Senior IWT Specialist Tim Wittig will make the keynote speech at an ambitious new webinar series aimed at finding collective solutions to wildlife crime.

On September 23, 2020, the Basel Institute on Governance, as part of its support to United for Wildlife, organised a webinar on zoonotic disease risks associated with the trafficking in bushmeat. The event gathered members of United for Wildlife's Financial and Transport Taskforces wishing to explore this topic in more detail following a recent alert from the Basel Institute's intelligence team.

On September 10, 2020, the Basel Institute's Tim Wittig and Juhani Grossmann presented to the Dutch Compliance Officers Association on the nexus of corruption and illegal wildlife trade. 

Thirty-five compliance experts, largely from financial institutions, participated in the conference. It featured a lively debate about:

As we have all become painfully aware, our lives can be brutally disrupted by animal-borne viruses like covid-19 that can sicken and kill people and devastate the global economy – in only seven months. We also know that the current pandemic is only the latest in a series of such wildlife-related diseases that are occurring more frequently and becoming more deadly.

Our current struggles have highlighted in drastic fashion that unilateral solutions are no longer sufficient to challenges that are increasingly global and multi-disciplinary.

In the third article in our series of perspectives on illegal wildlife trade (IWT) and financial crime, produced in collaboration with the International Academy of Financial Crime Litigators, Gretta Fenner explores the role of asset recovery in combating wildlife trafficking.

She asks: Should assets recovered from corrupt practices linked to wildlife trafficking be channelled into conservation and counter-IWT enforcement efforts? What are the pros and cons, and have there been any examples of this type of strategy?

In this article, Juhani Grossmann, IWT Team Leader at the Basel Institute on Governance, explores the role of public-private partnerships in tackling illegal wildlife trade (IWT).

This is the second article in our short series of perspectives on IWT and financial crime, in collaboration with the International Academy of Financial Crime Litigators. 

Illegal wildlife trade (IWT) is in the global spotlight thanks to its alleged role in triggering the coronavirus pandemic. It is sparking vivid debate among communities of experts not just in conservation, but in business, finance, technology, anti-corruption forces and law.