Public prosecutors are currently attending a two-day workshop to build their capacity
in
expediting wildlife crimes.
Speaking at the event on Friday, Deputy DPP
Jacob Ondari
called for more synergy among stakeholders in combating such crimes.
The workshop is organized by the International Fund for Animal Welfare.
Other participants are from Directorate of Criminal Investigations, Kenya Wildlife Service and National Intelligence Service.
Crime in the wildlife sector starts with the illicit exploitation of natural resources, such as the poaching of an elephant, uprooting of a rare orchid, unauthorized logging of trees, or unlicensed netting of sturgeons.
It also includes the concealment and laundering of the financial benefits made out of these crimes.
Last week,
Kenya was listed as one of the
three of African countries with a wide network of ivory trafficking rings.
A study published
in the
says
a DNA sampling technique on elephant tusks exposed the rings.
The study was led by Samuel Wasser, a director of the University of Washington Center for Conservation Biology.
Together with
his team, he sampled 38 large ivory shipments seized around the world between 2006 to 2014.
Details:
Illegal hunting
to 2012 when about 100,000 elephants were killed, the equivalent of more than 33,000 a year.
In the 1970s, Africa had about 1.2 million elephants, but now has 400,000 to 450,000.
The situation for rhinos is more precarious.
Kenya
alone had 20,000 rhinos in the 1970s, falling to 400 in the 1990s. It now has almost 650 black rhinos.