Entirety | PANORAMA

autonomous operation thanks to solar panels

Sunbox with Solar panels

RVM Conception

The Sunbox has 12 solar panels that allow autonomous operation. In addition, solar panels protect users from rain and sun.

Thanks to the solar panels, it is not compulsory to connect the Sunbox to electricity. However, for 24-hour operation, it is necessary to connect it to electricity.

For better user comfort, we have planned to place the RVMs on each side of the Sunbox. This allows you to create 2 separate queues

Review phase

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Global

Uniform sentencing

Country-level contexts are important to take into consideration as part of efforts to prevent illegal wildlife trafficking. It's really important to bring all the relevant stakeholders together to compare notes, share innovations, and ensure that sentencing guidelines are harmonised within and between jurisdictions. This can be bolstered by trainings and capacity building at the regional and international levels.

Having a knowledgeable judiciary can help establish uniform sentencing, and underscore the point that sentences for wildlife-related crimes seldom reflect the killing of a single animal, but rather must address the damage that wildlife trafficking can do to ecosystems, economies, and the rule of law.

This work has shown that it's important to bring all the relevant stakeholders together. The trainings as part of this solution have brought together law enforcement, prosecutors, and the judiciary, all of which are crucial in effective interdiction and enforcement.

Cooperation – Enhancing information sharing across jurisdictions

Multi-jurisdictional cooperation is a key element of wildlife protection and illegal wildlife trafficking. Strategies to reduce the pressurse of illegal and unsustainable trade on biodiversity - and enhance the benefits to wildlife conservation and human well-being that derive from trade at sustainable levels - require cooperation between conservations, law enforcement, customs, and private industry.

Cross-jurisdictional comparisons of wildlife trade trends, patterns, impacts and drivers to bolster the knowledge base on trade in wild animals and plants.
Policy-level work to inform, support and encourage action by governments and international bodies to adopt, implement and enforce effective policies

Effective information sharing through formal and informal networks can result in high-level conviction and seizure of assets.

Once a baseline level of cooperation is established, individual nations should implement legislation to enable wildlife crime to be treated as serious and organised crime according to the UN Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime (UNTOC), with penalties of four years or more in prison. Sentences should punish the offender to an extent that is justified by the circumstances, and be comparable with sentences applied to other serious crimes. Sentences should provide conditions that will help the offender to be rehabilitated, deter the offender and other persons from committing the same or a similar offence, and make clear that the community denounces the sort of conduct in which the offender was involved.

Information exchange between law enforcement agencies, FIUs, financial institutions, and civil society should be encouraged, to share knowledge, identify targets and patterns of behaviour, and more effectively mitigate wildlife crime risks.

Forensic accounting for wildlife trafficking interdiction

Photo courtesy of Harun Guclusoy/UNDP

Trainings

Wildlife crime is not purely a conservation issue, as its adverse impacts also threaten sustainable development, good governance, rule of law, and national security.

The aim of this building block is to identify the risks and vulnerabilities of money laundering and how it relates to wildlife crimes. Additionally, this building block endeavours to provide guidance and recommendations to law enforcement and related personnel to enhance the financial aspect of wildlife crime investigations.

Fraudulent paperwork can transform wildlife contraband into seemingly legitimate merchandise, enabling it to be openly traded and evade interdiction. There are many schemes that criminals use to create fraudulent wildlife paperwork, including false declarations of captive breeding, purchasing paperwork from corrupt officials, forging paperwork, re-using or altering old permits, etc. Forensic accounting is therefore an important building block

Transnational organised crime is found wherever money can be made from illicit dealings, and well-organised criminal groups have turned illegal exploitation of wildlife into a professional business with lucrative revenues. Criminal groups exploit gaps in legislation, law enforcement and the criminal justice system; and the generally weak legislation and inadequate law enforcement in wildlife protection has enabled wildlife criminal groups to flourish. Forensic accounting allows practitioners to close these gaps and bolster wildlife protection.

In order to capitalise on enhanced forensic accounting, complementary legislation should enable wildlife crime to be considered a predicate offence for money laundering, so that anti-money laundering tools can be used. Governments should review their criminal legislation to ensure that law enforcement agencies are fully authorised to follow the financial flows related to wildlife crime and to prosecute money laundering offences.

Domestic multi-agency cooperation should be common practice for wildlife crimes, involving police, customs, environmental authorities, Financial Investigation Units (FIUs), prosecutors, and other relevant domestic agencies for sharing information, intelligence, and conducting joint investigations where appropriate. Joint investigative teams which include FIUs are essential to target criminal networks and not just low-level offenders, and have long been used successfully to address other serious crime types.

Strengthening local skills and knowledge

Workshop on livestock health practices in the community

Instituto de Montaña

This component has been transversal to the entire project and included training and workshops on livestock and pasture management, animal health, and planting and harvesting water, carried out in collaboration with the Universidad Nacional del Centro and external specialists. These activities helped to raise awareness among cattle ranchers and managers of the communal farm and testimonies indicate that their skills in these areas have increased.

Local knowledge was key to developing the livestock management strategy and the shed's design and construction. The use of ancestral technologies existing on the ranches, such as stone corrals, and local materials were chosen.

As part of the communication activities, an awareness campaign was developed with the support of the Rare organization to promote sustainable grazing practices within the community. The campaign, which used the slogan "Smart grazing is the pride of my people", included radio soap operas, comics, and plays with the participation of women and men of all ages. This helped raise awareness among the population about the importance of proper pasture and livestock management and helped disseminate information about the project at the community and NYCLR levels.

