(Posted 30th May 2024)
Courtesy of African Elephant News / Stenews and Benjamin Kurylo, Earth.Org
Among all environmental crimes, wildlife crime is one of the most devastating, pushing threatened species to the brink of extinction and causing irreversible consequences on ecosystems around the world. As the recurring problem of environmental crimes, wildlife crime does not have a universally accepted definition, further complicating the fight against this serious crime. Nevertheless, it is understood by the International Consortium on Combating Wildlife Crime (ICCWC) as the harming, taking, trading, obtaining, possessing, and consumption of wild fauna and flora in contravention of national or international law.
The Global Challenge of Wildlife Crime
No country is left untouched by wildlife crime, which affects biodiversity, entire ecosystems, local communities, national economies, human health, national security, and socio-economic development. Transnational wildlife crime is highly lucrative, estimated at up to US$199 annually, and facilitated by low financial and risk burden, enabling criminals to prey upon the flora and fauna with minimal costs. This comes at the expense of government revenues, depriving states of up to US$12 billion annually.
The challenge in combating wildlife crime lies in the wide-ranging spectrum of animals and plants targeted by this criminal activity. Over the last two decades, 6,000 different have been seized by authorities, with no single species accounting for more than 5% of incidents. Wildlife crime distinguishes itself as being truly a global issue, with virtually every country in the world being implicated. No country is responsible for more than 9% of the shipments seized, while approximately 150 nationalities have been identified among the suspected traffickers.
Yet, although seizure data offer tangible evidence of a criminal activity obscured from view, they can often be challenging to interpret in isolation and represent only a fraction of the illegal wildlife trade. Therefore, seizure data cannot be taken at face value as they fail to represent the actual scale of the trafficking in protected wild fauna and flora species, suggesting a much broader magnitude and range of offenses.
Wildlife crime causes significant harm, including the destruction of wildlife resources and ecosystems, desertification, environmental degradation, and the risk of species extinction. Nevertheless, wildlife crime is often treated as a “victimless crime” and often fails to be set as a priority in fighting organized crime.
Wildlife Crime’s Criminal Landscape
Wildlife crime has rapidly evolved from being regarded as an emerging threat to one of the most significant transnational criminal activities. It is ranked as the fourth-largest transnational criminal activity after drug, counterfeit goods, and human trafficking. Low risks and high returns from wildlife trafficking have attracted organized criminal networks to expand into this criminal activity, bringing along greater violence and instability. Thus, wildlife crime is positioned as one of the most profitable activities fueling organized crime and terrorism, along with drug smuggling, human trafficking, and the illegal arms trade.
The level of sophistication in illegal trade makes the extensive involvement of organized crime evident. This includes the transition to internet markets, the vast amount of seized shipments, and the co-opting of legal trade markets into the criminal supply chain, all indicating a high level of organization. While some products are entirely illegal, such as rhino horns, for which trade is prohibited, some still enter legal marketplaces. Timber, for instance, is frequently fed into legal industries where its illegal origin is obscured, especially as wood illegally harvested in one country may be legal to import into another. These wildlife products are processed and sold as legal commodities, providing traffickers access to a far wider array of potential buyers.
Wildlife crime also involves corrupt officials at all levels, who enable illicit wildlife trade at sourcing, transit, and export stages. Corruption underpins the illegal trade in natural resources, nurtured by the vast profits made by various organizations from this criminal activity. It enables perpetrators to carry out their crimes with impunity, thereby contributing to the thriving of this criminal activity. For instance, an estimated US$18,000 to $30,000 in bribes were given to border officials per day to allow ivory to cross the Vietnam-China border illicitly.
Wildlife crime converges with other illicit activities, being perpetrated alongside corruption, tax evasion, fraud, money laundering and arms trafficking. Criminals operate along the entire supply chain, exploiting institutional and legislative loopholes. Combined with porous borders and ineffective customs procedures, these regulatory weaknesses contribute to the fact that poaching and trafficking of protected species by criminal organizations across borders continue unabated today.
The significant criminal proceeds from wildlife trafficking are linked to the highly speculative value of wildlife products. Their price on the illicit market increases with the rarity and the threat of species extinction. Some endangered wildlife products are more valuable than gold, creating significant financial incentives for illicit wildlife markets. This dynamic produces a human-induced ‘anthropogenic allee effect,’ where the scarcer the supply of protected species, the higher the price consumers are willing to pay. This fuels a vicious cycle in which rare species are particularly coveted and highly prized, increasing hunting and making species even rarer and more expensive.
