New and innovative approaches are urgently needed and the global civil society can now play its part with WildLeaks. Follow the presentation’s Storify thread including tweets immediately below:

WildLeaks is a nonprofit collaborative project created & funded by the Elephant Action League (EAL) and managed in collaboration with a group of very experienced individuals, which includes the directors of environmental investigation NGOs, environmental lawyers, accredited journalists, security professionals and ex-law enforcement officers.

The Mission of WildLeaks is to receive and evaluate anonymous information regarding wildlife and forest crimes and transform them into actionable items. The submission system is entirely based on the use of the Tor technology, which is integrated in the platform and allows the sources to stay anonymous and to submit sensitive information in a very secure way, always encrypted, in respect to data transmission and management. 

The priorities of WildLeaks are to prevent wildlife crime and to facilitate the identification, arrest and prosecution of criminals, traffickers, businessmen and corrupt governmental officials behind the poaching of endangered species and the trafficking of wildlife and forest products.

Wildlife crimes very often go undetected and unchallenged when people do not speak up about them, and whistleblowers can play a crucial role in fighting back, creating awareness and doing justice. 

The first 3-month pilot phase of WildLeaks, launched in February 2014, offers us the opportunity to evaluate this tool, have a look at its first results, get precious feedbacks and suggestions, and show how it could support the efforts of the international community in fighting wildlife crime.