The EAGLE Network Annual Report 2023: Cameroon, Africa
In Cameroon, a lucrative trade in ape skulls, bushmeat, and live animals threatens to wipe out populations that are already suffering from habitat loss and fragmentation. The EAGLE Network is addressing the problem of traffickers who drive the international illegal trade, but its operations are hampered by extensive government corruption.
GG Funds Partner EAGLE to Stop Wildlife Poaching
EAGLE: Eco Activists for Governance and Law Enforcement, is a network of members across Africa, who are replicating effectively a program and operational model to undertake wildlife law enforcement, based on the LAGA-Cameroon model, trailed, practiced and tested since 2003. The EAGLE Network currently operates in eight African countries and keeps expanding. The over-arching objective of the EAGLE Network is: Developing civic activism and collaborating with governments and civil society to improve the applica-tion of national and international environmental legislation, through a program of activities: investigations, arrests, prosecutions and publicity. Through this, EAGLE aims to generate a strong deterrent against the illegal trade in wildlife, timber and related criminal activities, including corruption.
The bush meat trade is prevalent in areas of Cameroon.
Investigations were carried out in six countries producing significant results. The investigation departments received constant support and assistance from the CCU that facilitated information exchange and backing among the countries. A number of cross border arrests were done thanks to these initiatives. Although there was a drop in the number of investigation missions as compared to last year, this could be explained by nature of investigations carried out and the challenges encountered at the beginning of the year, the quality of the investigations were very high and some of them produced highly successful operations. Recruitment was intensified and investigators were tested in all countries and some joined the teams. The recruitment processes continued in all the countries to find more good investigators, especially investigators with specific profiles and skills.
Rescued African gray parrots waiting for a medical check before quarantine.
Corruption in Cameroon
Corruption is prevalent in all levels of the enforcement and judicial process. The impunity driven by corruption and the light sentences given to major traffickers remains the key problem to organized wildlife crime as one of those connected to the arrest had been arrested in Cameroon and given a very light sentence. In 4 cases of the operation, corruption was witnessed and fought against at the day of the arrest or shortly after. A network of traffickers using corruption to facilitate ivory trafficking between Gabon and Cameroon was dismantled and 9 traffickers were arrested with 21 elephant tusks weighing 131 kg. This network is estimated to have generated the killings of thousands of elephants, demonstrating that corruption is the main enabler of organized wildlife trafficking.
Nine traffickers arrested in Gabon with 21 elephant tusks weighing 131 kg in a crackdown on a major ivory trafficking ring using hidden compartments in vehicles. The seizure of 21 tusks and 4 ivory pieces is a mere snapshot of the regular activities of this vast network operating for many years with representatives and stations spread all over Gabon, Congo, Equatorial Guinea and Cameroon, trafficking ivory between Central and West Africa.
This network, that is estimated to have generated the killings of thousands of elephants, demonstrates that corruption is the main enabler of organized wildlife trafficking. One of its heads has been arrested in Cameroon 3 years ago with 600 kg ivory but was awarded a ridiculous sentence sending him right back to resume his illegal activities.
Three traffickers were arrested with 91 kg of pangolin scales in back-to-back arrests in September, in Cameroon. Two of the traffickers were arrested as they attempted to sell a bag of pangolin scales. A third trafficker was arrested immediately after he arrived in the town where the arrest took place. He transported the pangolin scales on a motorbike from a nearby locality. They are well connected, at a significantly high level, to trafficking of pangolin scales in the area. They had links to smaller traffickers of pangolin scales.
Four primate traffickers were arrested in Cameroon. An ape trafficker was arrested, and a baby chimpanzee rescued; 2 more traffickers were arrested with a young mandrill in August, in Cameroon. The ape trafficker was arrested while attempting to sell the chimpan-zee. The animal had been chained and caged alongside a dog in the home of the trafficker. The little female was frail and aggressive and looked like she had suffered from trauma. The trafficker talked about trying to sell the chimp to a governor. The mandrill was spotted in the street by the arresting team. The trafficker was arrested and a second detained at the police station when he showed up after police requested for his presence.
A primate trafficker was arrested and a drill rescued in November in Cameroon. The very young drill, an endangered primate, stressed and agitated, was tied with a rope in the waist. The trafficker, who works for a city council, transported the cage with the drill on his bike. He was waiting for another supply of a baby primate that was killed when local poachers shot dead its mother.
Five traffickers were arrested with 126 African grey parrots in a crackdown on a transnational live animals trafficking ring in Côte d’Ivoire and Senegal, with the origin of the parrots transportation coming from Cameroon. Two of those traffickers were arrested with 115 parrots including 110 African grey parrots in Cote d’Ivoire. One of them is a Senegalese national who was arrested while attempting to sell 91 African grey parrots in Abidjan. He denounced the supplier, an Ivorian national, who was stocking the birds in his hidden aviary. Raiding the quarantine, more evidence was found on the vast stretch and magnitude of the ring and its connection to ape trafficking.
