Stolen Apes

RECOMMENDATIONS

Law enforcement

Organized trafficking

Consumer demand

• Establish an electronic database that includes the numbers, trends and ten- dencies of the illegal great ape trade, and monitor arrests, prosecutions and convictions as a means of assessing national commitment. • Create law enforcement indicators that can accurately gauge national commit- ment. • Review national laws and penalties relat- ing to the killing and trafficking of great apes and support efforts to forcefully im- plement and strengthen those laws. • Incorporate anti-corruption measures into law enforcement efforts to protect great apes, and urge governments to report annually on efforts to counter corruption. • Introduce both revised CITES permits and revised reporting systems that minimize forgery and falsification.

• Investigate international great ape traffickers and buyers for complicity in trans-boundary organized crime. • Prosecute those accused of participat- ing in the organized trans-boundary crime of great ape trade to the fullest extent of the law. • Designate national customs units to specifically address environmental crime and carry out inspections target- ing the live trade of great apes and other wildlife at airports (both regional and in- ternational), ports, and major roadways. • Establish trans-national criminal intel- ligence units targeting environmental crime to ensure that intelligence is com- piled, analyzed and shared with national police forces, customs and INTERPOL. • Improve the training of police officers, customs officials, and the judiciary on the issues of illicit trade in great apes, environmental crime and wildlife traf- ficking. • Increase enforcement of protected areas, to both reduce illegal trade in great apes and to protect their habitat. • Emphasize inspections for illegal trade exports and imports.

• DNA-test all confiscated great apes and return to country of origin – if discern- ible – within 8 weeks of confiscation. • Utilize national and international multimedia campaigns to eliminate the trade/ownership/use of great apes and emphasize laws and deterrent punishment. • Require CITES authorities to control the exploitation of illegally trafficked great apes in entertainment facilities and zoos. • Support efforts to end the use of trained great apes in films, television shows or advertising.

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