A climate of mistrust and lack of political will among some members of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) are some of the problems that are hampering efforts to effectively fight wildlife crimes within the region.
This emerged during discussions at the on-going SADC Transfrontier Conservation Areas (TFCAs) International Conference taking place in Zimbabwe.
Delegates and officials at the conference repeatedly pointed out that at various stages of the development of the SADC TFCA programme, different countries have shown varying levels of political commitment, sometimes causing long delays in the implementation of some of the key deliverables of the SADC TFCAs project. This also has led to poor resource allocation by those countries where the political leadership appears not to fully appreciate the importance of cross- border collaboration and partnership in combating wildlife crimes.
Also worrisome to the delegates is the reluctance by some member states to share information and data with others, which information is crucial in the cross-border inter-agency fight against wildlife crimes.
Under the SADC Law Enforcement and Anti-Poaching (LEAP) strategy that was approved by ministers responsible for environment and natural resources in 2015 and endorsed by the leaders in 2017, all member states are supposed to share information and data through the SADC-TWIX, a regional version of a global Trade in Wildlife Information Exchange (TWIX) system, an anti-poaching platform where players in wildlife conservation share information in real time. The TWIX platform is an online tool available to enforcement and management officials responsible for the implementation of international wildlife trade and CITES regulations, helping connect officials across borders and allowing them to rapidly share information and expertise.
The overall objective of the SADC LEAP Strategy is to significantly reduce the level of poaching and illegal trade in wild fauna and flora and enhance law enforcement capacity in the SADC Region. The LEAP strategy explicitly identifies the establishment of the SADC-TWIX system as one of its key deliverables.
Modelled after the EU-TWIX and AFRICA-TWIX, the SADC-TWIX tool consists of two components: a secure mailing list enabling agencies engaged in the fight against illegal wildlife trade to communicate with one another in real time, as well as a website that holds useful resources, such as training materials, identification guides and a centralised database of wildlife seizures made by the participating SADC Member States. A TWIX mobile app further supports frontline officials with access to relevant aspects of the website, including offline use and instant messaging.
The revised SADC LEAP Strategy (2022-2032) calls for support for SADC-TWIX to be maintained and for SADC-TWIX to be used as the central repository for seizure information, guides, training materials and other tools across the region, but according to Tessa Cooper, SADC-TWIX project manager, this has not been happening.
“Some of the issues that we have faced include the issues of trust and data sharing among agencies and among member countries,” Cooper told the conference. “There is reticence to share data across borders and outside of the silos that we operate in and this results in data fragmentation. However, the criminals that we are trying to tackle and the criminal issues that we are trying to address, they are not hampered by the same issues that we are, in fact they are utilising these gaps, they are utilising the fact that we do not talk to each other enough to share information with each other, and this is how we are effectively facilitating their work. That we are not working together, that we are not sharing this information, means there is a loophole that these poachers and criminals can utilise.”
George Wambura, a member of the SADC secretariat, said the success of TFCAs depends on close co-operation between agencies and members states and it is important that these issues of trust be addressed as a matter of urgency.
In the past, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (INCN) has expressed concern that Botswana, the country with the largest number of elephants, and the Kingdom of Eswatini, were relulctant to share any data on poaching activities.
Cooper said the best way to facilitate trust among member states and partners is to focus on the benefits, highlight the success stories and change the narrative that portrays high seizures as an indictment on the ability of member countries to fight wildlife crimes.
“We also need to change the narrative of poaching seizures being seen as a poor reflection on a country, the narrative of how high levels of seizures reflect lack of enforcement, because that is not what is happening… what is happening is when countries are having high levels of seizures that indicates success, that indicates agencies working well together, that countries are working together to bring results, so we really should be proud of focusing on these seizures as part of highlighting our successful prosecution. We need to change that narrative.”
Poaching has been on a decline within the region with some countries recording zero poaching of rhinos and elephants as the use of technology is becoming more common, although there are sporadic outbreaks of these poaching incidents.