The African grey parrots were transported by road from Cameroon to Côte d’Ivoire by highly professional traffickers who have been doing this kind of business for decades. The Ivorian supplier has been trafficking for 30 years. He sourced birds from Liberia, Cameroon, Nigeria, and Ghana. He was considered as one of the biggest wholesalers in the country. Thanks to collaboration, the long and meticulous investigation involved the Senegal Team. The house of the Senegalese trafficker was searched in Dakar and 3 more traffickers arrested and 11 Timneh parrots seized. Documents exposed systemic corruption with bribe amounts included in calculations and a high level of complicity, including falsification of CITES documents, facilitating this transnational trafficking.
Eight traffickers arrested with 131 kg of pangolin scales in Cameroon and Congo. Three of the traffickers were arrested with 78 kg of pangolin scales were arrested in May, in Cameroon and as wildlife officials were establishing the offence report, they received pressure from the accused persons who proposed money so that the officials could discontinue the procedure and this was vigorously fought back.
August 11, a major trafficker who had been sentenced to prison in recent years was denounced and ar-rested in Makokou, North-East Gabon. He was in charge of collecting ivory in the East and North-East of Gabon. He was waiting to be delivered more ivory by the traffickers arrested on August 8. Investigations led to the arrest of 4 more traffickers and the seizure of 2 ivory tusks weighing 11 kg on August 17 and 18, all being members of the same trafficking ring. At different levels, all of these traffickers were working in the same syndicate. It was estimated that more than $40 000 have been spent in buying ivory only within 9 months, at the time of their arrest. That could be estimated to more than 1 ton of ivory traded within less than a year. One of the kingpins who was arrested in October 2020 in Cameroon, with more than 600 kg of ivory, and while still on trial, he was busy with his illegal activities of collecting ivory in the neighboring countries.
A trafficker was arrested with 55 kg of pangolin scales in April in Cameroon. He travelled 41 km with the bag of pangolins scales strapped to his motorcycle. He was arrested when he arrived at the scene of the transaction and attempted to sell the pangolin scales. The operation came at the end of a long investigation that tracked and monitored the pangolins trafficker who is experienced in the illegal business. He activated a host of small traffickers in several villages, who supplied him with pangolins scales.
Two traffickers were arrested with 47 kg of pangolin scales in July in Cameroon. The scales are from the endangered giant pangolin. The traffickers took steps to avoid arrest and used a motorcycle to move around. They transported the pangolin scales in a bag and moved hesitantly, conscious of the risks of their illegal business. The pangolin scales were driven from killed giant pangolins poached along the Sanaga River, which is the longest river in the country.
A primate trafficker arrested and a drill rescued in Cameroon in November. The very young drill, an endangered primate, stressed and agitated, was tied with a rope in the waist. The trafficker, who works for a city council, transported the cage with the drill on his bike. He was waiting for another supply of a baby primate that was killed when local poachers shot dead its mother.
Legal Follow Up
The EAGLE Network legal teams in the six countries followed up the court cases of the 90 arrested traffickers. All the court cases were followed fighting corruption and ensuring imprisonment terms handed. 84 % of the arrested traffickers remained behind bars while on trial, at least from the beginning.
During the semester 65 traffickers were prosecuted and 38 of them convicted to imprisonment sentences of various time. The majority of the 27 others were handed suspended prison sentences and or fines and damages. This year saw a strike in Gabon by magistrates limiting the number of court procedures successfully reaching the judgement stage, in a country with a very good prosecution to jail term record. Nevertheless, good deterring punishments were handed in Gabon and Congo. Some examples of good court decisions include:
A pangolin scales trafficker was sentenced to 6 months in prison in June, in Cameroon. He was arrested in April with 55 kg of pangolin scales. Another pangolin scales trafficker sentenced to 6 months in prison in October, in Cameroon. He was arrested in July with 47 kg of pangolins scales.
Foggy overgrown hills in rainforest of Cameroon, Africa.
External Relations
Building a relationship of equals with government that is an exception from normal NGO-Government relationships and centering on the fight against corruption, ensuring effective enforcement and consequences for lack of law application is one of the main objectives of the EAGLE Network. This is realized through fostering government relations and engaging the international community to ensure good governance and law application, while pushing the EAGLE Network international messages of larger change. Fostering EAGLE Network’s relations with Embassies and other members of the international community is therefore of high importance in the sensitive domain of law enforcement. During this year, the EAGLE activists held many meetings with international authorities, government officials within and outside of their countries, meetings with traditional rulers, they cooperated with local and international NGOs, participated in conferences and conducted several trainings.
The Deputy Director in Cameroon participated at a pangolin conservation planning workshop, that brought together stakeholders in pangolin conservation in March, in Ghana. The workshop focused on producing a West African regional action plan for pangolin conservation to be validated and adopted by the range states and other pangolin conservation stakeholders. He was part of a panel on the role of law enforcement in pangolin conservation.
He held a meeting with 3 officials from the US Departments of Justice and Agriculture to discuss wildlife law enforcement and illegal logging in the country in May.
The Deputy Director held a meeting with Lisa Hywood, Founding Director of Tikki Hywood Foundation, who was on a visit to Cameroon in June. Discussions focused on possible areas of collaboration to strengthen the fight against pangolin trafficking.
The Deputy Director and the Head of the Legal Department participated at a meeting with wildlife officials that focused on the Memorandum of Understanding to be signed with the Ministry of Wildlife and Protected Areas in July.
