NOTES FROM THE FIELD - COMBATING WILDLIFE CRIME
Greetings from Nairobi!
Through another collaborative effort, we now have a methodology, called First Line of Defense Against Illegal Wildlife Trade (FLoD), to understand how to better engage communities in combating illegal wildlife trade. We launched the new methodology, together with the EAC, European Union and IUCN, on September 15. Read more about that initiative and others below.
I hope you are all staying safe and healthy.
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Aurelia Micko
Environment Office Chief
USAID Kenya and East Africa
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NEW METHODOLOGY SUPPORTS COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT FOR LONG-TERM WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT |
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This month we rolled out a fantastic new tool to help us better engage communities for long-term wildlife management support. The First Line of Defense Against Illegal Wildlife Trade methodology, or FLoD, is designed to help us understand the motivations and assumptions that underpin local community actions - legal and illegal - with wildlife. This understanding will help us better design and implement community engagement projects that realize meaningful impact toward ending illegal wildlife trade.
At USAID, we strongly believe that the journey to self-reliance begins with locally led development. FLoD helps us engage local communities in the region, and especially across the transboundary conservation areas, to respond to the challenge of illegal wildlife trade with smart, home-grown, sustainable solutions.
"Only then, when we have strong local buy-in and support for wildlife management, will we realize the long-term survival of wildlife populations," Aurelia Micko, Director of the Environment Office, USAID Kenya and East Africa.
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Local Communities - First Line of Defence against...
Engaging communities as partners in combating illegal wildlife trade. Photo: IUCN/Micah Conway
Read more
www.iucn.org
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WILDLIFE LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCIES GAIN COLLABORATIVE PLATFORM FOR COMBATING WILDLIFE CRIME |
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At the end of August, we joined our partners at the EAC and TRAFFIC to launch the new Eastern Africa - Trade in Wildlife Information eXchange (Eastern Africa - TWIX) platform. The platform allows law enforcement officials to connect and share information related to wildlife crime quickly. It also provides reference and guidelines for identification on wildlife products traded illegally. It will help participating countries to collaborate closely on combating wildlife crime and on implementing major international treaties such as the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.
TWIX addresses a common recommendation by wildlife sector stakeholders regarding the need for improved information and wildlife trade data-sharing among national and regional law enforcement agencies. USAID supports TWIX and other tools for the collection of evidence-based information through its The Conserving Natural Capital and Enhancing Collaborative Management of Transboundary Resources in East Africa (CONNECT) project, led by IUCN, in partnership with TRAFFIC and WWF. Learn more about CONNECT here.
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TRAFFIC | Trade in Wildlife Information eXchanges
Online tools developed to facilitate information exchange and international co-operation...Photo: A Ground Pangolin, a species regularly trafficked from Africa © Photoshot License Ltd / Alamy Stock Phot
Read more
www.traffic.org
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ENGAGING STAKEHOLDERS FOR THE CONSERVATION OF NATURAL CAPITAL |
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WHAT IS NATURAL CAPITAL? USAID defines it as: the wildlife, their habitats, and the ecosystem services (e.g. water, food, and medicine) that are essential for the wellbeing and livelihoods of communities and wildlife.
The preservation of natural capital is a primary goal of the USAID Environment office.
Through our Economics of Natural Capital in East Africa project, we are partnering with the EAC and implementing partners, Environmental Incentives and Anchor Environmental, to better understand the perceptions that people have of the landscapes in which they live. Do they appreciate the ecosystem services that the landscape provides? Do they see threats to the services they rely on? Do they feel like they can influence policy to protect the landscape? How can we (USAID and partners) communicate landscape assessment products with them?
The project has held engagement workshops with the stakeholders of all four of its priority landscapes: the Great East African Plains, the Albertine Rift Forests, Rweru-Mugesera-Akagera Wetlands, and the Northern Savannahs. Here are a few things participants had to say:
“The landscape used to be stable but currently it is altered with frequent droughts and degradation.”
“Invasive species, such as water hyacinth, deprive oxygen from aquatic species and cause pollution, but there are no findings from research to control it.”
Workshop participants also mapped landscape actors by level of influence on policy.
