Most countries in the southern African region anticipate poaching and illegal wildlife trade (IWT) to revert to pre-pandemic trends as restrictions imposed to reduce the spread of the disease are relaxed. The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime had anticipated that once the virus has been contained through large-scale vaccinations by early 2022 it is likely that poaching will resume to supply pent-up demand. This is contained in the UK Government’s research on the impact of Covid -19 on the illegal wildlife trade released earlier this year. The research was relaunched at a …

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