USAID support has encouraged prosecutors and judges to prosecute wildlife crimes, ending poachers’ impunity
Prosecutors and judges have long seen poaching as just the killing of a “common animal,” which traditionally has not been viewed as a serious crime. When Mozambique introduced a new law in 2014 that criminalized wildlife poaching and trafficking, and set penalties of 12 to16 years’ imprisonment for illegal hunting, many in the judiciary considered the law to be exaggerated.
Beginning in 2017, USAID joined with the Attorney General’s Office (Procuradaria-Geral da República, PGR) and the National Conservation Areas Agency (Administração Nacional das Áreas de Conservação, ANAC) to give prosecutors the understanding and tools to pursue criminals under the new wildlife crime laws. These hands-on activities were designed and carried out in conjunction with experts supported by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the World Wildlife Foundation (WWF). While the curriculum involved practical legal/criminal topics—such as evidence management, asset recovery, and chain-of-custody—it importantly also provided education on wildlife's ecological and economic value for Mozambicans. The public servants learned about the linkages between wildlife poaching and international criminal networks that traffic drugs, people, weapons, and illegally obtained natural resources like timber and gemstones. Critical stakeholders in the criminal justice system began to understand that wildlife crimes were bigger than simply the “killing of a common animal.”
One training participant, Judge Ana Liquidão, imposed in 2021 the maximum sentence of 19 years imprisonment on two men accused of slaughtering two white rhinoceros in Limpopo National Park in Gaza Province, along the border with South Africa’s Kruger National Park. The verdict was one of the harshest ever handed down for wildlife crimes by a Mozambican court. Judge Liquidão admitted that,
...previously we would have pushed these wildlife cases aside to prioritize other cases…The training raised our interest in the protection of our natural resources and now I have to come to prioritize cases involving cases against wildlife.
This USAID program has been part of the on-going Supporting the Policy Enabling Environment for Development (SPEED) project, which launched a legal handbook for prosecutors in 2018 (the Rapid Reference Manual). SPEED also trained 65 judges and 250 law-enforcement officials on combating wildlife crimes and related criminal networks from 2019 to 2022. Notable Mozambican actions have included, in June 2022, a widely reported sting operation by Mozambican investigators netted two notorious rhino horn traffickers from Gaza Province, who allegedly smuggled to foreign markets hundreds of rhinoceros horns, taken from animals poached both from Mozambique and South Africa.
By overcoming a culture of impunity and creating a feeling of vulnerability in the criminal networks dealing with trafficked animal products, Mozambique has scored significant successes. USAID SPEED has encouraged prosecutors, judges, and law enforcement agents to take action. According to ANAC data, since 2020, there have been no reported cases of poached wildlife in Limpopo National Park. Judge Liquidão intends to do everything she can to keep it that way.
USAID | SPEED
USAID Mozambique