News

Reflecting on 8 years of the Wildlife Justice Commission

Reflecting on 8 years of the Wildlife Justice Commission

This month marks our 8th anniversary. A good moment to reflect on how it all started in 2015: five staff members, one donor, two cases and an ambitious strategy to hold governments accountable for failing to address wildlife crime occurring in their own countries, through the mechanism of a Public Hearing in the City of Peace and Justice, The Hague.

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Advocating for stronger anti-corruption frameworks to protect the environment and wildlife at the 20th IACC

Advocating for stronger anti-corruption frameworks to protect the environment and wildlife at the 20th IACC

Corruption is a key enabler of environmental crime, including wildlife crime, and the Wildlife Justice Commission is committed to promoting solutions to tackle corruption. We were present at the 20th International Anti-Corruption Conference (IACC) in Washington DC and organised a workshop on behalf of the UNCAC Coalition’s Environmental Crime and Corruption Working Group.

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Winning big against wildlife crime in 2022

Winning big against wildlife crime in 2022

As the Covid-19 pandemic slowly subsided and borders opened this year, criminal networks went back to business as usual, resulting in an increase in poaching and trafficking of wildlife and as a result, an increase of seizures. In response, the Wildlife Justice Commission stepped up its fight against transnational organised wildlife crime.

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Steve Carmody presenting at CITES CoP19

Speaking for Wildlife Justice at CITES CoP19

The chance to afford greater protection to nearly six hundred species of wildlife was the focus of this year’s CITES CoP19 (Parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora at the nineteenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties), which took place in Panama this month.

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Wildlife Kingpin the rise and fall of Ah Nam podcast cover

Wildlife Kingpin: The rise and fall of Ah Nam

From the Wildlife Justice Commission comes the first-ever in-depth analysis of a real-life investigation into the dark underbelly of wildlife crime. Our new original podcast series: “Wildlife kingpin: the rise and fall of Ah Nam”, follows a team of investigators on the hunt for one of Asia’s biggest traffickers of elephant and rhino products.

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Ah Nam: The Downfall of Vietnam’s Wolf of Wall Street

Ah Nam: The Downfall of Vietnam’s Wolf of Wall Street

The Wildlife Justice Commission has published a report on the rise and fall of one of Vietnam’s biggest wildlife traffickers. Nguyen Van Nam, referred to in the report as Ah Nam, was the focus of a Wildlife Justice Commission investigation from 2016 until 2019.

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World Rhino Day 2022: Putting rhinos back on the radar

World Rhino Day 2022: Putting rhinos back on the radar

Law enforcement agencies globally must address rhino horn trafficking as a form of transnational organised crime along with an increased focus on the higher level actors in the rhino horn supply chain. This was the key message that emerged from a joint webinar hosted by WWF South Africa and the Wildlife Justice Commission to mark World Rhino Day 2022.

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Arrest of Major rhino poaching trafficker in Mozambique

Arrest of Major rhino poaching trafficker in Mozambique

On 27 July 2022, the Wildlife Justice Commission provided support to the Serviço Nacional de Investigação Criminal (SERNIC) during the arrest of a well-known rhino horn trafficker, Simon Valoyi, also known as Navara. The Wildlife Justice Commission acknowledges the outstanding work of SERNIC in bringing this suspect to justice.

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Prosecutors and forestry officials in Lao PDR receive training to step up the fight against wildlife crime

Prosecutors and forestry officials in Lao PDR receive training to step up the fight against wildlife crime

To strengthen the legal approach to wildlife crime in the Golden Triangle Region, the Wildlife Justice Commission, in collaboration with WWF, provided a training to local prosecutors and forestry officials in Lao PDR to improve their knowledge base and introduce them to a set of techniques that would allow for more efficient prosecution of wildlife crime.

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Winning big against wildlife crime in 2021

Winning big against wildlife crime in 2021

As an organisation, 2021 was our most successful year since our founding in 2015. Much of our efforts in previous years came to fruition, and we played a crucial role in major arrests in Thailand and Nigeria.

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World Pangolin Day 2018

World Pangolin Day 2018

Solitary, shy, elusive and nocturnal, pangolins are rarely observed in the wild to the point that their population estimates are not clear, although conservationists do know that it is rapidly declining.

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Operation Phoenix - Wildlife trafficking Vietnam

Key Findings: Operation Phoenix

The document presents the key findings or our 18-months investigation into the village of Nhi Khe, Viet Nam. It also discusses the outcome of efforts we undertook to establish a dialogue with the governments of Viet Nam and China and outlines the steps we took on the path of activating justice against the criminal network that our team identified.

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World Rhino Day

World Rhino Day

It is not looking good for Rhinoceros. It is calculated that over 500,000 of these gentle giants roamed in the wild across Africa and Asia at the beginning of the 20th century.

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World Elephant Day

World Elephant Day

Distinctive, intelligent and sensitive, socially complex and so powerful but yet so kind, elephants are part of our global heritage.

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International Turtle Day

International Turtle Day

A day to celebrate turtles – both freshwater and marine species – and tortoises, raise awareness about the endangered species and encourage action to be taken to preserve them.

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Illegal tiger trade Asia

Key Findings: Operation Ambush

The Operation Ambush Briefing provides insight into the journey tigers take to market, and how this is facilitated by organised criminality. It outlines how the growth in unregulated and private breeding may be enabling illegal trade, while at the same time wild tigers are being targeted to service demand in Viet Nam and China.

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