The killing of rhinos by poachers has risen sharply since South Africa started easing COVID-19 lockdown restrictions. Their horns are cut off and trafficked mostly to Asia. Credit: AWF wildlife archive

By Guy Dinmore
St David’s, Wales, Aug 6 2021 (IPS)

A recent seizure at Johannesburg’s international airport of a large consignment of rhino horns confirmed worst fears – illegal trafficking of wildlife and the plundering of treasured species is back with a vengeance after a Covid-19 lockdown lull.

Destined for Kuala Lumpur, the 32 pieces of rhino horns weighing a total of 160kg were intercepted by a sniffer dog on July 17.

Rhinos in South Africa were being killed by poachers at the rate of three a day in 2019. But with domestic and international travel restrictions imposed because of the Covid-19 pandemic, the daily toll in 2020 fell to around one. However, a subsequent lockdown easing has given rise to “serious numbers” of rhino poaching incidents, according to WWF.

Carcases of rhinos left by poachers to bleed to death are unfortunately just one of the most visible images of the global illegal trafficking in wildlife – a multi-billion dollar industry often run by transnational syndicates, sometimes alongside trafficking in drugs, arms and people.

From the seas to the skies, the industrial-scale killing of animals, illegal logging of timber and the plundering of rare plants are driving many species to extinction.

Tigers – their bones and other body parts used in traditional medicine — are among the most threatened victims, with 97 percent of the wild tiger population estimated to have disappeared over the past century. Cheetahs are vanishing because of the demand for pets.

A quarter of shark species are now facing extinction, mostly due to illegal and unsustainable fishing. All seven remaining species of sea turtles are at risk. New species of orchids – there are about 28,000 known to science – have disappeared to collectors and thus become extinct in the wild before they are even recorded. Millions of birds are traded illegally each year. The list goes on and on.

The most trafficked mammal on earth is the pangolin, a scaly ant-eating creature. More than a million are estimated to have been poached from the wild in the last decade for their meat, skin and scales. All eight species are deemed at risk of extinction.

All eight species of pangolin, four in Asia and four in Africa, are threatened with extinction, mostly because of illegal poaching and trafficking. Credit: AWF wildlife archive

The Covid-19 pandemic has hammered home what scientists were long saying – that wildlife trafficking is also a serious threat to global security. Bats and pangolins are the focus of research into the evolutionary path of SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes the Covid-19 disease. A recent study by the Francis Crick Institute showed that SARS-CoV-2 could in theory have moved to humans from pangolins, after originating in a currently unknown bat coronavirus.

Three-quarters of all emerging infectious diseases are zoonotic, transferred from animals to humans, facilitated by environmental destruction and wildlife crime.

These findings only further underscore efforts by the International Union for Conservation of Nature to shape humanity’s response to the planet’s conservation crises. The IUCN World Conservation Congress, initially delayed by the pandemic and now to be held from 3-11 September in Marseille, is the world’s leading conservation event where government, civil society and indigenous peoples’ organisations will join discussions, debate and vote on motions that will set priorities and drive conservation and sustainable development action.

Two key motions tackle illegal wildlife trafficking: Motion 50 on implementing international efforts to tackle the role of cybercrime, the internet and social media in enabling traffickers, and Motion 65 on engaging the private sector to combat wildlife trafficking.

Jose Louies, a specialist in wildlife crime prevention with the Wildlife Trust of India (WTI), a co-sponsor of Motion 50, says governments must make the illegal wildlife trade a top priority and set out clear guidelines on wildlife cybercrime. IT companies must also set policies to stop, control and monitor traffickers using their platforms.

Louies told IPS that WTI’s covert agents had been following pangolin traders online in recent months, connecting with suppliers and buyers from several countries.

Pangolin scales sold illegally through the internet by wildlife traffickers. The pangolin, sometimes called a scaly anteater, is the world’s most trafficked mammal. Credit: Jose Louies / Wildlife Trust of India.

