PROJECT DESCRIPTION
BACKGROUND
Wildlife crime (WLC) has a negative impact on species worldwide and puts the EU’s biodiversity under growing pressure. The project wildLIFEcrime takes up the most acute issues of the revised Environmental Crimes Directive, aims to reduce human wildlife conflicts and proposes the establishment and anchoring of long-term solutions in governance institutions with immediate responsibility in the law enforcement chain. WildLIFEcrime tackles all relevant governance actions needed to reduce WLC: prevention, case-management, prosecution and conviction of WLC. It identifies bottlenecks and shortcomings to improve effectiveness and efficiency in all stages. To secure the availability of skilled staff, capacities and a reliable cooperative structure between governance institutions, the project is implemented by a strong consortium of governance bodies, research/forensic institutes and NGOs. The consortium of WildLIFEcrime that includes 13 partners from DE and AT who planned this proposal together will achieve the project’s general objective to significantly support the recovery of threatened species by preventing WLC, significantly raising the number of correctly reported WLC cases and working towards a swift management of cases, better prosecution and adequate judicial proceedings. The focus lies on nine species of community interest: bear, wolf, lynx, otter, beaver, white-tailed eagle, imperial eagle, red kite, marsh harrier in 6 focus regions in the two countries. The project’s strength lies in anchoring specially designed WLC specific trainings in already existing, institutionalised platforms e.g. police academies, forensic institutes and university education. The sustainability, uptake and replication of project results is based on 2 pillars: building up and stabilising the necessary structures in 2 focus countries and the use of the partner’s strong networks and their ties to governance institutions to push replication of the approach and policy shaping across Europe.