Not only is this key to intercepting and stopping poaching activities but it is also a highly effective deterrent.
Wildlife crime, an illegal $19 billion industry, has become one of the major drivers of species extinction in the last several decades. Whilst criminal syndicates and individuals continue to help themselves to the environment’s most precious and finite resources, our planet’s wildlife will continue to be threatened.
The world’s wildlife faces a grave threat; being slaughtered and traded for their parts and derivatives to satisfy human greed and consumption. Whether ivory or rhino horn, tiger parts or pangolin scales, the illegal wildlife trade has become a multi-billion-dollar industry and threatens the very survival of our planet’s most vulnerable species.
In 2017, the Great African Elephant Census revealed huge declines in savanna elephant populations with an estimated 144,000 elephants killed across 15 African countries between 2007 – 2014 alone. Almost ten thousand African rhinos have been lost to poaching in the last decade and wild tiger populations have plummeted by 96% in less than a century. So why do we need law enforcement?
Without the hard and continual efforts of law enforcement agencies and wildlife rangers fighting against wildlife crime and the syndicates who fuel it we may see the extinction of thousands of species within our lifetime.
DSWF has been funding law enforcement programmes in Africa and Asia since 1984. Our ground-based conservation partners are dedicated and professional organisations with a deep understanding of the landscapes in which they operate.
Our support builds the capacity of law enforcement networks across our conservation portfolio and includes welfare support and the training and professional development of rangers fighting on the front line of conservation.
DSWF also provides wildlife ranger teams with essential equipment and resources to protect endangered species.
Where legal trade exists, law enforcement agencies, often under-resourced and under-funded, struggle to manage, maintain and distinguish between what is a legally sourced product and one resulting from illegal activity.
By ending the trade in endangered and threatened wildlife products we simplify the solutions, making the wildlife product illegal and therefore easier to police.
The grey spaces created by sanctioned trade and legal loopholes make it increasingly difficult for law enforcement specialists, rangers and police agencies to manage and disrupt.
The growing sophistication of wildlife criminals, aiming to evade capture and prosecution, means they are well armed, well-resourced and have the ability to move quickly across borders and continents.
Greater cooperation and attention are needed, by all stakeholders, to tackle environmental crime, something which DSWF is fully committed to in all aspects of its work.
By engaging with all aspects of governments and civil society we help provide training against illegal wildlife activities and pass on information which will ultimately lead to the identification, arrest and successful prosecution of some of the world’s most active wildlife criminals.
We work with a number of artists and creatives who help us capture the lives of the rangers on the front line of wildlife crime.
By using visual works through photography, video and art, we can help bring the harsh realities and challenges that front-line conservationists face to light, in a thought provoking and visual medium.
The power of successful video campaigns and advertisements can also be used to successfully remind people of the danger of driving, buying or engaging in illegal activity.
Please give now to support wildlife law enforcement
Wildlife crime, an illegal $19 billion industry, has become one of the major drivers of species extinction in the last several decades. Find out more about what DSWF is doing to tackle these abhorrent issues.
The illegal wildlife trade is a key driver of our current extinction crisis, particularly for species such as pangolin, rhino, tiger and elephant. Find out more about the type of investigation work that DSWF is funding.
Find out more about the role of the wildlife ranger and what DSWF is doing to support these conservation heroes on the front line.
A monthly donation of £{{ item.amount }} {{ item.reason }}
A one-off donation of £{{ item.amount }} {{ item.reason }}
All donations will help us continue our vital work conservation work to protect endangered species and turn the tide on extinction.