“Most of these leads were picked up from a single social media platform where the buyers and sellers posted comments with email ids/ phone numbers to connect,” he added. ”We had 114 buyers and 69 sellers,” he said, naming the sample countries as Pakistan, Nepal, Iraq, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Myanmar and 17 states in India.

“The use of social media and messaging apps to build connections between suspects at various levels of trade is a serious matter of concern. Such fluidic and organic systems will enable a network to regenerate quicker than a conventional network.”

WTI sees IUCN as the leading global body to make recommendations and influence policies, regardless of political borders, and to act as an enabler for global conservation policies and practices. “Conservation is not an exclusive job of conservationists – it’s the collective efforts of everyone,” says Louies.

Among the various elements of Motion 50, IUCN members call on governments to strengthen legislation to tackle cyber-enabled wildlife trafficking; collaborate more in cross-border investigations; encourage and protect whistle-blowers; and encourage technology companies to step up efforts to stop online trafficking.

Known as Hatha Jodi, these dried penises of the monitor lizard were sold illegally by traffickers online. Credit: Jose Louies / Wildlife Trust of India.

The Coalition to End Wildlife Trafficking Online, launched in 2018, now brings together over 40 companies from across the world in partnership with wildlife experts at WWF, TRAFFIC, and IFAW for an industry-wide approach to shut down online marketplaces for wildlife traffickers

The latest companies to join are China’s Douyin, a popular short video social media platform, and Huya, a video game company.
As the Coalition admits, advances in technology and connectivity, combined with rising buying power and demand for illegal wildlife products, have increased the ease of exchange from poacher to consumer. ”A largely unregulated online market allows criminals to sell illegally obtained wildlife products across the globe. Purchasing elephant ivory, tiger cubs, and pangolin scales is as easy as click, pay, ship.”

But despite such coordinated efforts, including GLACY+ involving Interpol, trafficking is getting even bigger.

“In Africa, cybercrime is escalating on many platforms via the internet,” says Philip Muruthi, vice president of the African Wildlife Foundation, also a co-sponsor of Motion 50. “You just need to do a Google search and you will find someone trying to sell some wildlife product or wildlife… but the capacity to deal with wildlife cybercrime is very low across the board. This is something that we have noted across Africa – a growing silent problem – for which we have limited knowledge and capacity to turn around.”

AWF has a program to train and equip law enforcement officers to combat wildlife cybercrime, starting in Kenya, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, but governments and other players could do much more, Muruthi tells IPS.

“What is agreed at these IUCN World Conservation Congresses often results in enhanced collective action. The issue of wildlife cybercrime may be elusive at a glance but deep analyses reveals it warrants local, regional and global attention,” Muruthi adds.

Stressing the importance of its unique structure spanning governments, NGOs, the private sector, individuals and indigenous peoples, AWF also benefits from being able to access more potential collaborators and span disciplines and themes.

Steven Galster, chair of Freeland which describes itself as a “lean, frontline international NGO with a team of law enforcement, development and communications specialists” fighting wildlife trafficking and human slavery, says traffickers are winning an unequal battle. Richer countries are not backing up their political promises with action, he says.

“I’m a big fan of IUCN. It’s an important body,” Galster tells IPS, praising IUCN’s Asia team. But he urges IUCN to shift priorities.

More broadly, Freeland, a co-sponsor of Motion 065, is calling on IUCN to go further and push for a global suspension of commercial trade in wild animals as a matter of urgency to save biodiversity and avoid another pandemic, rather than just trying to stamp out illegal wildlife trade as defined by CITES conventions.

“Legal trade also carries virus transmission risks. There remains so much unknown about the many viruses out there, and how they may mutate, that we should not be confining our containment to only some species of families of animals,” Galster says. ”The precautionary principle should be pushed harder than ever in wake of Covid-19.”

