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.
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.
I was honoured to be invited to share reflections on the fight against wildlife crime at the recent United for Wildlife Global Summit in my capacity as the Executive Director of the Wildlife Justice Commission and I would like to take the opportunity to share those reflections also in this blog.
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.
In 2021, the Wildlife Justice Commission sent a strong message that the risk/reward ratio for wildlife crime is changing by facilitating the arrests of 32 high-level wildlife trafficking suspects and seizure of one of the largest seizures of pangolin scales since 2019.
The past few decades, we have not only witnessed a rise in environmental crime, but also its convergence with other forms of organised crime like the trafficking of humans, drugs and firearms. These facts set the starting point of a panel discussion held during the 31st session of the CCPCJ.
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.
During a presentation at the IUCN World Conservation Congress, the Wildlife Justice Commission championed the use of an intelligence-led approach to combat fisheries crime and protect marine biodiversity.
The Wildlife Justice Commission was joined on 17 June by a panel of experts for a high-level online discussion: Crime convergence: intelligent approaches to organised crime.
The Wildlife Justice Commission recently participated in an official UNGASS 2021 online side event, Leveraging the best tools to address environmental crime enabled by corruption.
Join our panel of experts on 17 June for a discussion about the convergence of wildlife crime with other forms of organised crime.
At the 14th UN Crime Congress, the Wildlife Justice Commission will highlight the urgency to tackle wildlife trafficking as what it is: transnational organised crime.
