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Adriaan Buys: Okay, thank you very much for joining us. I'm with Stroud here from Born Free. USA, Alice is the director of Global Conservation. Programs today. And thank you for watching our video. the draw. Please just and subscribe down there. It helps us to rank better with YouTube and it helps us to get more people to be able to see these conversations. So, thank you very much for joining us Alice
Alice Stroud: Hi Adrian. Thank you for having me over. I am excited to talk about our work.
Adriaan Buys: Thank you very much. talking about your work. I think a good place to start is maybe for you to just tell us a little bit about Born, Free USA, how it started and what type of work you focus on globally.
Alice Stroud: Thank you, yes. Our organization had an exciting start story. It was two actors, Dame Virgina McKenna and Bill Travers, who starred in the classic wildlife movie Born Free. This movie told the true story of conservationists Joy and George Adamson, who rescued the lioness cub named Elsa and successfully returned her to the wild.
Alice Stroud: And so, from there, they recorded many wildlife films, including a wildlife team called An Elephant Called Slowly with an Elephant calf named Pole Pole at the end of the movie, they were trying to release this elephant calf into the wild. Unfortunately, he was gifted to a zoo which was really heartbreaking for these two actors especially because the calf died in captivity. And so from there they were inspired about launching this organization to make sure that you could keep wildlife in the wild and they would devote their life to wildlife conservation. So that's how the organization was fromed and our programs really are focusing on tackling the biodiversity crisis and we run wildlife conservation programs in West Africa, specifically where We're trying to focus on what is having the biggest impact for conservation, Including wildlife crime. So I run the program focussed on wildlife crime in West Africa.
Adriaan Buys: Okay, And I thank you. You involvement is on the West African strategy specifically on combating wildlife crime. Is that correct?
Alice Stroud: Yes, this has been quite an exciting process. we started this work about six years ago and when we started to work, there was no real understanding of the wildlife crime threat in West Africa. So the work started by listening to the countries where we led some wildlife crime threat assessment missions. We provided expertise to the national authorities to help them understand wildlife crime better and understand really how to coordinate in the wildlife law enforcement chain. We combined regional recommendations and supported countries in formulating a joint response to wildlife crime, which ultimately became this wildlife crime strategy, the regional strategy and what's very exciting about that is that it defines a regional response to wildlife crime because as you know it's a transnational crime. So you need to have all countries coordinate together to tackle wildlife crime, efficiently, which is why we developed the West Africa, Wildlife Strategy alongside with countries and it was just adopted in December 2023, just last December and that's very exciting because that means that the region now, has the tool that they need to coordinate on wildlife law enforcement,
Adriaan Buys: Our fantastic. Yeah, I think it would like you say. I mean, it's really is like a cross-border internationally connected crime, So, we've just had recently had an issue in South Africa. a person is just been arrested, I think he's received a six-month sentence and it was specifically for wildlife crimes and for the exotic pet trade. and also, there was international involvement from the US Department of Forestry and Fisheries and the Environment. And one of the big things that came out of that one, was that action it A critically, endangered snake which there are only 500 left in the wild in China and was seized at this person's house.
Adriaan Buys: And people were planning to keep these wild animals as pets, in their houses and just to show their friends and excetera. So, I mean, I'm sure a lot of the things you deal with some of the things we spoke about earlier are not small and isolated like this with where you've just dealing with five or six snakes. These things are, big things you're talking about forests, you're talking about wood crimes, you talking about training the investigators to be able to detect these crimes better and to be able to
Adriaan Buys: Take individuals like this and ultimately bring them to justice, is it? So maybe tell me a little bit more about these investigation trainings and things that you are working with the international narcotics and law enforcement affairs and together with USAID These trainings to help to prosecute these Criminals for good
Alice Stroud: Yes, No, thank you. So I think it's very important to keep in mind that wildlife crime is a very, very organized crime which relies on international wildlife crime networks, that are highly organized. It's the same type of networks that traffic in weapons, traffic in human beings, traffick in drugs. And so as a consequence, you have to have support for countries to build a similar type of response because this has significant security implications for countries. And so in the context of the work that we do, we intervene at two levels. At the national level, we support countries with setting up task forces. What task forces are is the setup that allows all of the various authorities having a role to play in the wildlife law enforcement to work together and brainstorm about priority measures to tackle wildlife crime together so that they can be effective and they would share intelligence as close to real time as possible and they would kind of make sure that from the time that you intercept, the crime, you have all of the skills that you need to make sure it results in prosecution and arrest. And at the regional level, like I was explaining earlier because it's a transboundary crime highly organized, you're supporting countries in coordinating with one another. And so at the regional level, the West Africa strategy that was adopted in December is providing for a wildlife law enforcement network. That would be a regional network through which the various countries will coordinate and exchange intelligence and develop joint investigations. And so, we're supporting the countries at the national level and at the regional level,
Alice Stroud: And really kind of the content of the trainings that we organize are really, really impact focused. And depending on the country, we always follow this needs assessment approach, where you have to listen to the countries, identify their priority needs, and where they're at in their law enforcement skills and then develop your training programs based on that. And so, in West Africa, our trainings arefocused on basic investigations techniques, sharing of intelligence. Trying to ensure, for example, that you process the crime scene properly and then we just developed an human intelligence training, where you are supporting the authorities, develop a kind of an intelligence networks to make sure that they're supported with collecting the intelligence, that they need to lead to arrest and prosecutions and the likes.