Use of communication tools to disseminate information about the project and raise public awareness about climate change, the importance of adaptation actions, and the sustainable management of natural resources.
Dialogue between local knowledge and technical-scientific knowledge, facilitated by specialists in participatory processes.
The active collaboration and leadership of the livestock department (committee) were key to achieving active participation of the local population during the workshops.

Adaptation measures, from their design, must incorporate local knowledge and respond to community priorities and perspectives to ensure their effectiveness, viability, and sustainability.
It is essential that the field team is trained in the application of participatory approaches, methods, and tools that contribute to improving the quality of participation and facilitate collective learning and dialogue between local, technical, and scientific knowledge.
It is essential to incorporate all community members in communal assemblies to encourage participation.
Communication activities help to raise levels of trust and participation, as well as local ownership.
Diversify work with local partners, combining workshops with other methods, practical tools, and fieldwork (of the "learning by doing" type).
Develop activities that involve women, youth, and other groups within the community.
Maintain a high field presence and share daily updates with the community.

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Song: Pastoreo inteligente es el orgullo de mi gente (Intelligent shepherding i…

Ecosystem-based Adaptation and Climate-Smart Agricultural Measures

The five EbA/CSA measures were the fundamental building block that ensured the project's success.

They were selected because of their familiarity to, and suitability for, local people.

The measures helped project participants adapt their farming practices to climate change while improving and diversifying their livelihoods.

* Participatory intervention selection with farmers and expert staff

* Supportive local extension and rural-development agencies

* Frequent and regular support by expert staff and farmer-to-farmer approaches

* Familiarity with the intervention increases the likelihood of adoption

* Farmers preferred to modify their farming systems with the enhanced knowledge from the project rather than completely change all at once

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Subnational

Building capacity of local partners

Building capacity of local partners was an important part of the project to enable achievement of results.

Capacity was built through online training and informal discussions.

Without capable partners, no field activities would have been implemented during the COVID-19 travel restrictions.

* Capacity building of key local stakeholders included in project design

* Availability of smartphones, computers and network

* Expert trainers available and able to flexibly adapt to online training

* While most stakeholders prefer in-person capacity-building events, responses to the online training was extremely positivea and could be built into future projects to reduce costs and increase flexibility of delivery options

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Subnational

Partnerships with local partners

Partnerships with the provincial Taskforce, which oversaw the project's activities in general, and the provincial Agriculture Extension Center and Farmers’ Union helped achieve the expected results despite travel restrictions owing to COVID-19.

Partnerships with these local partners also led to the later integration of the project’s interventions into provincial partner’s programmes.

* Engagement with all levels of government in the province, specifically, at the project's sites, was critically important to establish the partnerships

* Endorsement of the project at national level was critical to ensure provincial and local buy-in

* Widespread availability of smartphones and access to network and desktop computers was vital to ensuring progress even during the pandemic's travel restrictions

* Building strong partnerships is a risk-reduction strategy, as shown during the pandemic wherein local partners were able to conduct many activities with guidance remotely by expert staff

Documentation and dissemination of results

Building long-term, multi-sectoral, trans-disciplinary partnerships and capacities

Building long-term partnerships and capacity for multi-sector surveillance of zoonotic diseases along wildlife trade chains promotes and supports effective One Health collaboration from the spillover frontlines to national and international policy makers, and improved understanding of pathogen diversity, disease dynamics and potential risks posed by wildlife trade. Platforms for regular multi-sector discussion between animal health, environment, enforcement, and human health sectors, as well as with and amongst international and multi-lateral partners, is essential for open discourse and sharing of information on the risks, challenges and opportunities for pandemic prevention. This is critical to improve cross- sectoral trust, understanding, communication and coordination to increase opportunities for effective legislative change and cultural shifts.

Openness of host governments to coordination between environment, law enforcement, animal health and human health sectors and investment of time and personnel from those sectors in wildlife surveillance for One Health intelligence; patience; funding; One Health coordination platforms

Trans-sectoral coordination and support from the government is essential from the beginning to ensure effective surveillance for diseases of zoonotic origin along wildlife trade chains and to promote understanding and sharing of findings. Openness of national governments to make science-based policy changes to reduce health risks posed by wildlife trade is essential for meaningful, long-term impact.

Documentation and dissemination of results

Detection

Through monitoring efforts, diseases among wolves are detected at an early stage, diagnostic capacity is improved, and interventions can be implemented as soon as possible, saving the lives of many wolves. Through our integrated disease management initiative, we provide training and technical manuals for local veterinary staff and develop Disease Alert Networks to improve the ability to detect, diagnose, and contain outbreaks in wolves and dogs.

A team of highly trained monitors, working on foot or horse-back, closely observe wolf packs. During outbreaks, they are the first to detect dead wolves, and swiftly conduct post-mortems and collect diagnostic samples, while a wider network also alerts EWCP of outbreaks of rabies or distemper in dogs. The strengthening of laboratory systems and veterinary services are key enabling factor to support robust rabies detection and monitoring in the country.

Many dogs roam freely in the rural highlands, where they encounter wolves and can transmit diseases. The presence of domestic dogs, paired with increased agricultural activity in the area, makes ongoing monitoring critically important to detect evolving threats and help guide appropriate conservation action. The awareness and participation of many stakeholders forms a vital network to support detection.