PROJECT DESCRIPTION
BACKGROUND
Poaching of endangered wildlife species is prohibited by different international conventions and by EU legal instruments such as the Birds and Habitats directives. However, their national implementation is usually poorly monitored, with crimes not sufficiently investigated and prosecuted or convictions secured. In addition, while the EU has a comprehensive regulatory framework on the illegal wildlife trade, its enforcement on a national responsibility varies from country to country. Inadequate levels of compliance assurance, particularly with regard to effective sanctioning, make wildlife crime attractive to organised groups as the likelihood of detection and prosecution is low and the profit margins are often high. As a result, poaching for food (songbirds) and high economic gain (sturgeon caviar), control of predators/pests and retaliation (wolves and otters), illegal killing for sport and illegal collection of eggs or pets continue. This is why environmental crime has become a priority for 2018-2021 in the EU's fight against serious international and organised crime.
OBJECTIVES
LIFE SWiPEs overall objective was to discourage, and ultimately reduce, wildlife crime by improving compliance with EU environmental law and increasing the number of offences successfully prosecuted. The projects activities boosted the awareness and capacity of prosecutors and selected law enforcement authorities to provide effective environmental compliance assurance, enhance cross-border knowledge exchange, and increase cooperation between investigative agencies.
This was achieved through the following specific objectives:
- by 2023, a robust and reliable evidence base on European wildlife crime in 11 target countries to create a critical improvement in access to information, enabling comparison of data across Europe;
- by 2023, significantly increased awareness, knowledge and capacity of 300 wildlife crime professionals (prosecutors and experts from enforcement agencies) in 11 target countries, underpinned by a supportive policy environment and resulting in better national and cross-border governance in relation to investigation and prosecution of wildlife crime;
- efficient communication of project actions and outputs, promoting engagement of 10 million European citizens and key target technical audiences, supporting pan-European replication.
RESULTS
- 40% increase in the number of wildlife crime cases investigated and reported proceeding to trial due to improved expertise, along with enhanced interagency and cross-border cooperation among responsible authoritiescommitment to strategic cooperation reaffirmed by 154 European actors in the wildlife crime prosecution chain, including prosecutors, enforcement agencies and NGOs representing 11 focal countries;
- intelligence on wildlife crime gathered from 11 countries and analysed in a participatory manner, delivering facts on the number and type of investigations and prosecutions, reasons for non-prosecution and gaps in current practices, in order to establish national and European baselines and inform policy advocacy;
- an effective Europe-wide internet-based information portal https://stopwildlifecrime.eu/ set up, facilitating the sharing of information, visited annually by an average of 1 272 individuals, including representatives of investigation and prosecution agencies and other wildlife crime specialists, and whose maintenance is ensured for at least five years after the projects end;
- 1,244 experts trained, including 347 prosecutors, 280 police representatives, 118 customs officers, 121 NGO experts, and 378 other WLC experts across 11 countries, resulting in significantly increased knowledge and understanding of the impact of WLC on protected species, its connections to other criminal activities, and effective strategies for combating it;
- a total of nearly 366 million citizens reached and 25 exemplary cases of verdicts communicated to the general public in order to change the sense of impunity and low risk around wildlife crime.
