The U.S. State Department lists wildlife trafficking as the third most valuable illicit commerce in the world. Wildlife trafficking mainly involves the illegal gathering, transportation, and distribution of animals and their derivatives. This can be done either internationally or domestically. The illegal nature of such activities makes determining the amount of money involved incredibly difficult. Wildlife trafficking is a major illegal trade along with narcotics, human trafficking, and counterfeit products.
Products demanded by the trade include exotic pets, food, traditional medicine, clothing, and jewelry made from animals’ tusks, fins, skins, shells, horns, and internal organs. Smuggled wildlife is an increasing global demand. It is estimated that the US, China, and the European Union are the places with the highest demand.
In many parts of Africa, the main demand for illegal wildlife comes from the consumption of bushmeat. Wild animals are a preferred as a source of protein and primates are considered a delicacy. It is believed that up to 40,000 monkeys are killed and eventually consumed each year in Africa alone via smuggling. Many primates are killed by bushmeat hunters, who supply to markets all over Africa, Europe, and the United States.
Much of demand for rhinoceros horns, tiger bones, and other animal products arises out of the practice of traditional Chinese medicine, which uses these ingredients to treat fevers, gout, and other illnesses; maintain good health and longevity; and enhance sexual potency. Many of the traditional Chinese medicines fail to cure anything, although the demand for them continues to expand greatly and to the detriment of wildlife.
But the most trafficked animal in the world is the pangolin. Pangolins are the only scaly mammal on earth. In the last decade, more than one million pangolins were poached and killed for their scales. Although there are no proven medical values, their scales are used in traditional Chinese medicine and considered a privilege for the wealthy in China and Vietnam.
Exotic pets are captured from their endemic environments, smuggled across national and International borders and wind up in family homes, menageries, or roadside circuses. Reptiles, such as bearded dragons and geckos, and birds, such as scarlet macaws and certain falcons, make up the largest share of animals captured and sold. Exotic mammals including three-toed sloths, sugar gliders, prairie dogs, hedgehogs, monkeys and other animals are kept as pets. Birds are the most common contraband. Two million to five million wild birds, from hummingbirds to parrots to harpy eagles, are traded illegally worldwide every year.
The volume of international trade in wildlife commodities is immense and continues to rise. According to an analysis to the 2012 Harmonized System customs statistics, global import of wildlife products amounted to US$187 billion, of which fisheries commodities accounted for $113 billion; plants and forestries for $71 billion; non-fishery animal for $3 billion.
Members of terrorist organizations and criminal organizations illicitly traffic in hundreds of millions of plants and animals to fund the purchase of weapons, finance civil conflicts, and launder money from illicit sources. A single Ploughshare tortoise from Madagascar those are only 400 estimated left in the wild can fetch US $24,000.
Elephant ivory, a commonly trafficked contraband, can sell for little in the source country and can fetch high prices in destination countries. Prices depend greatly on the source country and the product. Ivory prices and demand have skyrocketed, making it a growing and very lucrative market. China is the largest importer of illegal ivory; the United States is second. According to reports from wildlife organization Save the Elephants, the price for raw ivory in China was $2,100 per kilogram. Between 2010 and 2012, up to 33,000 elephants were poached and killed on average each year.
Wildlife smuggling directly affects the biodiversity of different ecosystems. Through out the last hundred years, around twenty animals are extinct due to poaching and illegal smuggling. Such as the west African black Rhinoceros, Pyrenean Ibex, Passenger Pigeon, Ploughshare Tortoise, Red-Fronted Macaw. Many species are not protected until they are endangered, this delay in protection results in significant losses of biodiversity in the ecosystem. Legislation, such as the Endangered Species Act (ESA), serves to regulate human environmental intervention on the international scale to protect and preserve “species of fish, wildlife, and plants.
Wildlife trafficking is contributing to an illegal economy and has detrimental effects on humans’ well-being. The Endangered Species Act (ESA) works along with international treaties like Convention on Migratory Species (CMS) and Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), aiming to combat transnational crimes and make joint efforts for wildlife protection.
The Coalition Against Wildlife Trafficking (CAWT) was established in 2005 as a voluntary coalition of governments and organizations that aims to end the illegal trade of wildlife and wildlife products. Their means of action include raising public awareness to curb demand, strengthening international cross-border law enforcement to limit supply, and endeavoring to mobilize political support from upper echelons.
The Freeland Foundation and TRAFFIC Southeast Asia worked with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, to establish the ASEAN Wildlife Enforcement Network (ASEAN-WEN) in 2005. ASEAN-WEN oversees cross-border cooperation and aims to strengthen the collective law enforcement capacity of the ten ASEAN member countries. It is the largest regional wildlife law enforcement collaboration in the world. In 2008, South Asian environment ministers agreed to create SAWEN under the support of the South Asia Co-operative Environment Programme. The SAWEN countries include Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
(Mr. Arafat is Asst. Officer, Career & Professional Development Services Department, Southeast University. E-mail: [email protected])
