- WildLeaks, a website fashioned on the lines of WikiLeaks allows anonymous people to tip off authorities about possible poaching and other wildlife criminal activities. A team of legal and security experts scrutinizes the tip to decide whether to pursue the tip off and share the info with trusted partners.
- The website has thus far provided 24 concrete tip offs from all over the world related to elephant poaching in Africa, illicit ivory trading in Honk Kong, killing of the endangered Sumatran tigers, lion and leopard hunting in South Africa and many more.
- Its first revelation showed how ivory smuggling funded the activities of the al-Shabaab terrorist group in Somalia.
- Tor Technology employed by the websites ensure anonymity as most of the locals fear informing the local law enforcement officers who they suspect are bribed to facilitate the activities.
- It is the locals who are victims of corruption and violence accompanying major wildlife crimes, whose whole trade is worth $10-20bn a year.
- 3 ivory-related investigations are ongoing and evidences have been submitted against powerful people responsible for the trade that slaughtered 22,000 wild elephants for their tusks in 2012.
- Read at: http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-opinion/wildleaks-attracts-major-wildlife-crime-leads/article6113400.ece
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