Today, March 3rd, the world joins in celebrating World Wildlife Day. As various activities are planned in different parts of the continent, we highlight one of Africa Biodiversity Collaborative Group’s (ABCG) efforts in mitigating wildlife trafficking in Africa.

“World Wildlife Day 2017, themed ‘Listen to the young voices’ encourages youth around the world to rally together to address ongoing major threats to wildlife including habitat change, over-exploitation or illicit trafficking. Youth are the agents of change. In fact, we are already seeing the positive impacts on conservation issues made by some young conservation leaders around the world. If they can help make a change, you can too!” World Wildlife Day

Through its emerging issues small grants program, ABCG awarded the Wildlife Conservation Society and the World Wildlife Fund working in collaboration with TRAFFIC China, a grant to engage Chinese overseas enterprises in mitigating impacts of wildlife trafficking in Africa.

The project aims to develop recommendations on best practices to be shared with development and conservation actors in Africa and internationally. Case studies in African countries e.g. South Africa, Mozambique, Ethiopia and Kenya have been collected and the set of best practices is being developed. The primary short term outcome for the project is the development of tools that can be widely adopted and reinforced at the policy level, such as an implementation module on wildlife trafficking and monitoring framework to strengthen elaboration of existing guidelines.