MUTARE – TRAINING of court officials have been improving the prosecution on wildlife crimes in the country over the past three years by improving the attitudes of prosecutors and magistrates, a leading animal rights organisation has said.
In an interview on the sidelines of a two-day Zimbabwe Rapid Reference Guide on Wildlife Crime Training for Prosecutors in Manicaland province, Out for Animals (SOFA) executive director Advocate Everlasting Vimbai Chinoda said there was improved expediency in completing wildlife cases.
“There is a great improvement in terms of prosecution and adjudication of wildlife crimes ever since we started doing these workshops. This is the 10th in the past three years and we have seen an attitude change from the prosecutors the magistrates when they’re prosecuting wildlife cases.
“We have also seen expediency in completion of cases ever since we started conscientizing them on the importance of wildlife and completing these cases to make sure that the poachers or perpetrators go to jail and are given appropriate sentences,” Chinoda said.
She said before her organisation’s intervention there was general apathy in dealing with wildlife cases preferring instead to deal with cases dealing with crime among humans.
“Before, you would find out that the courts were not really passionate about pursuing wildlife cases. They would rather deal with cases where they would see a human being than an animal,” the SOFA director said.
She said this was what motivates her team to then stand in court and speak for the welfare of the animals.
“That is where we come in a speak out to animals and say you might not see the animal but we are here to speak and stan on behalf of the animals that would have been illegally hunted or injured or shot.”
During her opening remarks for the training of 15 prosecutors from all the province’s magistrates’ courts, Chinoda urged the state lawyers to appreciate the intrinsic and extrinsic value of wildlife which prosecutors have to appreciate.
The workshop which has presenters from the National Prosecuting Authority and Zimbabwe National Parks and Wildlife and is being supported by the European Union, Space for Giants and United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.
Defra UK and Space for Giants also played a big part.
Chinoda said SOFA develops requisite legal literature and conducts trainings that advocate for the appreciation and understanding of wildlife law in Zimbabwe and Africa at large with similar workshops also running in other countries in the region to ensure that wildlife crime is dealt with uniformly regionally.
She said she leads a team of young passionate animal lawyers who are committed to combating wildlife crime, using the legal system.