Adriaan Buys: Okay and so we spoke a little bit earlier about and I think what I'm hearing from what you're talking about is a lot of interconnectedness. In wildlife crimes, you're talking about intergovernmental across boundaries and you also alluded a little bit to things of inter in the communities. That these wildlife crimes happen now being from South Africa myself, who's at the forefront probably of the rhino crisis worldwide.
Adriaan Buys: We are very well, aware of the involvement of communities and the involvement of people in communities, to be part of the crime. I think and secondly to combat these crimes and to create education among communities, to understand the impact of these crimes. Where do you see that fit into the process of the training of these investigators? Where does the community work and all of that fit into the broader strategy.
Alice Stroud: So I think it's very important to take communities into account and it's very important to ensure that they're an ally to authorities in this combat. So I think you have to act at multiple levels. A significant role that they have to play is ensuring that they are supported in their livelihoods. I think when we tackle our wildlife law enforcement work, we ensure that at the same time as we tackle wildlife crime, .we ensure that the communities that could find it appealing to partake in this crime understand that it's very damaging to their livelihoods. That it can wipe out an entire range of species on which their livelihood depends, whether it be for food, supplies or clean water, all of that. So the first step really is outreach on ensuring that, they understand how wildlife crime will impact, or is impacting already their livelihood, and The other key aspect, of course, is trying to support the development of alternative livelihoods in situations where communities don't necessarily have other choices than partaking into some of the problem. And at Born Free USA, we do have outreach programs to local communities. And it's really based on understanding, What is most impactful by listening to the authorities and seeing how to support them and the form that it takes really varies depending on the countries.
Alice Stroud: In some countries. For example, in Benin, we're supporting the authorities set up a little museum for the youth trying to help them understand what species are targeted by wildlife crime, why they are important in their ecosystems and the likes. In Ivory Coast we supported the authorities in launching an outreach that is directed towards the Craftsmanships and the hunters and things like that. In Nigeria, we supported the authorities with outreach on the communities that were surrounding protected areas that were more affected by poaching and the likes. So, you base your approach on the community on the country, and I think it's very, very vital to ensure that you can train authorities in having this harmoneous relationship with the communities and ensuring that they can contribute to the wildlife law enforcement response through human intelligence and building these partnerships in and helpful way.
Adriaan Buys: And what have you found is all the biggest challenges in implementing this program. up until this point, if you could put a shout out to people, assisting, I'm sure one of the main things is funding, Born, Free. USA is a donor funded organization. So I'll put a link down below, guys. If you want to donate to Born Free USA, There'll be a link at the bottom. I'm sure donations are very important. But what are the challenges? Do you have in implementing these type of strategies?