“People at community level are key actors, they have needs and these needs are what inform their levels of engagement with policy. However, in this landscape, community members are the least engaged stakeholders.”
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The Economics of Natural Capital East Africa project is focused on four transboundary landscapes: i) the Great East African Plains (Kenya-Tanzania), (ii) the Northern Savannas (South Sudan- Uganda-Kenya), (iii) the Albertine Rift Forests (Burundi-Rwanda-Uganda), and (iv) Rweru-Mugesera-Akagera Wetlands (Burundi-Rwanda-Tanzania).
Light green = Protected areas
Blue = Wetlands
Pink and greenish brown = Community land
Light blue = large bodies of water
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The Economics of Natural Capital in East Africa project will hold follow-up workshops to present preliminary findings and identify gaps or inappropriate assumptions. At the end of the month, the project will meet with policy makers from across East Africa to determine how to best package assessment products for use by decision makers and to increase stakeholder awareness and engagement in landscape matters.
Find out more about the project here. Learn more about USAID's environment portfolio in East Africa here. |
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WOMEN IN WILDLIFE TRAFFICKING IN AFRICA: A SYNTHESIS OF LITERATURE |
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Authors Helen U. Agu and Meredith L.Gore reviewed 41 sources on wildlife trafficking, published between 2010 and 2019, to see what role women played.
"Women comprise approximately half of the earth’s population and thus have the potential to be at least half of the problem causing, and solutions resolving, wildlife trafficking risks. The role of African women in wildlife trafficking remains mostly unknown and under addressed by conservation science and policy," abstract, Women in Wildlife Trafficking in Africa.
Click to the right to see what the authors discovered.
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From September 21 - 23, the USAID CONNECT project supported a three-day virtual seminar to explore the role of youth and women in combating wildlife crime. Stay tuned for outcomes from that seminar. |
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Women in wildlife trafficking in Africa: A synthesis of...
Wildlife trafficking is an illegal industry that some estimate is worth $5-23 billion USD annually; it occurs in over 120 countries around the world and involves multiple taxa of species, including mammals, corals, reptiles, bony fishes and birds.
Read more
www.sciencedirect.com
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ENGAGING LOCAL COMMUNITIES TO COMBAT ILLEGAL WILDLIFE TRAFFICKING |
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Authors Rosie Cooney and Daniel W.S. Challender summarize key lessons and findings on engaging and supporting communities in reducing illegal wildlife trade. The findings are based on work carried out by IUCN, IIED and TRAFFIC. |
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Engaging local communities in responses to illegal trade ...
The conservation of pangolins and protecting them from poaching and illegal trade can generally best be achieved with the support and partnership of ...
Read more
www.sciencedirect.com
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Click above to learn how to use the WILD app. |
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ENVIRONMENT NEWS AND OPINION ROUNDUP
(Articles and headlines are taken directly from the sources cited)
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September 22nd was World Rhino Day. USAID supports a sustainable future for endangered species in Kenya and the people that live alongside them. Source: Medium. Read more.
Governments and businesses looking to crack down on the illegal ivory trade have a new tool in their hands, courtesy of WWF, TRAFFIC, and the CITES Secretariat. For the first time in more than two decades, the groups have updated a guide meant to make it easier for law enforcement and e-commerce monitors to identify ivory and determine what species it originated from. Source: Mongabay. Read more.
Some 47 herd of cattle stolen from Tiamamut village in Laikipia County have been recovered and handed over to the owner, thanks to a dialogue between Samburu and Maasai elders.
Tanzania’s Rufiji River Delta hosts the largest mangrove forest in Eastern Africa, a critical coastal ecosystem that provides habitat for migratory birds and diverse marine life, stabilizes the shoreline, and traps sediment and nutrients washing downstream in the Rufiji River. Source: ClimateLinks. Read more
Arusha, Tanzania, 27th August 2020—Over 60 representatives from wildlife law enforcement and relevant agencies from across East Africa attended the virtual launch today of the mailing list of a Trade in Wildlife Information Exchange (TWIX) platform for the region. Source: Traffick. Read more
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USAID Kenya and East Africa Environment | www.usaid.gov/east-africa-regional/environment |
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