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Because of their biological wealth, Latin America and the Caribbean are a source and destination of trafficked species. In the photo, trafficked parrots in a cage after being seized. Credit: World Animal Protection

By Emilio Godoy
MEXICO CITY, Jun 2 2016 (IPS)

Although it violates the international conventions that regulate the wildlife trade, it is possible to go online and find websites to buy, for example, axolotl salamanders (Ambystoma mexicanum) or spiny softshell turtles (Trionyx spiniferus).

These websites reflect new trends in the trafficking of plant and animal species, which help fuel the smuggling of wildlife and form part of the ‘Deep Web’, made up of pages that search engines cannot find.

Despite the magnitude of the damage to biodiversity, Latin America and the Caribbean have made scant progress in fighting wildlife trafficking. The theme of this year’s World Environment Day, celebrated on Jun. 5, is Go Wild for Life.“People have to be taught that they should not purchase wild animals or plants. That would be enough to cut down trafficking to sustainable levels.” -- Juan Carlos Cantú

Because of their biological wealth, Mexico, Central America and the Amazon rainforest – which is shared by Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela – are the main sources of trafficked plant and animal species in the region.

“Latin America represents significant criminal activity, because there are several countries considered megadiverse, which makes this region highly vulnerable to trafficking,” Roberto Vieto, with World Animal Protection, told IPS.

Vieto, who is wildlife campaigns officer for Latin America at the London-based international animal welfare organisation, said wildlife trafficking has seen a resurgence in the region, driven by online trade.

The World Wildlife Crime Report, published May 26 by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), said Mexico, Argentina, Chile and Venezuela headed the region in terms of seizures of trafficked wildlife in the 2004-2015 period.

This region accounted for 15 percent of global seizures, while North America represented 46 percent, the Asia-Pacific region 24 percent, Europe 14 percent and Africa one percent.

The seizures indicate that the main destinations for reptiles, mammals and birds trafficked from this region are the United States, Europe, and more recently, China.

UNODC reports that some 7,000 species have been discovered in seizures worldwide. And the European Union reported in February that wildlife trafficking generates anywhere between 8.9 and 22.25 billion dollars a year. That makes it one of the four main transnational criminal activities, along with drug, weapon and people trafficking.

Smuggling, forgery of documents, and the mixture of legal and illegal products are the favorite techniques used by traffickers of wild species. In the photo are small birds in tin cans and a cage, discovered during a seizure in Brazil. Credit: World Animal Protection

Wildlife seizures are an indicator of the scale of the phenomenon. To cite just one example, authorities in Mexico seized more than 200,000 specimens between 2007 and 2011 and arrested 294 suspects.

“The problem is very serious,” said Juan Carlos Cantú, the representative in Mexico of the U.S.-based Defenders of Wildlife. “For certain species, trafficking is the only threat they face. International trafficking is focused on endemic species, the rarest ones, the ones that are the most threatened by extinction.”

In Latin America, there are legal vacuums, and laws against wildlife trafficking are not always adequately enforced.

One illustration of this: in its first “National report on the traffick of wild animals”, published in 2014, the Brazilian organisation Renctas concluded that more than one million caimans – related to alligators – are poached every year in wilderness areas in Brazil, and their hides are taken to neighbouring countries for processing and export.

In 2015, Defenders of Wildlife stated in its report “Combating Wildlife Trafficking from Latin America to the United States” that the five most frequently seized animals in the region are queen conches, sea turtles, caimans, crocodiles and iguanas.

The lucrative Chinese market poses an enormous threat to species like the totoaba, sea cucumbers and sharks. The capture of the totoaba, a fish that is endemic to the Gulf of California in northwest Mexico, whose swim bladder is considered a delicacy in Chinese cuisine, is a death sentence for the vaquita (Phocoena sinus), a rare species of porpoise only found in the same area.

Traffickers often use legal documents to hide illegal activities or forged permits to smuggle specimens. As UNODC notes, certain markets are especially vulnerable to the infiltration of illegally sourced or trafficked wildlife.

