In a recent article, Katie Koeper of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) highlights whistleblowers’ importance in combating wildlife crime and technology that enables individuals to report corruption and trafficking securely.
According to the International Consortium on Combating Wildlife Crime (ICCWC)’s Annual Report 2020, there were 7,000 species in 120 countries that were affected by wildlife crime in 2020. The document reports that “Each year, 150+ rangers are killed in the line of duty protecting wildlife” and that “22% of animals are on the brink of extinction.” Koeper’s article states that “[w]ildlife trafficking has increased sharply in recent decades, in part due to corruption, low risk of detection, consumer demand, and high financial rewards.”
In 2014, USAID launched the Wildlife Crime Tech Challenge, incentivizing organizations and individuals to come up with ways to fight wildlife trafficking. The challenge had four main areas: “detecting transit routes, strengthening forensic evidence and data sharing, reducing consumer demand, and tackling corruption.”
One Grand Prize Winner was the National Whistleblower Center (NWC), a whistleblower advocacy organization. As a winner, NWC launched the Global Wildlife Whistleblower Program, an online platform that wildlife whistleblowers around the world can use to securely and “anonymously file reports of wildlife crimes to the appropriate authorities.” The Program also connects whistleblowers...
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