“Mutual legal assistance and information sharing is an option for the stakeholders in conserving the Greater Virunga Landscape”: This is what was confirmed by the participants who attended the workshop organized by the Greater Virunga Transboundary Collaboration (GVTC) which started on the 30th October 2023 at Protea Hotel by Skyz in Kampala, Republic of Uganda.
At the end of this workshop scheduled to end on the 4th of November 2023, the participants including the delegates from the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Republic of Rwanda and the Republic of Uganda are expected to develop a draft of a Memorandum of Understanding on mutual legal assistance and information sharing among the stakeholders involved in promoting wildlife protection and tourism development in the Greater Virunga Landscape shared between the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Republic of Rwanda and the Republic of Uganda, which shall be adopted by the Partner States institutions in charge of protected areas.
The Delegates from the Democratic Republic of Congo, represented at this workshop by Council Marcel Dihonga Djunga have expressed his full support to this initiative which, he believes will be the foundation for everlasting transboundary collaboration for biodiversity safety, tourism development, peace and stability in the region.
It is believed that by establishing this permanent framework for transboundary collaboration with regard to wildlife conservation and tourism development, the togetherness of the partner states namely the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Republic of Rwanda and the Republic of Uganda will be much strengthened as peace and stability can be achieved through this framework.
The delegates representing the Republic of Rwanda wish that this framework allows direct and instant information sharing in order to effectively fight against wildlife crimes while fostering collaboration among the partner states.
Once this memorandum of understanding will be in place, it will help to close the gaps which were identified in terms of lack of mechanism of information sharing between three countries, lack of agreed list of data to be shared, lack of coordination in collecting information with regards to wildlife crimes, Insufficient knowledge of the data collected by the stakeholders, lack of harmonization of laws to combat wildlife crime, lack of awareness where agencies are not aware that they are duty bound to share information with regards to wildlife, lack of capacity building for law enforcers on how to detect wildlife crimes, issues of protection of the source of information to avoid that the targeted group can harm the informants, the lack of Standards Operating Procedures in some of the organizations which may hinder the information sharing, issues in the witness protection system which to guarantee the security of informants, working in sailors, insufficient tools to detect prohibited wildlife-related crimes like sniffer dogs…
Dr. Andrew Ggunga, Seguya, Executive Secretary of Greater Virunga Transboundary Collaboration remains confident that the goodwill of the three governments will pave way to achieving this objective.