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In March last year, a special court set up in Windhoek imposed fines totaling N383,700 on offenders involved in wildlife crime.
The court heard 22 cases, of which 7 were adjourned and 15 were concluded. Five cases resulted in convictions, two cases resulted in no convictions, 10 persons were convicted and three were released.
This was the report by Johannes Kalipi, Head of the Environmental Crime Unit of the Namibian Attorney General’s Office, on the status of wildlife crime prosecutions in Namibia at the National Wildlife Conservation and Law Enforcement Stakeholders Forum.
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Statistics show that from June 15, 2022 to July 2, 2023, a total of 409 judgments were handed down, of which only 16 resulted in fines.
These included 291 Namibians, 62 Zambians, 27 Angolans, 10 Botswana, eight Asians, seven South Africans, three Tanzanians and one Congolese.
Kalipi said that during this period, a total of 679 cases were filed, of which 472 were still under trial and 175 had resulted in convictions.
He stressed that environmental crime deserved attention because of its consequences, harm to people, impact on the rule of law and good governance, and its links to violence, corruption and a range of other crimes.
He said the global scale and impact of environmental crime required coordinated national and international law enforcement to address the problem.
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