By Doh Bertrand Nua
Government has adopted a new holistic strategy aimed enforcing the fight against poaching, conservation of nature and other wildlife related crimes.
MINFOF, IUCN officials pose for group pic
The ten year strategy to run from 2020-2030 was adopted in a ceremony chaired by Minister of Forestry and Wildlife Minister at the Hotel La Falaise Friday 30 October 2020.
Speaking during the ceremony, Minister Jules Doret Ndongo, told participants that the strategy was adopted after consultations and brainstorming following the change of tactics and strategy by poachers.
He disclosed that new tactics adopted by poachers were made easy with the prevalence of small and light arms.
This, he added made poaching to become more like an issue of national and sub-regional security that warranted the ministry and other stakeholders to also revise their tactics that would enable them to be able to tackle the challenges.
He used the ceremony to highlight government’s ambitious project which was undertaken to modernise the legal, regulatory and institutional framework of the forestry and wildlife sub-sector with aim to enhance sustainable management of forestry and wildlife resources.
He disclosed the moves have produced results including the enactment of a law to lay down forestry, wildlife and fishery regulation, that on environmental management as well as implementation tools of the aforementioned laws including the decree to lay down conditions for the enforcement of wildlife regulations, order to draw up list of classified protected species, the order to fix the national anti-poaching committee among others.
Speaking at the event, Dr. Angu Angu Kenneth, Head of Programmes for the International Union for Conservation of Nature, IUCN, for Central and West Africa, explained that poaching and wildlife crime has been an issue over the years notably because of the involvement of organise criminals and armed groups which has made it to increasingly become a security problem.
Angu Angu told participants that recent statistics from the IUCN congress in Hawaii indicated that about 29% of the 82 952 species listed in the IUCN are threatened and risk extinction in the next decade if serious measures are not taken.
He said the holistic strategy adopted by the ministry would centre around seven key points including surveillance and protection, national, sub regional and international cooperation, involvement of local communities, resource mobilisation, capacity building, and inter-ministerial cooperation.
Participants at the event were drawn from the Ministry of Territorial Administration, the Police, national Gendarmerie, Military, Justice, international partners and diplomatic services.
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