Wildlife Conservation Society

* Organization Background: The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) is a US non-profit, tax-exempt, private organization established in 1895 that saves wildlife and wild places by understanding critical issues, crafting science-based solutions, and taking conservation actions that benefit nature and humanity. With more than a century of experience, long-term commitments in dozens of landscapes, presence in nearly 60 nations, and experience helping to establish over 150 protected areas across the globe, WCS has amassed the biological knowledge, cultural understanding and partnerships to ensure that vibrant, wild places and wildlife thrive alongside local communities. Working with local communities and organizations, that knowledge is applied to address species, habitat and ecosystem management issues critical to improving the quality of life of poor rural people whose livelihoods depend on the direct utilization of natural resources. * WCS Viet Nam Program Overview: WCS has been working in Viet Nam since 2006, focusing on strengthening the commitment, capacity and actions of the government of Vietnam to combat wildlife trafficking. Through supports and cooperation to executive and judiciary sectors, including Ministry of Public Security, Supreme People’s Court, Supreme People’s Procuracy, Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, and the National Assembly, it has provided and shared intelligence on criminal wildlife networks which help generate well-informed decisions in enforcement operations. WCS Viet Nam have generated a wide range of reliable data on a number of related issues on illegal wildlife trade, trained and briefed about 3,300 law enforcement officers, policy makers, journalist, researcher and managers at nation-wide in investigation and enforcement techniques, legal barriers and distributed a number of technical handbooks and guides. It has assisted central agencies to review and propose necessary changes to national legislation, criminal intelligence analysis systems, inter-agency cooperation. WCS has also facilitated Government-to-Government dialogue through multilateral and bi-lateral collaboration efforts, between Viet Nam and Asian, African and Latin American countries, to detect and response to illegal wildlife trade networks. Its wildlife health expertise has been leveraged to address unregulated wildlife trade and mitigation of pandemic threats, through collaborative research, training, and policy development. WCS has developed a regional Wildlife Crime Leadership Initiative (WCLI) and is currently piloting the program in Indonesia and Viet Nam. The WCLI invests in law enforcement officers who have the potential to be future leaders through a long-term program, sharpening not only in operational skills but also strengthening leadership, personal development, executive skills and an understanding of the value of wildlife conservation. This represents a unique and pioneering approach to building leadership in countering wildlife tracking, seeking long-term sustainable change rather than short-term knowledge retention.