West Africa a magnet for illicit animal trade linked to extremist terrorism
West Africa a magnet for illicit animal trade linked to extremist terrorism
Thomas Harding, The National
April 30, 2021
See link
https://www.thenationalnews.com/world/africa/west-africa-a-magnet-for-illicit-animal-trade-linked-to-extremist-terrorism-1.1213777
for photos.
Wildlife poachers with links to terrorism are rampaging across West Africa
with local authorities unable to control the illegal trade, a report found.
Money is urgently needed to enable task forces across the region to tackle
the growing criminality that helps fund extremist groups, the Royal United
Services Institute report said.
The stark warning comes after the death of a wildlife conservationist and
two journalists who were killed by Al Qaeda-linked terrorists on Monday
while on an anti-poaching patrol in Burkina Faso.
The National previously disclosed that ISIS-linked groups in the Democratic
Republic of Congo are killing or capturing exotic animals to fund their
terrorism campaign.
Poachers are now moving in significant numbers into West Africa, targeting
rare forest elephants and pangolins to raise considerable sums.
The Rusi report called for more financial investigations into the wildlife
traffickers who were driven from East Africa after a clampdown by
authorities. “Financial intelligence units in the region are failing to
carry out financial investigations needed to bring high-level wildlife
traffickers to justice,” the London-based think tank said.
Its research found that illegal wildlife trade, worth about $23 billion a
year globally, is not a high priority for financial intelligence units in
West Africa, and few investigations into such cases are ongoing.
But in the past five years, West Africa has “emerged as a major source and
transit hub in the global illegal wildlife trade", with criminal groups
relocating to the region from elsewhere on the continent.
The devastation of West African wildlife led two Spanish documentary makers
and an Irish wildlife expert to film in Burkina Faso in an effort to
highlight the issue.
But extremists from a group known as Jama'a Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin
attacked their armed convoy in a national park bordering Benin. "We killed
three white people. We also got two vehicles with guns, and 12
motorcycles," the terrorists said in an audio message heard by Associated
Press.
The consequences for critically endangered species such as elephants and
pangolins were also devastating, the Illegal Wildlife Trade and Financial
Investigations in West Africa report said.
Declining global ivory prices have led traffickers to switch their
attention to the increasingly lucrative market for pangolin scales. The
scales, like rhino horn, have no proven medicinal value but are used in
traditional Chinese medicine to help with conditions such as arthritis.
“West Africa has become the consolidation and export point of choice for
wildlife traffickers across Africa,” the report’s main author Alexandria
Reid said. “The relocation of trafficking networks is driven by a potent
combination of weak law enforcement capacity, well-connected transportation
systems and endemic corruption.”
Nigeria is now the main export point with at least 51 tonnes of the
pangolin scales seized globally originating from its ports in 2019 compared
to only two tonnes four years earlier.
The Rusi paper suggested that countries form national task forces with
clear procedures for initiating investigations and liaising with East Asian
nations.