The illegal trade in wildlife is a £6 billion industry that is contributing to a devastating loss in species diversity worldwide. It is second only to habitat loss in its impact on some of the world's most endangered species.
The UK is spending £13 million on projects across the globe to tackle the illegal wildlife trade through DEFRA's Illegal Wildlife Trade Challenge Fund.
In this article we look at some of the projects funded by the IWT Challenge Fund, and how they are making a difference to conservation.
Rangers based in Gabon's National Park have been receiving training from the British Army in their fight to stop poachers killing elephants for their tusks. The IWT Challenge Fund has so far paid for two training courses with a third due to take place early next year.
Personnel from 2 Rifles have been teaching vital skills to the African Parks rangers, known as EcoGuards and their supporting contingent of Gendarmes – military personnel – as well as local trackers who all work in the most heavily poached areas.
The soldiers’ role is to bring the EcoGuard’s basic field skills up to a satisfactory standard – teaching navigation skills, patrolling technique and planning, evidence gathering, first aid and injury prevention in the jungle. They are assisted in this by staff employed by Tusk Trust – again as part of Challenge Fund spending – who gave information and analysis training to better inform their operations.
They are also taught live firing skills, ambush drills and interdiction, and lessons on Gabonese law and Rules of Engagement.
Gabon faces a serious poaching problem as ivory traffickers target the indigenous woodland elephants, threatening them with extinction. Armed poachers have not only targeted the endangered elephants but also local villages and the rangers themselves.
Counter - poaching training
Developed by the Tusk Trust with £900,000 of funding from the IWT Challenge Fund, this project aims to reduce poaching of rhino and elephant within specific protected areas in Africa by significantly improving parks' law enforcement capacity.
As part of the courses, more than 100 rangers from 16 different protected areas across 12 African countries including Rwanda, Malawi, Zambia, South Africa and DRC, have been taking part in specialist interception and tracking courses.
As well as basic tracking skills they are taught how to trace both humans and animals, navigation techniques, bush craft and combat drills. The rangers are also put through their paces with challenging physical training sessions and foot drill.
During one 3-week course earlier this year, more than 300 snares were found in the Liwonde National Park, Malawi as well as a 'gin trap’ used to capture elephants – these powerful mechanisms can maim or kill a human – demonstrating the very real dangers rangers face.
Half of the protected areas are managed by African Parks, who are Tusk’s main project partner in this vitally important initiative. As well as the rangers information officers from all the protected areas will receive expert training in information gathering and analysis, and a network for sharing information between the protected areas will be established.
Building capacity and alternative livelihoods in Uganda
Tusk Trust's second IWT Challenge Fund project is focussed on Uganda and overcoming its role as a major transit hub for illegal wildlife trade, as well as tackling wildlife poaching.
The work will be carried out by Tusk’s partner organisation, the Uganda Conservation Foundation, with further support in key areas from the International Institute for Environment and Development, Soft Power Education, the Uganda Wildlife Authority and the Natural Resource Conservation Network.
This project identifies and reduces the factors that push people into wildlife crime from the poor rural communities around Murchison Falls National Park and Queen Elizabeth National Park. The measures to reduce poaching and criminal activity in these areas will include the development of sustainable livelihood options and preventing conflict between people and wildlife through a variety of measures to protect crops and improve relations between the rural communities and those protecting the park.
The project will also help develop the capacity of the intelligence and legal sectors of Ugandan law enforcement to increase arrests and convictions, particularly of those higher up the chain within the illegal wildlife trade.
Empowering communities
in Mozambique
Under the IWT Challenge Fund Fauna and Flora International were awarded £357,620 to reduce poaching in Mozambique through empowering communities to make decisions on how to address the illegal wildlife trade
The funding awarded to FFI will help protect Chuilexi Conservancy – part of Mozambique's critically-important Niassa National Reserve – from the onslaught of poaching that has intensified in the area over the last five years. Niassa is the third largest reserve in Africa and Chuilexi is known to hold a quarter of the Reserve’s remnant elephant population.