The deeply entrenched involvement of transnational criminal organizations in wildlife trafficking reflects the importance of addressing this environmental crime beyond the conservational implication it creates. As stressed by former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, “Combatting this crime is not only essential for conservation efforts and sustainable development, it will contribute to achieving peace and security in troubled regions where conflicts are fuelled by these illegal activities.”
Wildlife Crime’s Drivers and Dynamics
Wildlife trafficking, like every other kind of trafficking, is fueled by demand. It involves many distinct markets that mainly encompass traditional medicine, wild food, luxury goods, fashion, exotic pets, and furniture, each with its drivers and dynamics.
Traditional medicine derived from wild animals or plants is based on the assumption that wildlife products impart certain healing qualities. This is the case for the pangolin, the world’s most traded mammal. Pangolins are poached for their scales, believed to have therapeutic properties, and widely employed in Asian traditional medicine traditions. However, no scientific evidence has been established for their therapeutic or health benefits, while plants and synthetic products have proven to be effective substitutes for curing illnesses. Pangolin trafficking has led to a rapid decline in the species’ population, critically endangered today, weakening ecosystems as each pangolin’s consumption of termites saves nearly 40 acres of land from devastation.
Wild-sourced products are often sold as food, driven by the consumption of exotic dishes rather than necessity. These luxury dishes are often derived from endangered species that cannot be cultivated or bred and are instead poached to meet the demand. Shark fins are a prime example. They are considered a delicacy in East Asia, and their consumption symbolizes wealth and status. Demand for shark fins has soared since the 1980s, bringing overexploitation of the shark population by cruel and wasteful methods. Shark finning entails capturing sharks, removing their fins, which account for only around 5% of total body mass, and then disposing them back in the sea, dead or alive. Up to 73 million sharks are killed each year to support the global shark fin market, threatening many of the imperiled shark species with extinction.
Due to their rarity, wildlife products have become stores of value in the form of jewelry, decorative objects or works of art. Their value is attached to their traditionally recognised preciousness and intrinsically limited supply. In addition, the illegality of these products and the associated difficulty of obtaining them impart more prestige to their possession, thus fueling the demand for trafficking. Ivory is one of these assets, regarded as a precious commodity whose exclusivity was enhanced by the international ban on the sale of ivory enacted in 1989. The high value and persistent demand for elephant ivory has led to a poaching epidemic which threatens the very survival of the species.
Animal skins, furs, feathers, and fibers are also used to make clothing and accessories for the fashion industry. These expensive items rely on wild-sourced materials, particularly if captive breeding is impossible, leading to rampant illegal poaching. Shahtoosh, made from endangered Tibetan antelopes, is a clear example. A single shahtoosh shawl or scarf requires the wool of four antelopes. However, since wild antelopes cannot be domesticated or sheared, the only method of obtaining wool is to kill them and strip them of their fur. Consequently, 90% of Tibet’s antelope population was decimated due to global demand for shahtoosh over the previous century.
Exotic animals destined for pets and private collections are frequently chosen precisely because they are becoming scarcer in the wild, exacerbating the population collapse of endangered species. Parrots are among the most trafficked exotic live animals. They are highly prized for their vocalizations, cognitive ability, and colorful plumage. Habitat degradation and trade have depleted parrot populations, making parrots the world’s most vulnerable bird species. Wildlife trade is identified as the leading factor pushing one-third of parrot species to the brink of extinction.
Finally, wildlife trade is also driven by the demand for furniture. Customers particularly value tropical hardwood even as it involves endangered tree species and is sourced from tropical rainforests or other protected areas with fragile ecosystems. Rosewood, used for artwork and luxury furniture, illustrates this. Called “the ivory of the forest,” it is the most trafficked wild product and has been illegally harvested to unsustainable levels. Beyond endangering many internationally protected trees that produce it, rosewood trafficking decimated forests through extensive illegal logging, causing irreparable harm to natural habitats and the environment.
The Adverse Societal and Environmental Impact of Wildlife Crime
The unprecedented surge in wildlife crimes jeopardizes decades of conservation successes and the future of many species. Increasing demand for pangolin scales, elephant tusks, rhino horns, redwood, shark fins, tiger skins, and numerous other wildlife products is pushing endangered or at-risk species to the brink of extinction. Poaching has emerged as the primary cause of animal extinction risks, fueling the world’s biodiversity crisis.
