Global Law Alliance for Animals and the Environment Update

Improving wildlife legislation in biodiversity hotspots: In Peru, GLA supported efforts to improve legislation targeting organized wildlife crime. GLA worked with partner governments and organizations to support legislative improvements in several West African countries, as well as in Malawi and Angola. Additionally, GLA has worked to draft model bird-protection legislation.

Training prosecutors and judges around the world: GLA led a number of trainings throughout Latin America and Africa on topics such as using mutual legal assistance, fisheries enforcement, and best practices in wildlife prosecutions.

Fighting against development that threatens wild animals and wild places: GLA joined the fight against oil and gas development in the Okavango Delta region of Namibia and Botswana. The GLA team is working with local partners and global organizations to bring as many legal strategies to bear as necessary to protect the unique landscape of the Delta, home to unparalleled wildlife and local communities living in harmony with their surroundings. In one such effort, GLA and partner organizations submitted a securities complaint to Canadian authorities, which has been instrumental in triggering a criminal investigation by Canadian authorities regarding potential fraud by the Canadian company spearheading the drilling.

Bringing transformative change to the law: On January 27, 2022, the Constitutional Court of Ecuador issued a landmark decision which cited an opinion piece authored by GLA titled Re-thinking the Rights of Nature to Encompass New Protections for Wild Animals. (See page 38 for more information.)

Setting horizons in wild animal law: In March, the GLA team participated in a workshop cohosted with Dr. Tanya Wyatt of Northumbria University. GLA professors kicked off the workshop with a presentation that explored how laws define and treat “wildlife” and led a discussion about wild animals as rights holders. Three international LLM candidates shared perspectives from their home countries: Vanessa Gischkow Garbini ’22 in Brazil, Yvonne Gurira ’22 in Zimbabwe, and Marcia Condoy Truyenque ’22 in Peru.

Credit: GUENTER GUNI

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