Grace Farms Foundation Chief Accountability Officer and Justice Initiative Director Rod Khattabi and IPR Director Steve Francis sign the MOU (credit: IPR Center)
Grace Farms Foundation and the National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center (IPR Center) announce a partnership to advance their shared missions of disrupting and combating wildlife trafficking. The signing of this Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) is another important outcome of Grace Farms Foundation’s work with agencies globally to combat environmental crimes.
Grace Farms Foundation, through its Justice Initiative, will partner with HSI in providing global trainings and capacity building opportunities with the goal of fostering relationships within the anti-wildlife crime community. By connecting resources and sharing information, Grace Farms Foundation and HSI will improve criminal investigations into wildlife crime and other commercial fraud, and strengthen communication networks that can lead to the successful prosecution of perpetrators.
“Building strategic public-private partnerships is the most promising model for disrupting illicit wildlife trade,” said Grace Farms Foundation Chief Accountability Officer and Justice Initiative Director Rod Khattabi. “In partnering with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), IPR Center, we can achieve great results in combating global wildlife crimes and their impact that stems from these crimes.
“Illegal trafficking in wildlife and natural resources not only exploits those global natural resources, but also the communities that rely on those resources. This criminal activity has long-standing and far-reaching detrimental effects which, sadly, cannot be easily or quickly rectified. That makes it all the more important that we stop this activity before it ever happens,” said Stever Francis, IPR Center director. “This type of exploitation spans multiple industries and sectors and must be dismantled using a multifaceted approach. With this expanded partnership, HSI’s broad legal authorities, coupled with Grace Farms’ vast capabilities, will help advance our mission to end this type of exploitation and trafficking, both locally and abroad.”
As a part of today’s agreement, Grace Farms Foundation will leverage its global relationships and resources to facilitate engagements between HSI and other organizations in the anti-wildlife crimes community to identify potential points of intervention in wildlife trafficking supply chains. This partnership also leverages the Foundation’s supply chain expertise and its ability to train and build trans-border law enforcement capacity to combat environmental crimes.
