A research article authored by Remi Chandran, Shankar Prakash Alagesan & Walter T. de Vries explores the evolution of the compliance mechanism of the CITES Convention and draws a historic timeline describing how various political and economic factors changed the course of decision making on wildlife enforcement information sharing. Focusing more on the deliberations at the United Nations and in […]

Following the successful implementation of WEMS in Africa, United Nations University called upon scientists, policy makers, industrialists and civil society to strengthen the technological innovations in addressing wildlife crime. During the occasion of the 1st World Wildlife Day, United Nations University hosted the Tokyo Conference on Combating Wildlife Crime on 3rd March 2014.  The theme of the Tokyo Conference […]

Information Note 1. Introduction The United Nations Programme on Space Applications, implemented by the Office for Outer Space Affairs, was established in 1971 to assist Member States with building capacity in using space science, technology and their applications in support of sustainable economic, social and environmental development. Under the new thematic priority “monitoring and protecting […]

Preface During all the vicissitudes of my life, I stood firm to create a productive information-sharing conjunction between my four most observant audiences – the government, UN experts, NGOs and scientists working on wildlife conservation and enforcement issues. The answer was, ‘Wildlife Enforcement Monitoring System (WEMS)’, a ‘non-living’ tool that was developed to support the […]

Introduction The multi-billion dollar illegal wildlife trade is a global crisis that not only threatens the conservation of protected species but also has deep implications for peace and security in nations across the world. As wildlife trafficking becomes more organized and illegal trade of wildlife continues to flourish on the ground and in cyberspace, there […]

Abstract Given the rising number of international environmental agreements, it is increasingly difficult for many developing countries to meet the basic commitments of compliance to Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs). One major reason for non-compliance is an unforced restriction on enforcement information flow to the national environmental governance repository either due to policy regulations or, technological […]

Highlights We examine why CITES rejected Wildlife Enforcement Monitoring System – a transboundary decision support system. We first look at the beliefs of the stakeholders within the wildlife policy subsystem. We discover 4 conflicting policy beliefs which remains highly polarized. Our findings reflect that the polarization lead to the rejection of the Decision support system. […]