Born Free USA works with law enforcement in West and Central Africa to counter wildlife trafficking in the region, providing trainings and resources to those working in the field. But, none of this work could be done without data and information on how and where trafficking occurs.
That’s why Born Free USA helped to organize a series of Threat Assessment missions to 13 Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) member nations – Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Togo – between 2017 and 2020. The aim of these missions, which lasted one week per country, was to gather data on the location, scale, and structure of wildlife trafficking activities across West Africa.