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RECOMMENDATIONS
Organized trafficking
• 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.
• Emphasize inspections for illegal
trade exports and imports.
• 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.
Consumer demand
• 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.
Law enforcement
• 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.