Wild Justice supports ‘End Wildlife Crime’ campaign by Wildlife & Countryside LINK

As a member of the coalition Wildlife & Countryside LINK (58 organisations working together to campaign for improved environmental policy), Wild Justice is pleased to be supporting a new initiative to ‘End Wildlife Crime’.

LINK’s Wildlife Crime Working Group (of which Wild Justice is an active member) has today written to all Police and Crime Commissioners (PCC) candidates, ahead of the elections on 6th May 2021, to ask them to commit to end wildlife crime.

Police wildlife teams are working hard to combat the tide of wildlife crimes but officers need more support. Constrained resources, limited training opportunities and missing data all hold back the successful capture and prosecution of wildlife criminals. Despite hundreds of offences being committed each month, just 10 people were convicted of wildlife crimes in 2019.

Police and Crime Commissioners have a crucial role to play. PCCs can hep turn the tide on wildlife crime by increasing support for wildlife crime policing within the police plans and budgets they control, giving their officers increased access to wildlife crime training and by adding their influential voices to calls to national policing action.

LINK has asked all PCC candidates to commit to the following:

If elected as Police and Crime Commissioner, I commit to:

• Make tackling wildlife crime a key priority within my first police and crime plan, and to
make budget provision to support this prioritisation.• Increase wildlife crime training opportunities for officers in my force and liaise with the
National Wildlife Crime Unit on best wildlife policing practice.
• Encourage the Home Secretary to make wildlife crimes notifiable, so that data on these
crimes can be collected and used to inform policing.

Prior to the elections on 6th May and to help voters decide who to support, LINK will be reporting on which PCC candidates have made the commitment to end wildlife crime.