The EU Ambassador to Botswana and Southern African Development Community, Alexander Baum, has announced a project to address wildlife crime in the Kavango-Zambezi (KAZA) Trans-Frontier Conservation Area (TFCA).

A statement from EU said the project would strengthen wildlife law enforcement and cross-border collaboration in transboundary ecosystems by creating a trans-frontier wildlife law enforcement network of highly skilled individuals in the KAZA TFCA.

The project is estimated at €1.5 million and, through this funding, a trans-frontier wildlife law enforcement training facility with a holistic training curriculum for training the wildlife law enforcement community will be established in Boro, near Maun.

The curriculum will include best practices in intelligence gathering, wildlife ranger tactical and specialist operations, wildlife crime investigation, and wildlife crime prosecution and sentencing to ensure that the entire criminal justice chain in each country is skilled to the highest levels for tackling wildlife crime. A high-performance satellite communications network will be built to enable and enhance trans-frontier co-ordination on wildlife crime law enforcement.

By 2021, the project expects to see at least a 50% reduction in the illegal killing of elephants, verified by records, and a significant improvement in conviction rates and penalties for those prosecuted for wildlife crime.

The project is being implemented by the UK-based NGO Space for Giants and a local NGO, Tlhokomela Trust. The partner countries on the KAZA TFCA are Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

The announcement of the project came at a major conservation summit, The Giants Club Summit, which aims to redouble efforts to protect the KAZA. Botswana hosted the summit in Kasane in March.