Law enforcement and the judiciary
Collaborating with law enforcement and the judiciary includes:
- Presenting our custom designed courses and workshops, to South African Police, (the Hawks), anti-poaching units, Department of Environmental Affairs - Green Scorpions, prosecutors, magistrates and customs (SARS) ports authorities. These are presented across South Africa's provinces.
- This awareness training is vitally important as the majority of magistrates and prosecutors are unaware of the precarious position pangolins are in and the very real possibility of their extinction directly as a result of poaching and illegal trade primarily as an ingredient in traditional remedies in Asian traditional medicines.
Prof Ray Jansen inspects a sack of confiscated scales to provide species identification.
Historically, the APWG was the first NGO to liaise with law enforcement, provide evidence, affidavits and statements to populate court dockets. With the increasing successes of law enforcement agencies retrieving pangolins off the illegal trade, the efficiency of the associated court cases has also improved.
The APWG was also the first NGO to appear in court proceedings to provide testimony and evidence in aggravation of sentencing of pangolin poachers. Prior to 2016, a person trading in pangolins had yet to be sentenced to a jail term in South Africa. . In January 2017, a Zimbabwe national was sentenced to a term of seven years following our testimony; setting a landmark precedent for pangolin poaching in South Africa. The APWG also witnessed the first 10 year maximum sentence handed down in Pretoria Magistrate’s Court on 19 May 2021.
Resources for law enforcement
Despite a ban on international trade by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), pangolins are still one of the most trafficked mammals in the world. As a result, each of the eight species is now threatened with extinction. The USAID Pangolin Species Identification materials were developed to reverse this trend by assisting law enforcement officers identify pangolins in trade, including body parts and scales.
Background information for poaching incidents in South Africa
Provincial legislation for the Temminck’s ground pangolin
Cumulative trade in pangolin scales 2015 - 2021
Illegal pangolin trade in South Africa 2015-2021
Number of arrests from 2017 - 2020
