High interest among Romanian authorities for the LIFE SWiPE training sessions

The interest of the Romanian authorities in the SWIPE trainings exceeded all expectations – in total, 106 specialists from the criminal justice system in Romania have been trained to better understand trends in wildlife crime and how to improve the prosecution of these crimes. Fauna & Flora, with the support of WWF Romania, organized four training sessions between October 2022 and April 2023 as part of the LIFE SWiPE project. These sessions were held in various locations throughout Romania to ensure accessibility for regional authorities, as well as representatives from Bucharest.

The level of interest among authorities grew from session to session. In fact, for the final session, the interest of prosecutors invited by the General Prosecutor’s Office overwhelmingly exceeded the available spots – three times as many prosecutors requested to attend than there were available places.

For the first time in Romania, a new collaborative and inter-agency format was used, and participants included representatives from Prosecution, Judiciary, Customs, Police, Gendarmerie, Environmental Guard, Veterinary Authority, and the Romanian CITES Authority. Following discussions and feedback during the training, participants agreed that collaboration between institutions is essential to effectively control wildlife crime, and that such trainings should continue.