By Travel Trade Daily
Wildlife Foundation (AWF) recently issued an official statement in support of ‘The Eliminate, Neutralise, and Disrupt (END) Wildlife Trafficking Act Reauthorisation,’ introduced by some US senators.
The END Wildlife Trafficking Act is an instrumental policy that provides added support for law enforcement agencies in Africa to interdict, investigate, and prosecute wildlife offenders.
Didi Wamukoya, lead on wildlife law enforcement, AWF, stated, “END Wildlife Trafficking Act has helped African Wildlife Foundation and partner governments to develop and field innovative programmes to disrupt illegal wildlife trade, including deployment of conservation detection dogs at major trafficking hubs to sniff out illegal wildlife products. The support provided by this act, and distributed by the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement and USAID has enabled AWF and its partners to push for a comprehensive review of wildlife laws in Kenya and Uganda, which now prescribe punitive penalties for wildlife trafficking among other procedural improvements in handling wildlife crime.”
He added, “In addition, support made possible by the END Wildlife Trafficking Act helped AWF to build and strengthen wildlife law enforcers’ capacities through training and equipping. This involved enhanced inter-agency collaboration to enforce wildlife laws, cross-border policing, and regional collaboration.”
While there have been many improvements attributed to END, wildlife poaching and trafficking remain a challenge, particularly in the current economic landscape. Some African countries are witnessing an upsurge in poaching due to the Coronavirus pandemic.
