Luanda — At least 2000 big and small animals are killed every year by poachers throughout the country, reads the contents of a study that reached ANGOP last Tuesday.
According to the document issued by the Environment Ministry – which was presented at the international conference on Poaching that happened recently in Menongue City, in the south-eastern Cuando Cubango Province – the greatest challenge for the authorities is to stop commercial hunting of elephants, alligators, felines and their byproducts.
This year, according to the document, the authorities recorded the presence, in the Angolan territory, of poachers from Namibia and Zambia, precisely in the Mavinga and Luengue-Luiana parks, in Cuando Cubando.
“The authorities in Angola have been recording the trafficking of species like monkeys, chimpanzees, green doves and parrots, mostly in provinces like Cabinda, Cuanza Norte, Uige and, in smaller quantities in the south of the country”, reads the document.
The study also states that the trafficking of ivory and rhino horns has attracted people of different origins, including international networks based in countries such as South Africa, Namibia and Tanzania.
This trafficking, informs the note, deals with high amounts of money, about USD 600 billion every year worldwide, with China and Europe being the main black markets.
In view of such scenery, which is observed in the whole of southern Africa, the Angolan Environment Ministry has drafted a strategy and national action plan on biodiversity, 2015-2016 national plan on ivory, the strategy on poaching and the application of this law in the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC), besides the adoption of the tools to be used in the application of laws against poaching and trafficking of artefacts.