India: UNODC South Asia Consultation brings together regional experts to strengthen responses to wildlife crime

New Delhi, India/7-8 December 2022: Each year, while countless species are driven closer to extinction, criminals make billions from the sale of protected wildlife products. As with other areas of transnational organized crime, wildlife crime is rooted in opportunities for profit.

Wildlife crime threatens species, ecosystems, livelihoods, security and public health. Countering this transnational organised crime requires a coordinated multi-stakeholder response.

To this end, the UNODC Global Programme on Crimes that Affect the environment (GPCAE) held a South Asia Regional Consultation on Addressing Wildlife Crime in New Delhi, India. The Consultation brought together 43 criminal justice and law enforcement officials from Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal and Sri Lanka. The consultation was held with support of the US Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs.

In the consultation, participants shared the recent trends on wildlife crime and trafficking within the countries, and exchanged good practices and lessons learnt that could be adapted and implemented in the region.

Discussions also focused on the bottlenecks to effective investigations leading to strong prosecutions and convictions, and identification of areas of synergies for joint responses to cross-border trafficking.

Some of the priority recommendations that were identified by the experts included: standardised trainings; better inter-agency inter-sectoral coordination and collaboration; regional information sharing platforms; e-courts on dealing with wildlife crime; and awareness on CITES, among others.

This activity contributed to SDG 13, SDG 14, SDG 15 and 16: https://sdg-tracker.org/ 

(Supported by US Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs)