Earlier this week, the Chinsali Subordinate Court sentenced Jurious Sakala, a notorious poacher who was caught with 9.5 kilos of elephant ivory to seven years imprisonment with hard labour. This is just one example in the growing trend of Courts around the country handing out higher penalties, above the minimum five-year-sentences, for illegal possession of prescribed trophies like ivory.Despite a ban on the international trade in ivory, African elephants are still being poached in large numbers, driven by a lucrative but deadly black-market trade linked to organized crime syndicates that coerce rural, unemployed, impoverished locals to get involved in poaching.Given how destructive poaching has been to the environment, wildlife populations, local communities and the nation at large, stiffer penalties for offenders have been lauded by conservationists. Mr. Solomon Chidunuka – one of Zambia’s celebrated rangers and current Senior Warden for Muchinga Province under the Department of National Parks and Wildlife, is a front liner in […]
Conservationists Laud Stiffer Punishments for Poachers
