Two arrested trafficking Primate Skulls

By a correspondent in Bamenda

Two people have been arrested in connection with the illegal sale of primate skulls in the North West Region. This was during an operation carried out on 15 April 2016 by the Bui Divisional of Forestry and Wildlife.

                A 32-year old man called Damian who was one of the traffickers had travelled from Nkambe to Kumbo with the products two days before his arrest. He was arrested when he was about to sell the primate skulls to a customer. He was arrested by the team that worked in collaboration with the gendarmerie brigade and the judiciary in Kumbo, and with technical assistance from The Last Great Ape Organisation LAGA.

                Preliminary investigations had established that there were at least two people involved in the deal but only one was arrested. But his statements indicated that the booty belonged to at least two of them.

The other suspect, a 39-year-old man called Sebastine who had 8 primate skulls had stayed behind and handed the skulls to Damian to sell in Kumbo. The team immediately set for Nkambe where he was waiting for his share of the money. On arrival, he was quickly located, arrested and transferred to Kumbo where the legal proceedings were ongoing. The consignment made of 15 mandrill skulls, a buffalo horn, six gorilla skulls and other primates parts were later presented to the state counsel in Kumbo alongside the two suspects.

                Shortly after the arrest of the first trafficker, Mill Ndjaga Arland, the Bui Divisional Delegate of Forestry and Wildlife who led the operation team to the field said that “We have put in place a network of intelligence gathering on illegal trafficking of wildlife species in the division which in effect, is a transit zone and after exploiting information we got, the trafficker was arrested with the support of LAGA”.

                The towns of Nkambe and Kumbo are considered to be transit area where products leaving parts of Cameroon transit directly to Nigeria and vice versa. This is the second time in less than 7 months that a trafficker has been arrested with wildlife products in Kumbo after ferrying the products from Nkambe.

                The Ministry of Forestry and Wildlife, since the beginning of this year, is in a renewed alert mode to track down and prosecute all those endangering wildlife species in the country and President Paul Biya has just given fresh impetus to the fight wildlife officials are waging following his decision to allow the Minister incinerate in Yaounde, 3.5 tons of seized and confiscated ivory tusks and artifacts.

                The ceremony that took place at the Conference Centre  premises was attended by US Ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power who was guest of honour at the highly publicized event.  Destroying ivory is a conservation initiative that was kick-started in 1989 by President Daniel Arap Moi who burnt 12 tons of ivory to draw the attention of the international community on the slaughter of elephants in his country. The reaction was immediate and the Washington Convention banned the trade in elephant ivory.

                Many countries including Gabon and Congo in the Central African sub-region have proceeded to burring ivory and conservationists argue, this symbolic gesture sends a strong message to traffickers and poachers that the governments are bent on combating trafficking and also gives out the right signals to the public on the plight of the African elephant. An estimated 30 000 elephants are killed each year to supply the illegal trade in ivory.