Every year, wildlife trafficking snatches around 200,000 pangolins from the wild. Although no population surveys have accurately quantified the number of pangolins left, the unsustainable decimation of its population puts the species’ survival at stake. Annually, around 15,000 elephants are killed for their tusks. The ivory trade has ravaged African elephant populations, which have decreased by an estimated 84-96%. Over the past decade, 10,000 African rhinos have been poached for their horns, and less than 30,000 individuals remain today.
Besides population losses, wildlife crime also causes severe gender imbalance and affects the reproduction rate of vulnerable species, resulting in long-term conservation concerns. Elephant poaching is a clear example, as selective poaching of males in species where females bear no or smaller tusks causes sex-ratio imbalances in the population. With reproduction rates affected, elephant populations have struggled to recover. Similarly, macaws have a slower reproductive cycle compared to other birds. However, the disproportionate targeting of macaws by poachers has left fewer and fewer individuals for reproduction, contributing to the species’ population decline. In the flora, illegal logging frequently removes the largest and most valuable trees for reproduction, which has detrimental effects on population gene pools and regeneration, increasing the species’ vulnerability. Moreover, the demand for larger and more ornate specimens results in the poaching and illegal harvesting of the fittest individuals from the breeding population, endangering subsequent generations.
Population decline in species targeted by illegal wildlife trade compromises entire ecosystems. This is the case for keystone species, without which the surrounding ecosystem’s structure and life balance could collapse. Sharks, for instance, play an essential role in the oceanic system by helping to maintain a healthy, balanced ecosystem. However, shark finning has decimated shark populations globally. It has disturbed the food chain, increasing specific fish populations at the expense of other species. Similarly, African elephants are considered “ecosystem engineers,” clearing space through their colossal diet for smaller species to thrive, as well as scattering seeds and fertilizing the soil with their dung.
The annual global economic cost of wildlife crime is estimated to be between $1-2 trillion. This undermines efforts to create economic opportunity for countries and communities whose livelihoods rely disproportionately on natural capital. Thus, wildlife crime impedes the successful attainment of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly those based on biodiversity conservation and climate change mitigation. It causes large economic losses to national and local economies, depriving populations of the resources required to improve their socio-economic status.
Additionally, trafficked exotic species pose a biosecurity risk because they can carry seeds, bacteria, parasites, fungi, and viruses. Being ripped from wildlife and released into new environments where native populations are not sufficiently resistant to alien organisms can compromise the lives of humans, native species, and livestock. Three-quarters of all emerging infectious diseases are zoonoses transmitted from animals to humans, mostly originating in wildlife. In other words, this means that human activity, such as environmental destruction and wildlife crime, facilitates disease transmission and threatens global health. Stopping wildlife crime is therefore a critical step not just to protect biodiversity and uphold the rule of law but also to help prevent future public health emergencies.
Essential Steps to Combating Wildlife Crime
The international community’s commitment to addressing wildlife trafficking has been demonstrated by the adoption of four resolutions by the UN General Assembly since 2015. Each resolution acknowledges the harm wildlife crime inflicts on the environment, conservation and biodiversity. The 2019 UN General Assembly resolution 73/343 on tackling illicit wildlife trafficking reaffirmed the growing prevalence of poaching and illegal trade worldwide, as well as their direct role in the extinction of numerous species. Nevertheless, there is still no global agreement on wildlife crime. The regulatory framework has been limited to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), which fails to comprehensively englobe wildlife crime. This has called for a legally binding wildlife crime convention to address the shortcomings of CITES.
At the national level, countries must ensure that illicit wildlife trafficking is set as a severe crime in legislation. Moreover, each country can impede illegal trade by prohibiting the entry, exit, and possession of illegal wildlife products obtained anywhere else in the world. Likewise, commercial traceability procedures should be improved to ensure the integrity of the supply chain from origin to destination markets. This is also the case for monitoring mechanisms to prevent and combat corruption, which is the primary enabler of wildlife crime.
At the global level, the international community can assist local law enforcement by providing technical assistance and capacity building, including coordinating international operations, cross-border investigations and judicial collaboration. Furthermore, harmonizing legislation within countries and between regions can effectively close gaps that enable perpetrators to commit crimes with impunity.
