NEWS: Uganda
Ivory trader sentenced to life imprisonment

A Ugan­dan court has sen­tenced an ivory trad­er to life in prison, the longest such sen­tence in the coun­try’s history.

In 2019, a new law was enact­ed with tougher penal­ties for poach­ing and traf­fick­ing of endan­gered species.

Pas­cal Oti­va was arrest­ed in Jan­u­ary this year with two tusks weigh­ing about 10 kg (22 lbs).

The judge said Falling is a repeat offend­er and deserves life impris­on­ment for future wildlife protection.

The Ugan­da Wildlife Author­i­ty (UWA) said in a state­ment that Chief Jus­tice Gladys Kamasanyu of the Ugan­da Spe­cial Wildlife Tri­bunal said in her rul­ing that “crimes of ille­gal pos­ses­sion of pro­tect­ed species are ram­pant and need to be curbed. ” said he.

“This is a mile­stone in our fight against ille­gal wildlife trade in Ugan­da. We must do every­thing pos­si­ble in our time to pro­tect wildlife. If we don’t, his­to­ry will judge us harsh­ly,” said UWA Exec­u­tive Direc­tor Sam Mwanda.

In 2020, a hunter who killed a sil­ver­back goril­la called Rafi­ki was giv­en 11 years in prison.

In Sep­tem­ber, two men were each sen­tenced to eight years in prison for killing six rare tree-climb­ing lions.

Ugan­da has more than 7,900 ele­phants left in the wild in its forests and savannah.

The Inter­na­tion­al Union for Con­ser­va­tion of Nature con­sid­ers for­est ele­phants to be near-threat­ened and savan­nah ele­phants to be endangered.

Since the 1990s, the coun­try’s ele­phant pop­u­la­tion has increased. How­ev­er, the threat of poach­ing and human traf­fick­ing continues.

Ohba has already been sent to prison once in 2017 when he was arrest­ed with four ivory tusks and an okapi skin.

Okapis are rare, zebra-like for­est ani­mals found only in neigh­bor­ing Demo­c­ra­t­ic Repub­lic of the Congo.