Guns, poison and horns: Organised wildlife crime in Southern Africa

Since 2010, wildlife crime in Southern Africa has increased exponentially. A new ENACT pilot study used media monitoring to track the phenomenon.

The incident monitoring component of the new ENACT project is an effort to systematically record instances of transnational organised crime in Africa to strengthen the evidence base of the scale and impact of the phenomenon. The pilot phase of the study focused on the topic of wildlife crime, and covered 10 countries in Southern Africa between 2000 and 2016. Information was collected on 27 different variables including crime type, location, date, species involved and state responses.

About the authors

Ciara Aucoin joined the ISS in 2016 as a researcher with the African Futures and Innovation team in Pretoria. She is currently a researcher with the ENACT project in Pretoria, which works to enhance Africa’s response to transnational organised crime. Before joining the ISS, she was a senior researcher and project manager for the Armed Con ict Location and Event Dataset Project (ACLED).

Zachary Donnenfeld joined the ISS in 2015 as a researcher with the African Futures and Innovation team in Pretoria. Zach has published work on development trends at the country, regional and continental level and also worked extensively on the ability of Africa to meet various Sustainable Development Goals.

Photograph: Paul Hudson/Flickr