Kenya
The Kenya Wildlife Service’s functions include almost all aspects of national park management, cooperative wildlife management, research, tourism and infrastructure. The Service coordinates a 24-hour operations room, a host of specialist units, a paid informer pool, and a network of honorary wardens to gather intelligence, and a highly motivated staff, all of which work together to enforce restrictions on wildlife product trade, such as trade in illegal ivory. Their work within the borders of the State ensures that illegally obtained wildlife products are detected and confiscated (and those responsible prosecuted) before the products can be exported.
South Africa
Special Enforcement Units within South Africa have had a positive record in gathering intelligence, performing market surveillance, pursuing allegations of corruption, and prosecuting complex corporate investigations. One example of this is South Africa’s Endangered Species Enforcement Unit. The Unit was founded by experienced officers from the rangeland crime division who were familiar with the need to penetrate networks, go undercover, gather intelligence, and conduct sting operations.
South East Asia and Pacific (SEAP) Network
Monitoring and controls on imports and exports of Ozone Depleting Substances (ODS) is crucial in any ODS regime. In the SEAP Network there was an interesting transfer of ideas and systems combining experience from Australia, New Zealand, Sweden, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, and the Philippines.
At the 1994 SEAP Network Meeting, the participants concluded that it would be useful to collect the combined experience of the network countries that had some type of import/expert control system (Australia, New Zealand, Sweden, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, and the Philippines). In all these States, the legislation had both good features and certain areas for improvement a comparative analysis of which could serve as a basis for developing a functional import/export control system. As requested by the network, UNEP agreed to approach the Multilateral Fund to publish this collective experience.
The resulting publication, Monitoring Imports of Ozone-Depleting Substances – A Guidebook, among other things suggested that an import/export licensing system should contain direct reporting requirements so that more reliable import/export data can be collected. UNEP found the publication to be of wider interest than just for the SEAP Network and decided to distribute it worldwide. As proposed by Poland, it was also recommended by the 1997 Meeting of the Parties to the Montreal Protocol for use by States that sought more information on these issues. The same Meeting decided that all Parties should introduce import/export licensing systems to control ODS trade (Montreal Amendment).
The collective experience of the SEAP Network was used in 1997 as a basis for a UNEP workshop in Uganda for English-speaking Africa to develop a model on import/export controls, and for the development of UNEP resource manual on establishment import/export licensing systems. This latter publication is now being used by States around the world, including States within SEAP (the latest example being Brunei Darussalam).
The SEAP Network has then gone one step further by organising a joint workshop for ozone and customs officers in Jomtien, Thailand. This workshop has in turn resulted in initiating regional co-operation between NGOs and customs agencies, through workshops held back-to-back with SEAP network meetings.
The SEAP experience demonstrated that Networks can be very successful in transferring knowledge among government officers in developed and developing countries.
Copies of the Guidebook are available from the OzonAction Programme at ozonaction@unep.fr