In 2019, the illegal wildlife trade reached staggering levels. Pangolin scales and ivory were being trafficked in massive quantities from Africa to Asia, exposing a network of crime syndicates operating at an industrial scale. The sheer volume of these shipments marked a disturbing milestone, one that revealed the global reach …
In Colombia’s southeast Guaviare department, which includes almost 20 percent of the deforested areas of Colombia, harvested wood rots on the ground while gangs and drug traffickers take over the land for illegal mining and agriculture. A main objective of the deforestation is to confiscate the lands in order to …
Considered to be a rare and expensive commodity in markets throughout DRC's North Kivu province, nyama ya pori, or bush meat, is mostly available by special order. Josephine Katindi, 43, says she prepares the rare meat to surprise her husband and six children. "Every single bite of bush meat is …
Windhoek -The United States ambassador to Namibia, Thomas Daughton, yesterday announced a donation of R23.4 million grant aimed at combatting wildlife trafficking and poaching in Namibia. Daughton said Namibia is a country known around the world for its natural beauty and diverse wildlife where tourists flock to by the thousands …
CAPE TOWN - Environmental Affairs Minister, Edna Molewa says government is escalating the fight against rhino poaching despite current measures yielding positive results. Molewa was briefing the media in Cape Town on progress made in combating rhino poaching on Monday. According to Molewa, "This decline in numbers does not mean …
The beefing up of security in other parks, coupled with the conservation area’s small size, may explain the onslaught of rhino poaching in KwaZulu-Natal. This assessment came after Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife’s Hluhluwe-Imfolozi Park lost another six rhinos at the weekend. Ezemvelo spokesperson Musa Mntambo told The Mercury on Wednesday that …
The Chinese government has said it will rein in the smuggling and illegal sale of ivory through tougher law enforcement, among other measures — but those enforcement efforts do not appear to have reached the town of Shuidong in Guangdong Province. The Chinese town at the epicenter of the global …
Authorities in Hong Kong this week made their largest haul of contraband ivory in more than 30 years, amid surging illegal wildlife seizures fuelled by lax regulations and buoyant demand from mainland China. The former British colony situated at the mouth of China's Pearl River Delta is one of the …
LONDON – A broad gathering of key players in the environmental sector came together last week in London for an international conference on illegal logging. The annual Chatham House conference on illegal logging was attended by over 250 global representatives from government, non-profit, the private sector, and the media. According …
Dar es Salaam — The government has taken 100 people to court and fined them a total of Sh1.1 billion for poaching between 2014 and 2017. This was said on Wednesday by the government's chief prosecutor Mr Biswalo Mganga during the launch of a new guideline for investigators and prosecutors …
Dar es Salaam — At least 1,500 people have been arraigned for allegedly being involved in poaching in a period between July 2016 and June 2017. Speaking to The Citizen Tanzania Wildlife Association (TAWA) spokesperson Mr Twaha Twaibu said the revelation was made by permanent secretary at the ministry of …
Seven smugglers involved in the illegal ivory trade from Uganda to Singapore have been arrested following an 18-month investigation by African and Asian law enforcement officials, a counter-trafficking organization said. The operation netted a top Kenyan customs officer and shipping agents who facilitated the covert ivory pipeline, highlighting progress in …
The South African Police Service in Limpopo is still continuing to win the fight against the illegal hunting of protected species, especially on the new trend of hunting the pangolines. In the Alldays Policing area, a 21-year-old man was arrested yesterday in Possession of a Protected Species (Pangolin) at Alldays …
BLANTYRE, Malawi, May 11 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Last November, rangers in Malawi's Lengwe National Park arrested 35 illegal loggers within the park boundaries as they felled timber with a half-million dollars worth of equipment brought in via an illegal road from neighbouring Mozambique. Satellite images suggest about a million …
Three persons have been arraigned before the Bolgatanga Magistrate Court by the Municipal Assembly for various environmental offences. In February this year, the Upper East Regional Coordinating Council issued a directive to the environmental sanitation office of the Assembly to clamp down on individuals cited for environmental related offences. The …
WINDHOEK Namibia (Xinhua) -- Namibian Minister of Environment and Tourism Pohamba Shifeta on Tuesday highlighted wildlife protection at reserves against the rise of “syndicate-based wildlife crime.” “Wildlife crime in Namibia has reached a new quality of violence and enhanced frequency of incidences. Well-organized gangs enter vulnerable areas, crime syndicates organize …
ANYONE found illegally selling controlled wildlife will be fined N$25 million instead of the current N$20 000, while jail time which is five now goes up to 20 years. Those found in possession of controlled wildlife products, according to the poposed amendments, should pay N$15 million instead of the current …
As Wanjiku, a Kenyan land rights activist, stepped out of the minibus and into the night, two other passengers pushed her into a nearby car. She had made a mistake: not taking seriously death threats over her campaign to stop logging around Mount Kenya, a UNESCO World Heritage site that …
The State of India’s Environment 2017, an annual publication from Down To Earth magazine released by Sunita Narain at the Jaipur Literature Festival is a unique, one-of-its-kind compilation of information, opinion and data on environment and development in India. It contains a clump of disturbing data Amidst the titles and …
This is the fourth Annual report from Down To Earth. Each chapter has relevant articles that deal with current developments and related archival material from CSE’s more than 30 years of research. This makes each article/analysis wholesome as it gives one a true sense of history of the development, and …
China's courts will widen the range of offences that constitute "environmental crimes" to make it easier to take legal action against polluters, a senior judiciary official told a news briefing on Monday. The new rules could allow prosecutors to take on persistent offenders in northern China's Hebei province, which was …
