A new INTER­POL report has under­lined the need for greater oper­a­tional and inves­tiga­tive responses to the highly lucra­tive illicit tiger trade if the species is to avoid extinction.

With both small-​scale oppor­tunis­tic crim­i­nals and organ­ised crime net­works using con­stantly chang­ing tac­tics and more inno­v­a­tive and sophis­ti­cated meth­ods to avoid detec­tion, the report by INTERPOL’s Envi­ron­men­tal Secu­rity unit says law enforce­ment efforts need to keep pace with the evolv­ing nature of wildlife crime.

The ‘Assess­ment of Enforce­ment Responses to Tiger Crime’ report also high­lights the need for a net­work of intel­li­gence ana­lysts from tiger range coun­tries to develop a plan for con­sis­tent, trans­par­ent and effec­tive infor­ma­tion man­age­ment in rela­tion to inter­na­tional wildlife trafficking.

To this end, a four-​day meet­ing with ana­lysts from tiger range coun­tries and other inter­na­tional spe­cial­ists will be held at the Gen­eral Sec­re­tariat head­quar­ters in Lyon in May. In addi­tion to shar­ing infor­ma­tion on Asian big cat crime, the meet­ing is also aimed at iden­ti­fy­ing areas where INTER­POL can sup­port coun­tries in strength­en­ing intel­li­gence man­age­ment to develop a cohe­sive global strat­egy to more effec­tively tackle the crim­i­nal net­works behind tiger crimes.

“Tools and ser­vices, such as INTERPOL’s data­bases and notices, are in place to help iden­tify and arrest crim­i­nals, but they need to be used to their full extent if they are to be effec­tive in com­bat­ing this and all types of wildlife crime,” said Mr Higgins.

The report was drafted as part of INTERPOL’s Project Preda­tor. Funded pri­mar­ily by the US Agency for Inter­na­tional Devel­op­ment (USAID), the project was cre­ated in 2011 to develop a global pic­ture of the crim­i­nal activ­ity under­min­ing ongo­ing con­ser­va­tion efforts in rela­tion to tigers and other big cats.

Watch and lis­ten to what David Hig­gins of INTERPOL’s Envi­ron­men­tal Secu­rity unit said about tiger crime and wildlife trade in ‘View­point’ on ASEAN TV, 15 March 2012:

(Source: cheep­a­jorn­loke YouTube channel)

“We are united in our efforts to stop the killing and ille­gal trade of wild tigers. This report works to this end and informs the United States’ efforts in imple­ment­ing our new National Strat­egy to com­bat wildlife traf­fick­ing,” said Mary Mel­nyk, USAID’s Senior Advi­sor, Nat­ural Resources Man­age­ment for Asia and the Mid­dle East.

The report high­lighted the impor­tant role of global and regional organ­i­sa­tions in encour­ag­ing coop­er­a­tion and com­mu­ni­ca­tion between tiger range coun­tries, as well as the need to raise pub­lic aware­ness to reduce con­sumer demand and sup­port tiger conservation.

The report’s find­ings were pre­vi­ously shared with other key part­ners at a meet­ing in Wash­ing­ton DC, which brought together agen­cies and organ­i­sa­tions includ­ing USAID, the US Fish and Wildlife Ser­vice, US Depart­ment of State’s Bureau of Inter­na­tional Nar­cotics and Law Enforce­ment Affairs (INL), the World Bank Global Tiger Ini­tia­tive, Smith­son­ian Insti­tu­tion, IFAW and WWF.

(Source: INTER­POL news release, 03.04.2014)