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The country has yet to implement systematic monitoring of financial flows linked to wildlife trafficking. The vacuum allows criminal networks to flourish with impunity. This was one of the findings of the Second National Forum on Fighting Corruption and Wildlife Trafficking, held yesterday in Antananarivo.
According to research by the environmental organization Traffic, illegal financial flows in the global wildlife trade are estimated at between 50 and 20 million dollars per year. This scourge, which threatens global biodiversity, has particularly hit Madagascar, whose unique fauna has attracted increasing interest on the black market. Despite the scale of the phenomenon, the lack of financial investigations has severely limited initiatives aimed at curbing these criminal activities.
The U.S. government, through USAID, reaffirmed its commitment to combating these illegal practices at the forum. Held in partnership with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and Transparency International-Madagascar Initiative (TI-MG), the event brought together key players to raise key issues such as protecting environmental whistleblowers and using data to combat trafficking.
USAID’s Combating Corruption and Wildlife Trafficking (CCWT) project has trained more than 350 officials on specific laws and investigative techniques since 2022. In addition, 51 community informants were trained in key areas to denounce natural resource trafficking, leading to the arrest of traffickers of a particularly endangered species, marine turtles.
The CCWT project, scheduled to end in September 2024, benefits from a $10 million investment from the U.S. government and aims to strengthen customs procedures and improve environmental governance and natural resources legislation.
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