Her story: Women targeting natural resource corruption

On International Anti-Corruption Day 2022, we recognize the determination of women who are taking remarkable steps to address corruption through conservation programming. Their challenges and contexts are all different, but their stories reinforce a common understanding--only by addressing corruption behind environmental crimes, supply chain threats, and natural resource governance challenges, can we safeguard a future for communities, wildlife, fisheries and forests. Their stories inspire us to think and program differently for strengthened results.

Renata Cao's work focuses on supporting World Wildlife Fund (WWF) offices in the Latin America region to advance their counter wildlife trafficking agendas and to facilitate coordinated responses, build regional technical capacities, and forge strategic partnerships.

Daniela Gomel is a public policy and governance specialist at Fundacion Vida Silvestre, a WWF partner organization in Argentina. She manages the policy and governance dimensions of several projects related to forests, protected areas, plastics and climate change. Daniela also coordinates a Targeting Natural Resource Corruption (TNRC) pilot project that focuses on promoting transparency and sharing learning to address corruption that undermines effective governance in the fisheries sector, particularly at the capture stage.

Nicola Okes represents TRAFFIC International, based in Southern Africa. She currently works across the global TRAFFIC network to coordinate engagement on issues relating to the illegal wildlife trade, with a focus on rhinos and elephants. She has previously worked on marine conservation and trade, analyzing both legal and illegal trade with the purpose of providing sustainable solutions to environmental concerns.

Shambhavi Poudel leads the Campaigns and Education Unit at WWF Nepal. She works closely with children and young people, placing them at the core of conservation interventions. She recently helped to design a new pilot activity under the TNRC project that focuses on mobilizing youth to promote good community forest governance.

For more resources and tools, visit TNRCproject.org.

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This content is made possible by the generous support of the American people through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The contents are the responsibility of World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID, the United States Government, or individual TNRC consortium members.