A fierce devotion to conservation and meticulous investigation skills have earned East London environmental Green Scorpion crime- buster Etienne Kitching the national Department of Environmental Affairs environmental crime investigator of the year award.
Kitching, 51, won the award at the 2017 Environmental Management Inspectorate (also known as the Green Scorpions) lekgotla which was held at the Ingwenyama Conference Resort in Mpumalanga last week.
This is the second time Kitching, who has a background as a policeman in Grahamstown’s stock theft unit, has bagged the title.
“It is very humbling to win because there are very good Green Scorpion crime investigators in all the provinces, but we have had very good ground-breaking cases in the Eastern Cape.” Kitching said his most notable success was busting cycad smuggling syndicates.
“We have recovered cycads to the value of R13-million from the Stutterheim, Bolo, Jansenville and Uitenhage areas and over the past five to six years we’ve had 48 arrests in about 25 cases, with seven cases still pending.”
He said smugglers of the ancient, protected plants, some of which are 1000-years old, dig them up at farms before transporting them to Johannesburg where they are sold to nurseries or exported to cities worldwide. “They are huge status symbols and the rich and famous end up with them.”
He said the plants’ tap roots are usually damaged when they are ripped from the ground. “The chances of an 800-year-old plant successfully rehabilitating its root system is not great.”
Another coup was the arrest of five men near Inkwenkwezi Private Game Reserve earlier this year, which scuppered their alleged rhino poaching plan.
“They were conspiring to kill rhino in Inkwenkwezi and were caught with a firearm, a silencer, ammunition, an axe and a saw to cut the horn off. We worked hand-in-hand with the SAPS and the Hawks who helped a lot.”
Kitching has also arrested two men selling fake rhino horns in East London and been integral in an arrest connected to a leopard killing in Alicedale.
— barbarah@dispatch.co.za
Second win for Green Scorpion crimebuster
A fierce devotion to conservation and meticulous investigation skills have earned East London environmental Green Scorpion crime- buster Etienne Kitching the national Department of Environmental Affairs environmental crime investigator of the year award.
Kitching, 51, won the award at the 2017 Environmental Management Inspectorate (also known as the Green Scorpions) lekgotla which was held at the Ingwenyama Conference Resort in Mpumalanga last week.
This is the second time Kitching, who has a background as a policeman in Grahamstown’s stock theft unit, has bagged the title.
“It is very humbling to win because there are very good Green Scorpion crime investigators in all the provinces, but we have had very good ground-breaking cases in the Eastern Cape.” Kitching said his most notable success was busting cycad smuggling syndicates.
“We have recovered cycads to the value of R13-million from the Stutterheim, Bolo, Jansenville and Uitenhage areas and over the past five to six years we’ve had 48 arrests in about 25 cases, with seven cases still pending.”
He said smugglers of the ancient, protected plants, some of which are 1000-years old, dig them up at farms before transporting them to Johannesburg where they are sold to nurseries or exported to cities worldwide. “They are huge status symbols and the rich and famous end up with them.”
He said the plants’ tap roots are usually damaged when they are ripped from the ground. “The chances of an 800-year-old plant successfully rehabilitating its root system is not great.”
Another coup was the arrest of five men near Inkwenkwezi Private Game Reserve earlier this year, which scuppered their alleged rhino poaching plan.
“They were conspiring to kill rhino in Inkwenkwezi and were caught with a firearm, a silencer, ammunition, an axe and a saw to cut the horn off. We worked hand-in-hand with the SAPS and the Hawks who helped a lot.”
Kitching has also arrested two men selling fake rhino horns in East London and been integral in an arrest connected to a leopard killing in Alicedale.
— barbarah@dispatch.co.za
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