Law enforcement and the judiciary
The African Pangolin Working Group work very closely with law enforcement on the ground involving the seizure of traded wild pangolins. We assist the South African Police Service with sting operations and assist the Environmental Management Inspectorate of the Department of Environmental Affairs with Chain-of –Custody sampling of these traffic pangolins. This is vitally important in the court case hearings of the accused traffickers that follow arrests. Our organisation also assists the judiciary in species identification of confiscated pangolins and scales and we provide court statements and appearances at court hearings in providing testimony in aggravation of sentencing against the accused prior to being sentenced.
Prior to 2016, a person trading in pangolins had yet to be sentenced to a jail term in South Africa. We have been subpoenaed to a number of cases involving pangolins and in late 2017 we convinced the magistrate in Ram**** regional court to sentence the accused to a jail term of three years. In January this year, a Zimbabwe national was sentenced to a term of seven years following our testimony; setting a landmark precedent for pangolin poaching in South Africa.
We offer training for magistrates, state prosecutors and the South African Revenue Service Customs officers as to the law governing pangolins, the protection status around pangolins and the global wildlife trade pertaining to pangolins. 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 medicine.
The training of Pangolin detection dogs for law enforcers - VIEW
Pangolin Law Enforcement documents for South African prosecutors and magistrates:
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Background information required for Pangolin poaching incidents in South Africa - VIEW
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Provincial legislation for the Temminck’s Ground Pangolin - VIEW
View the Pangolin trade and poaching figures for 2016 & 2017