Mozambique: Poachers sentenced to 12 years in Cabo Delgado

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Mozambique: Poachers sentenced to 12 years in Cabo Delgado

12:21 CAT | 21 Feb 2020

in file CoM

The Judicial Court of the Province of Cabo Delgado on Wednesday sentenced three men to 12 years in prison each for poaching in the Niassa Reserve, a conservation area in northern Mozambique.

“The penalty was well deserved, and it is a decision that discourages enemies of biodiversity and all those who might intend decimating animals,” Agostinho Sithole, a lawyer for the Niassa National Reserve, told Lusa.

Niassa Reserve rangers detained the three poachers in September 2018 at a camp being used to store hunting trophies in the Nakaka area.

The rangers found 52 kilograms of smoked meat of different animals, a wild boar head, eight wild goat heads and a zebra tail.

The poachers also had 33 mechanical traps, six made of steel cable and for large animals, and 27 of synthetic fibre for small animals, one motorcycle, three bicycles, two machetes, corn flour and pots.

All three men were sentenced to 12 years in prison, the minimum for the crime committed, the Niassa Reserve lawyer said.

“Hunting needs to be authorised by the competent authorities, even more so in the Reserve,” presiding judge Geraldo Patrício said.

Poaching in Mozambique is a serious threat to the country’s wildlife, and has drastically reduced numbers of some species, official figures reveal.

Created in 1960 and some 42,400 square kilometres in extent, Niassa National Reserve is the largest protected area in the country.

Source: Lusa