Africa-Press – Seychelles. Wildlife trafficking is the fourth largest transnational criminal network in the world. The impact is not only ecological. It is also economical, sanitary and safe. Faced with this growing stake in the region, the Indian Ocean Commission (COI) and the NGO TRAFFIC have organized, from January 16 to 19, 2023, a regional workshop for information and sharing of good practices, bringing together forty representatives of the Member States of the IOC, Djibouti, Kenya and regional organizations including the Regional Maritime Security Centers. Objective: fight against this traffic that feeds criminal networks and harms the rich biodiversity of Eastern and Southern Africa and the Indian Ocean.
The Indian Ocean is one of the 34 hotspots of global biodiversity. In fact, it faces a set of risks: climate change, pollution, various anthropic pressures including the illegal trade of plant and animal species. This is why the IOC has implemented several projects for ecological and climatic resilience, including RECOS, and for the security of maritime spaces, similar to the MASE program. In fact, the illegal trade of wild species is mainly used by sea.
“The actions of the IOC have allowed, among others, to mobilize local communities in the preservation, management and monitoring of natural spaces, to support coastal restoration actions by adopting a global approach from ridges to reefs, to document and preserve the biodiversity of our country or even form eco-guards. To these numerous and diversified actions for biodiversity, is added the establishment of a regional architecture of maritime security for the surveillance and the fight against trafficking, especially of wild species”, indicated the Secretary General of the COI, Prof. Vélayoudom Marimoutou.
For its part, the NGO TRAFFIC, with the support of the European Union, has put in place the SADC-Twix internet tool, in order to promote the sharing of information and international cooperation.
The participants of the workshop were able to be sensitized to these tools that facilitate the exchange of information, the application of the law and international conventions and also make available data on seizures, trends and risks. The COI-TRAFFIC workshop was also an opportunity to foreshadow the establishment of a network between actors from different administrations: customs, law enforcement services, administrations in charge of environmental protection and management, maritime security centers (CRCO, CRFIM)…
In fact, wildlife trafficking generates between 7 and 23 billion dollars in revenue per year. Illegal wildlife trafficking has several negative effects. This type of activity represents an important threat to biodiversity but also to security, food and health and thus greatly impacts the economic development of the countries concerned. The marine or terrestrial resources targeted by criminals sometimes play a role in feeding the population and local communities can then be deprived of the resources necessary for their activities. In addition, this traffic presents a significant risk of introducing invasive species that endanger local ecosystems and strongly increase the appearance of zoonoses (diseases of animal origin). This can lead to important consequences when we know that 60% of emerging diseases are of animal origin.
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