Before an attentive audience made up of magistrates, judges, senior police officers, US Embassy officials and activists, Brian Oppelt, an official from the police liaison office at the South African High Commission in Kenya described how members of his country’s special anti-poaching unit used shrewd methods to dismantle a poaching network.

Mr Oppelt revealed how a crafty crackdown method against a notorious poacher, who had amassed wealth from poaching bore fruit.

To dismantle the poacher’s network, officers from the unit infiltrated his criminal outfit to know exactly how it operated, how much the ring leader owned and where the cash was stashed.

A brief was given to one of the officers to befriend the poacher’s wife.

“When the poaching kingpin was arrested and eventually convicted, the South African government took over all his property, including his wife. We had to play dirty,” said Mr Oppelt.

The South African official was addressing a conference to assess how Kenya’s justice and law enforcement systems may have unwittingly abated the runaway poaching and other wildlife crimes.

Participants were taken through the handling of suspected poachers from the time they are arrested, charged and until they are prosecuted and sentenced.

Participants also explored the shortcomings and challenges law enforcement agencies face as they combat poaching and other wildlife crimes. They were also taken through what they can learn from the approaches adopted by other countries.

It was evident from the presentations that many of the poachers have been getting sentences that are nothing but a slap on the wrist. The participants blamed poaching on a weak wildlife law, faulty charge sheets and loss and destruction of exhibits.

Most of the participants were drawn from the Judiciary, the Office of the Director of Public Prosecution, the National Police Service, Kenya Wildlife Service, Customs Department, the Kenya Revenue Authority and the tourism sector.

Mr Oppelt introduced participants to his country’s unique style of fighting poachers. Following an escalation in poaching that led to the killing of more than 1,000 rhinos last year, South Africa decided to change tack after identifying poaching as an organised international crime, he said.

“Organised crime knows no borders… those involved are the most effective and powerful interest groups on the planet. They have a lot of money and obey no rules.”

According to Mr Oppelt, African countries must adopt innovative and unique approaches to succeed in war against poaching.

“The police may need to bend some of the rules without breaking the law.”

When it formed the special police unit, the South African government gave the anti-poaching unit autonomy from the main police force.

The unit’s detectives went undercover in what Mr Oppelt described as “prosecutor-guided investigations.”

Once arrested, suspects are charged with several crimes, which are duly entered in the charge sheets. The sheets also detail all the statutes the suspects may have broken. Once convicted, suspects are given hefty penalties, which include tracking their property with a view to seizing it.

A similar approach is increasingly gaining popularity elsewhere in Africa. In Kenya, for instance, the government established an inter-agency anti-poaching team made up of officers from the General Service Unit, Administration Police, and Kenya Wildlife Service rangers.

Intelligence gathering

According to chairman of KWS Board of Trustee David Mwiraria, Kenya has deployed crime prevention officers with sniffer dogs at the country’s borders besides engaging in what he termed “pro-active intelligence gathering and sharing.”

“This has led to the identification of some of the poaching kingpins operating in Kenya… and the principal buyers of ivory, who we cannot nail for now, since we are still looking for adequate evidence against them,” said Mr Mwiraria.

Kenya has also deployed scanners to detect wildlife contraband at the country’s ports besides setting up a soon-to-be-commissioned genetics and forensic laboratory that will assist in gathering fool-proof evidence against poachers.

Kenya has successfully reviewed its wildlife law after more than a decade of bickering, boardroom turf wars and controversy among conservation groups and their international backers.

The new law, Wildlife (Conservation & Management) Act, 2013, which received presidential assent on January 10, makes poaching an unattractive criminal undertaking. It provides for a fine of Ksh20 million ($235,294) or life imprisonment for convicted poachers.

Tanzania, too, has not been left behind. After bearing the brunt of the poaching menace, which is said to have resulted in the killing of as many as 11,000 elephants each year, Dar es Salaam has employed 500 new rangers and plans to raise the number to 4,788 by 2016. This was revealed by President Jakaya Kikwete when he addressed delegates during the conference on illegal wildlife trade in London a fortnight ago.

READ: Poaching accord signed as world agrees to fight wildlife crime

President Kikwete also told journalists that his country was no longer interested in partial ivory trade and was considering destroying its ivory stockpile to discourage the trade.

“We have about 112 tonnes of ivory… we used to have the idea of asking for permission to sell, but we do not think these are the times,” President Kikwete said in an interview with CNN on the sidelines of the London Conference.

Other measures adopted include the deployment of sophisticated surveillance technology including unmanned drones. Among the first people to call for anti-poacher drones is Iain Douglas-Hamilton, the founder of Save the Elephants, a Samburu-based conservation NGO.

In a testimony to the US Foreign Affairs Committee on May 24, 2012, Douglas-Hamilton pleaded with America to support anti-poaching initiatives in Africa by donating helicopters, planes, remote sensors, gunshot indicators as well as drones.

The possibility of drone use was accentuated last year when the Ol Pejeta Wildlife Conservancy in Kenya’s Laikipia county, teamed up with a California-based firm Airware, to build and test drones for the purpose of protecting its endangered wildlife species, especially northern white rhino.

Armed with video cameras, the drones are able to send information to rangers on poachers movements besides tracking radio-frequency tags of endangered species, making it possible for rangers to monitor their movements.

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New approaches

Although many African countries have taken such new approaches, their efforts have hardly managed to deter poachers or to contain poaching activities on the continent.

Instead, the poaching menace has reached a crisis of monumental proportion with few historical parallels while the killing of such key-stone species as elephants and rhinos has been on a steady increase.

It is as if the poachers are oblivious of the extra-ordinary measures being undertaken by governments.

For instance, statistics show that between 25,000 and 30,000 elephants are killed on the continent every year. In addition, according to the BBC, the actual magnitude of rhino poaching in South Africa was to manifest itself last year when 1,004 were killed, a 50 per cent increase over the killings in 2012.

It is interesting that most of the killings take place at Kruger National Park, which is believed to be more heavily guarded than most other parks in Africa. 

Kenya is no better. Although the Kenya Wildlife Service indicate that only 384 elephants were killed last year, other reports say that the country’s elephant population is at its lowest in more than a decade.

A survey carried out by volunteers who flew the Tsavo National Park recently, revealed that elephant numbers there had declined to 11,000 from 12,500 three years ago.

The escalation of poaching is partly attributed to poaching being done by sophisticated international networks involving rich and well-connected local people.

Sophisticated network

This is said to be taking place in Tanzania, where the country’s Tourism and Natural Resources Minister Khamis Kagasheki revealed to participants attending a media workshop recently that “the business involves rich people who have formed a very sophisticated network.”

To secure the ivory, international poaching syndicates are said to employ middlemen who make contacts with gun-wielding local poachers.

The poachers are said to have good knowledge of the local terrain and keep long vigils in the bush even as they closely monitor the movements of not just the animals but also rangers in the parks. Theirs is a risky and bloody undertaking that usually results in the killing and hacking off of tusks and rhino horns.

READ: Dar, Nairobi to urge pressure on ivory-buying states

Blame has also been laid, constantly, on the existence of a big illegal ivory and rhino horns market in countries in the Far East.

“As much as 80 per cent of the illegal ivory emanating from Africa ends up in China and Thailand,” says Dr Paula Kahumbu, chief executive of the Nairobi-based NGO WildlifeDirect.

Demand for ivory and rhino horns is occasioned by “outdated beliefs” by many nationals of the two countries, she notes.

Most importantly, there has been a tremendous rise in income levels, particularly in China, where more than 300 million people have joined the middle class over the past two decades or so.

With an annual income of between $10,000 and $60,000, the number of Chinese who are now middle-income earners is evidently higher than the entire population of the United States.

But China finds these accusations; it recently destroyed a substantial amount of ivory products.

Priced commodities

Another factor driving poaching is that Ivory and rhino horns have become highly priced commodities. Reports show that a kilogramme of rhino horns sells at $65,000, making it more expensive than gold or cocaine. This is said to be one of the critical drivers of the poaching.

However, some believe the root causes of poaching are yet to be addressed.

“At the roots of the poaching menace is the fact that the historical injustices related to conservation have been maintained by governments in many parts of the continent” said Sammy Ole Mpeti, a community leader in Siana in Kenya’s Narok County.

“If those who suffer the brunt of conservation do not enjoy its benefits, who can blame them for accepting contracts from poaching kingpins or the middlemen?” he asked.

Mr Mpeti’s sentiments were echoed by other critics of conservationists who say that even civil society groups and conservation NGOs have largely acquiesced themselves with the injustices or have merely been offering either token or verbal solutions.

“The most unfortunate thing to have happened to wildlife conservation in Africa is that the approach adopted by the international community is largely informed by NGOs and other players in the conservation fraternity, whose main interest is how they can benefit from the quagmire and not how to solve,” said Joseph Odiek Nyachar, an environmental science  master’s student at Moi University.