Translated from French by an automated online translation service, so please excuse the roughness. See link for original. Thank you to Anne Dillon for both volunteering her time to find these French articles and doing the online translating.
The black season for traffickers of species protected by the law continues. After Cotonou and Natitingou, three suspected ivory traffickers were sentenced Thursday December 8, 2016, by the First Instance Court of Second Class of Aplahoué, to four months’ imprisonment plus a fine of 100,000 CFA francs.
500,000 F and/or imprisonment from 3 months to 3 years who: holds wild animals without the required permit; circulated trophies or remains without certificate of origin; markets bushmeat outside the cases allowed . . .”
This umpteenth strong condemnation of traffickers comes after the court decisions of Cotonou and Natitingou, which respectively condemned traffickers to two months’ and three months’ imprisonment. By these decisions rendered, the law certainly punishes wildlife criminals. But it is desirable that sanctions to protect natural resources be more daunting for poachers and traffickers. To impose the maximum penalty against traffickers, for example, would be a feat Beninese justice could undertake in the fight against wildlife crime.