Combat Wildlife Trafficking in Sri Lanka

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Wildlife trafficking is a lucrative form of transnational organized crime (TOC) that has decimated populations of species, such as elephants, rhinos, pangolins, and more. Wildlife trafficking fuels corruption; threatens the rule of law, peace, and security; spreads disease; and destabilizes communities that depend on wildlife for biodiversity and eco-tourism revenues. Criminal organizations are profiting from this this illicit trade, relying on their ability to exploit porous borders and weak institutions, and leveraging multilevel illicit networks of criminal intermediaries and government officials to move illegal wildlife from source to demand countries. INL aims to combat wildlife trafficking (CWT) through effective programming at the national, regional, and international levels. For this funding opportunity, INL intends to focus on Sri Lanka. As an island nation, Sri Lanka’s marine resources are of the utmost importance to the country, both culturally and economically. Human-wildlife conflict and poaching of all species are ongoing and growing problems in Sri Lanka. However, poaching disproportionally affects Sri Lanka’s marine species, with mounting crises on shark finning and the poaching of sea turtles, sea cucumbers, sea horses, corals, and more. In addition, criminal networks are increasingly exploiting gaps in Sri Lanka, where they are able to move illegal products from and through Sri Lanka to destination markets elsewhere in Asia. It is critically important that Sri Lanka improves its capacity to CWT to mitigate its vulnerability to transnational criminal operations. While the focus of this program will be on marine species, the skills gained through the activities will be applicable to the poaching and trafficking of terrestrial species as well. The ultimate goal of this program is to increase Sri Lanka’s desire and ability to CWT and disrupt the criminal organizations that perpetrate this heinous crime. 1.     Priority Countries Sri Lanka 2.     Project Goals The goal of this program is to improve Sri Lanka’s will and capacity to investigate, arrest, prosecute, convict, and sentence to the fullest extent of the law the perpetrators of wildlife crime, with a focus on marine species. To achieve this goal, INL seeks to fund programs that will: 1.     Build investigative and enforcement functions; 2.     Increase the interdiction of illicit trade; 3.     Enhance prosecutorial and judicial capacity; and/or 4.     Develop inter-agency and cross-border regional cooperation.

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