Across Niassa National Reserve as a whole, elephant numbers have crashed by over 60% between 2011 and 2014 to just over 4,400 as a result of rampant elephant poaching. Concern is also growing for Niassa’s lions due to the rising demand for their skins and body parts. With Niassa identified as one of five critical sites for lion conservation in Africa, Chuilexi is also likely to play an increasingly important role in the conservation of this species.
Recognising the important role that Chuilexi’s communities will play in the future of the conservancy, FFI is working with three local communities to involve them in decisions about the area’s management, strengthening their ability to sustain livelihoods through agriculture, supporting micro-enterprise and education, and providing incentives for people to support anti-poaching efforts.
FFI will work with the communities to improve law enforcement while ensuring they have a role in decision-making around management and benefit from its enhanced protection.
Disrupting wildlife-linked money laundering in Kenya
Kenya continues to suffer from poaching, particularly of elephants, although in the last few years poaching numbers have declined. Reasons for this include the Wildlife Conservation and Management Act (2013) which provides for high fines of up to Ksh 20 million (more than $200,000) and/or long prison sentences, the establishment of a Wildlife Unit in the Public Prosecutor's Office, and President Kenyatta’s strong leadership role in combating IWT.
Kenya is a signatory to both London and Kasane Conferences on Illegal Wildlife Trade and to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) under which there is a ban on the international commercial trade in ivory.
However Kenya remains a key source and transit point for the wildlife commodities being transported from Africa. The firm actions taken to stem wildlife crime are at risk of being undermined by weaknesses in laws governing wildlife trafficking, corruption, weak capacity and high demand in Asian markets. And while the Wildlife Act was enacted 2013, drafting inconsistencies in the law meant the Prosecution unit experienced challenges in effectively prosecuting wildlife cases.
Under the challenge Fund the Crown Prosecution Service were given £105, 000 to support Kenya on judicial capacity building for IWT. The British High Commission held the first inter-agency training in October 2013 which was attended by officials from the Judiciary, KWS, Ministry of Environment and non-state actors such as Wildlife Direct and the African Network for Animal Welfare (ANAW).
The Wildlife Unit and the BHC also produced wildlife Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) and a Rapid Reference Guide (RRG) for use by enforcement officers in the field. The reference guide was further developed through seven workshops held country-wide with an average of 35 participants at each one. Both the SOPs and RRG are now being used in Kenya to conduct national training on IWT for the police, prosecutors and others to ensure consistency and improvements from investigation to prosecution of wildlife crime.
Enforcement and Community Empowerment in Cameroon
The Zoological Society of London (ZSL) were awarded £372, 427 to assist Cameroon in the trafficking hotspot around Djoum, south of the Dja Biosphere Reserve and a key transport corridor from Gabon.
Local communities are the eyes of the forest. They know who is poaching and transporting illegal wildlife and are often engaged as hunters by force or for profit. This project works with these communities to help them take ownership of the natural resources they rely upon.
ZSL Cameroon is establishing community surveillance networks (CSNs) that allow people to anonymously provide tips on illegal wildlife activities. The University College of London's Extreme Citizen Science (ExCiteS) is also working with ZSL to map local resources by gathering data with handheld digital devices which include icons for people with low literacy levels.
The project is exploring enhancing the value of non-timber and non-wildlife forest products – in e.g essential oils from rainforest trees for the fragrance industry –as alternative livelihoods to commercial wildlife exploitation.
The effort also supports enforcement patrols within the Dja Reserve and adjacent forest. Field data is gathered on handheld devices for managers to assess poaching risks, monitor wildlife and direct rangers. It also provides a transparent tool for assessing protection efforts, team performance and tracking progress.
Thirdly the project trains wildlife law enforcers and judiciary personnel in the management and storage of seized ivory and pangolin scales, the roles of different agencies, the judicial procedures, and how to use intelligence on wildlife crime.
Within the last few months, two major ivory seizures have occurred, 14 poachers arrested, thousands of snares gathered, and hundreds of firearms and poached animals seized. The project is shining a spotlight on this wildlife crime hotspot and making it more difficult for traffickers to operate there.
