ago is threatening to topple its achievements.
“Namibia was initially spared during the first few years of the present wildlife crime crisis, but since 2013 rhino and elephant poaching have increased dramatically,” minister of environment and tourism (MET) Pohamba Shifeta said at the launch of the US's State Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement (INL) multi-million-dollar grant yesterday.
The INL Project to counter wildlife trafficking in Namibia will help Namibia increase its capacity and the synergy between government law enforcement agencies, civil society and private citizens to help counter rhino-related wildlife crime in Namibia.
Shifeta said that international organised criminal syndicates, and the extremely high prices illegal horn fetches on the international market, have also attracted a number of Namibians into the poaching business.
Following three rhino poaching incidents in 2012, the numbers rose to nine in 2013, 56 in 2014, 95 in 2015 and 60 in 2016.
Nineteen rhinos have been poached to date this year.
The minister said that in 2015 the poaching levels in Namibia “potentially reached the tipping point -where overall rhino numbers in Namibia began to regress”.
The loss of Namibia's rhino population would be a national and international “conservation disaster” and will have a significant impact on the tourism sector and the economy of poor, rural Namibian communities, he said.
Chris Weaver, director of the WWF in Namibia, warned that the syndicates behind poaching operations in Namibia are “highly organised, well-resourced and often aligned with other forms of international crime such as drugs, money laundering and even arms.”
He said that addressing these types of “efficient, adaptive and difficult to address” wildlife crimes requires a “different strategy to counter” that does not merely focus on the poacher, usually poor Namibians who are “just a pawn in the process”.
In line with this, law enforcement strategies require new approaches to investigation and prosecution.
The environment ministry, with its partners the WWF and the US embassy through the INL Project, will use the grant to focus on five objectives, including providing support to MET and NamPol, improve investigative and prosecutorial approaches, and provide support to anti-poaching schools and units and more.
American ambassador Thomas Daughton said that through training of prosecutors and informing judges, the grant will help highlight the “seriousness and complexities of wildlife crime” to ensure that offenders are appropriately punished.
The new Waterberg anti-poaching school will be fully equipped by the end of 2018 and by mid-2018 the ministry commits to linking 50% of communities that live nearby national parks and in conservancies to MET and NamPol.
JANA-MARI SMITH
Although almost 44% of Namibia is under some sort of conservation management, the infiltration of organised wildlife trafficking syndicates five years ago is threatening to topple its achievements.
“Namibia was initially spared during the first few years of the present wildlife crime crisis, but since 2013 rhino and elephant poaching have increased dramatically,” minister of environment and tourism (MET) Pohamba Shifeta said at the launch of the US's State Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement (INL) multi-million-dollar grant yesterday.
The INL Project to counter wildlife trafficking in Namibia will help Namibia increase its capacity and the synergy between government law enforcement agencies, civil society and private citizens to help counter rhino-related wildlife crime in Namibia.
Shifeta said that international organised criminal syndicates, and the extremely high prices illegal horn fetches on the international market, have also attracted a number of Namibians into the poaching business.
Following three rhino poaching incidents in 2012, the numbers rose to nine in 2013, 56 in 2014, 95 in 2015 and 60 in 2016.
Nineteen rhinos have been poached to date this year.
The minister said that in 2015 the poaching levels in Namibia “potentially reached the tipping point -where overall rhino numbers in Namibia began to regress”.
The loss of Namibia's rhino population would be a national and international “conservation disaster” and will have a significant impact on the tourism sector and the economy of poor, rural Namibian communities, he said.
Chris Weaver, director of the WWF in Namibia, warned that the syndicates behind poaching operations in Namibia are “highly organised, well-resourced and often aligned with other forms of international crime such as drugs, money laundering and even arms.”
He said that addressing these types of “efficient, adaptive and difficult to address” wildlife crimes requires a “different strategy to counter” that does not merely focus on the poacher, usually poor Namibians who are “just a pawn in the process”.
In line with this, law enforcement strategies require new approaches to investigation and prosecution.
The environment ministry, with its partners the WWF and the US embassy through the INL Project, will use the grant to focus on five objectives, including providing support to MET and NamPol, improve investigative and prosecutorial approaches, and provide support to anti-poaching schools and units and more.
American ambassador Thomas Daughton said that through training of prosecutors and informing judges, the grant will help highlight the “seriousness and complexities of wildlife crime” to ensure that offenders are appropriately punished.
The new Waterberg anti-poaching school will be fully equipped by the end of 2018 and by mid-2018 the ministry commits to linking 50% of communities that live nearby national parks and in conservancies to MET and NamPol.
JANA-MARI SMITH
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