Pressure mounts for Mozambican govt to give poachers harsh sentences

Login

Register

http://www.clubofmozambique.com/

Pressure mounts for Mozambican govt to give poachers harsh sentences

9:07 CAT | 11 Mar 2016

In File Club of Mozambique / Poachers receive a prison sentence of up to 16 years in Mozambique.

Pressure is piling up on the Mozambican government to ensure rhino horn traffickers receive the same harsh prison sentences as poachers.

The head of the anti-poaching unit in the National Park bordering Mozambique Carlos Lopes Pereira says traffickers can currently get away with a R 120 000 fine whereas poachers receive prison sentences of up to 16 years.

“In 2014 for the first time poaching especially of protected species like rhino became a crime to kill without a licence. Poachers would go to jail and traffickers would buy their way out to get a fine, we want to change that, we want the traffickers not only to pay a fine but to stay in prison for the same length of time as the poachers between 12 and 16 years.”

Releasing or freeing the park of human settlement will reduce all human conflict and also reduce poaching
The Mozambican government is meanwhile relocating hundreds of indigenous people in the park as an anti-poaching strategy.

Manager of the Limpopo National Park, Antonio Abacar says the inhabitants have been contributing to the poaching of rhino horns.

“Releasing or freeing the park of human settlement will reduce all human conflict and also reduce poaching.”

Source: SABC