Alice Stroud: Yes. I think what's very challenging is that you need to tackle wildlife crime along the enforcement chain so you need to go from source countries to transit countries to destination countries. And what's been challenging has been kind of building that bridge between the destination countries and the source countries where you don't necessarily have a similar level of urgency especially if you're a destination country, a demand country, you're part of the problem in that you're creating this market and bringing all of these specimens in and you need to have full cooperation between the destination countries transit countries and source countries in order to be successful. And it has been sometimes, quite challenging to try to kind of build that bridge between the countries that we work with, and the destination countries, where some of the demand countries are not feeling the urgency necessarily to stop or recognize their role in the problem. And it's something which we have really tried to tackle through our advocacy work where we try to make people understand that the need to stop extinctions is a shared problem, it's not just affecting the countries that are biodiversity rich, it's affecting everyone. And having the level of ambition be shared everywhere by everyone in the need to stop extinctions now since we're having an extinction crisis which means you have a million species about to go extinct many within decades. So there is a sense of urgency that's not shared along the spectrum for everyone which is quite an uphill battle to tackle. I would say
Adriaan Buys: it's something that's just come to mind and something on this issue that you mentioning is it, maybe not the way globally, we measure conservation, countries are measured about on how they predict protect their own wildlife. So South Africa would be measured on the global stage on how we protect our rhinos or our elephants. But those destination countries aren't really measured on how they protect other countries wildlife.
Adriaan Buys: So they could, for example, have a try and build a beautiful record on how they look after the specific, wild animal or specific biodiverse section of their country. But not always get the same international pressure from fixing that. Do you think that is something that is a problem?
Alice Stroud: Yes. No definitely. I mean we really don't live in a bubble and so I think that sometimes it's very difficult especially when you think of very developed countries. Like the US, it's very difficult for people to feel that, having deforestation in West Africa is a problem for someone that's living somewhere in the US. But, if we lose a significant number of species, if you have a significant number of trees that are cut down, it's affecting livelihoods everywhere, within, that is deteriorating all of the contributing to climate change, contributing to major weather events, and all of that. And so I think that the need to ensure that there is a global responsibility and that everybody is acting with a similar level of ambition. It's very crucial and it's certainly what we strive to do on our advocacy side because Born Free USA is an organization that just acts on two fronts there the advocacy side where we try to contribute to decision-making at the international level and then, of course the field side which is what we've discussed today. But I think it's very, very important to understand that we should all kind of be in it together at the same level of ambition and the same level of urgency.
Adriaan Buys: Fantastic. So just coming back to the training itself. Can you maybe just to close off the interview? Maybe just tell us, What are your next trainings? That you're planning and just maybe tell the listeners what are your plans for the training? And how many more trainings do you have rolling out around to a West Africa?
Alice Stroud: So we have a series of trainings planned because we're elaborating with kind of progressively developing the investigative skills and intelligence skills of our task forces. So we have a series of training plans, but I think it's important to try to. We don't want to be needed at the end of the day. So the future of our training program is that we're having this train the trainer approach where we have trained multiple trainers, and we're hoping that we can find funds to let them continue extending their training on their own. And that's really the ideal approach our trainings are very practical. There are country based and they are kind of tailored to the needs of a particular country. But we give countries the resources that they need, the technical resources and skills that they need to have their own trainers to reproduce a training. So my vision for the program is to be able to find a sustainable source of funds so that these countries can continue expanding the training, continue expanding the skill level that they've acquired through our trainings and we're doing a lot of mentoring now, which I guess is very, very rewarding from our perspective. You're really training people to the point where you give them the skills that they need to lead successful investigation that lead to persecution and dismantling the networks and so we are now doing a lot of mentoring it's been very very successful. We've seen some countries make significant kind of seizures and arrest and we have running investigations. There is a West Africa mentoring panel that has been set up that we're contributing to and that's really the best case scenario is that you would have countries reciprocate the training on their own and then we continue the mentoring and eventually the support would no longer be necessary. That's the best case scenario from our perspective is that it's really kind of giving countries and momentum to do that for themselves.
Adriaan Buys: A fantastic. I'd be great at some point in the future to be hearing some of these stories to be hearing some of these successes and some of these risks and some of these networks. and I almost want to say some of these loopholes and gaps that for that, we've closed in the international Trade and wildlife crime trade. So at least I'd like to really thank you very much for joining us today. Thank you for coming to and I think thank you very much for your hard work of what you do out there every day. Many of us want to make a difference. We want to try and contribute something to the environmental.
Adriaan Buys: Or environmental future to wildlife, but we're not always in the place or have the opportunity to do. So thank you very much for your service and for continuing the work. And thank you very much for joining me today and telling us a little bit more about it.
Alice Stroud: Yeah, thank you. I think you have a very important role to play in the outreach yourself in terms of trying to ensure that people have access to this information. So thank you for your interest in our work and it was good to talk to you.
Adriaan Buys: Thanks a lot. And you guys, what to do? Please and subscribe at the bottom there and we'll see you at the next interview.
