WILDLIFE CRIME

4 COMBATTING WILDLIFE CRIME
Global and regional efforts
By its very nature, wildlife crime is organized
crime and requires organized crime-fighting
to solve cases and secure convictions. No
agency can deal with this on its own; effective
collaboration, cooperation and coordination
are needed and every trading centre needs to
play its part. Put simply, it takes a network to
fight a network. Government departments in
Hong Kong, such as the Police, AFCD, Justice
Department and CED thus need to work closely
to share information, resources, duties and
expertise both locally and globally in order to
tackle often complex wildlife crime. Without
close and consistent cooperation between the
relevant departments and the employment of
expert investigative personnel, it will remain
challenging to ensure regular convictions and
in particular to convict the masterminds of
the trade.
Since 2012, INTERPOL has been advocating
and assisting in the development of National
Environmental Security Task Forces (NESTS)
as a means to combat environmental crime 215 .
NESTS are national multi-agency cooperatives
formed from police, customs, environmental
agencies, other specialized agencies,
prosecutors, non-governmental organisations
and intergovernmental partners. Since the
launch of the NEST initiative, 13 countries
have held targeted seminars on environmental
law enforcement on a global level 216 . China is
reportedly in the process of establishing
a NEST 217 .
In South East Asia, the Association
of Southeast Asian Nations Wildlife
Enforcement Network (ASEAN–WEN) 218 has
been established as a wildlife enforcement
network involving police, customs and
environment agencies of all ten ASEAN
countries. It provides a forum for the agencies
to collaborate and co-ordinate and link with
international agencies such as INTERPOL,
CITES and the US Fish and Wildlife Service.
Though how successful it is in combatting
wildlife trade is unclear.
In recent years, many jurisdictions around
the world have thus found it necessary and
been motivated to develop crime units to
combat organized crime including Thailand’s
Department of National Parks, Wildlife
Forensics Crime Unit; and the Philippines
Government’s recently formed interagency
body; the National Anti-Wildlife Crime Council
(NAWCC). Cambodia’s Wildlife Rapid Rescue
Team is staffed by members of the Ministry
of National Defense, while the Ministry of
Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries handles up
to 90% of the country’s wildlife investigations
through referrals, its own network of
informants and its national hotline.
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