BY IMMACULATE WANYENZE
Following an interception of three containers carrying Ivory and pangolin scales in 2019 by Customs, the items where officially handed over to Uganda Wildlife Authority on Tuesday for safe custody and further management.
In 2019, two nationalities of Vietnam origins were arrested and charged in courts of law for trading in endangered species. These were coming from Congo to South Sudan and were intercepted at the Nimule-Sudan (Elegu border post).
According to the then Commissioner, this was the most sophisticated smuggling operation URA had ever encountered. The Items had been hidden in timber with melted wax around them-not even the scanners detected them accept the tight intelligence network.
Since their interception, it is believed that our National parks lost 300 elephants and more than 1000 Pangolins to poachers and smugglers.
Addressing the Press on Monday, Abel Kagumire, the Commissioner Customs noted that continuous poaching of these species is a loss to Uganda ‘s tourism sector and so there is need to protect wildlife.
“Wild fauna and flora in their many beautiful forms are an irreplaceable part of the natural systems of the earth which must be protected for other generations”, Kagumire affirmed.
Meanwhile, the success of this operation right from inception was through interagency coordination which constitutes Uganda Police Force, Uganda Wildlife Authority and Customs. These agencies have benefited from the joint capacity building exercises, planning and field operations-all facilitated by United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime(UNODC). UNODC has also donated other facilities like offices, testing equipment, protective gear, computers and hand held scanners to detect and arrest perpetrators of illicit goods.
Since the establishment of the Joint Port Control Unit (JPCU), in addition to the other seizures done, eight successful interventions were registered in the area of protecting the endangered species over a period of four years (2018 – 2021) where URA successfully intercepted a total of 7,421 Kgs of Ivory as per details below:
In a bid to further improve capacity to detect concealment of such products,
URA has procured and deployed cargo scanners at the major border crossing points of Malaba, Busia, Mutukula, Mirama, Elegu and Katuna.
In relation to the above, Charles Tumwesigye, the Deputy Director Field operations UWA added that there is improved security at Entebbe now.
“Entebbe used to be a key trade route but we have brought patrol dogs. If the scanners of URA miss, the dogs will not miss or the intelligence,” Tumwesigye said of the security at Entebbe.
He praised URA for taking lead in handing over confiscated wildlife items to UWA. He explained that because of URA ‘s vigilance, our elephant potential is increasing 10 national parks.