In the photo, an inspector from Mexico’s federal environmental protection agency carries a box of parrots seized in a 2011 operation against the trafficking of protected species of birds. Credit: PROFEPA

Smugglers and their clients take advantage of legal gaps in the region. For example, in Brazil it is illegal to sell wild animals, but it is legal to own them if they were raised in captivity.

Sharks are the perfect illustration of incoherent and contradictory regulations and laws. Most Latin American nations allow them to be sold, but ban their capture for the purpose of removal of their fins, which are in high demand in Asia and provide an incentive to blur the distinction between the legal and illegal markets.

The global gendarme

The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), in effect since 1975, regulates more than 5,600 species of animals and 30,000 species of plants from overexploitation through international trade, in accordance with the degree of risk of extinction.

But the millions of species that aren’t covered by CITES can be illegally bred and raised and internationally traded.

Furthermore, national markets are also outside of the reach of the convention, if it cannot be proved that specimens or products have crossed international borders, in contravention of CITES.

In the case of Latin America, since at least 2010 most of the countries have not presented their biennial reports to CITES on how they are implementing the convention, despite the importance of oversight and monitoring in the fight against trafficking.

That gap is going to close, because in its annual meeting in Geneva in February, the CITES Standing Committee decided that its member states must provide statistical information every year on seizures, which will go into an annual report, the first of which will be published in October 2017.

Vieto and Cantú agree on the importance of raising public awareness so that people understand they must not buy wild animals. “Educational campaigns are needed to reduce the consumption of products, step up enforcement of existing regulations and laws, and bolster international cooperation,” to fill in gaps at a local level, said Vieto.

For Cantú, the key is reducing demand. “People have to be taught that they should not purchase wild animals or plants. That would be enough to cut down trafficking to sustainable levels,” he said.

Edited by Estrella Gutiérrez/Translated by Stephanie Wildes

Mother and baby rhinoceros in Tigertops Wildlife Sanctuary, Nepal. The unrestricted exploitation of wildlife has led to the disappearance of many animal species at an alarming rate, destroying earth's biological diversity and upsetting the ecological balance. Credit: UN Photo/John Isaac

By Steven Broad
CAMBRIDGE, UK, Mar 23 2015 (IPS)

On Feb. 13, 2014, heads of state and ministers from 41 countries met in London to inject a new level of political momentum into efforts to combat the growing global threat posed by illegal wildlife trade to species such as elephants, rhinos and tigers.

The UK government-hosted meeting adopted the 25-point London Declaration, with ambitious measures agreed to eradicate the market for illegal wildlife products; strengthen law enforcement efforts and ensure effective legal frameworks and deterrents are in place; and promote sustainable livelihoods through positive engagement with local communities.Most worrying is the significant increase in the frequency of large-scale ivory seizures—those of over 500 kg—which are a strong indication of the involvement of organised criminal networks.

More than a year on, representatives from these governments will gather again March 25 in Kasane, Botswana, to review progress on the implementation of that Declaration and, hopefully, commit to new and tangible actions to further strengthen their implementation.

The scale of the crisis governments in Kasane are facing is daunting: Africa-wide, almost 1,300 rhinos were lost to poaching in 2014, 1,215 of them in South Africa alone.

The situation with elephants remains dire—the most recent analysis of data from the TRAFFIC-managed Elephant Trade Information System (ETIS) clearly indicates high levels of illegal ivory trade continuing.

Most worrying is the significant increase in the frequency of large-scale ivory seizures—those of over 500 kg—which are a strong indication of the involvement of organised criminal networks. The 18 seizures made in 2013 collectively constitute the greatest quantity of ivory derived from large-scale seizures since 1989, when records began.

The crisis is not confined to Africa: in Asia, TRAFFIC’s tiger seizures database clearly indicates that illicit trafficking of tiger parts remains persistent. A minimum of 1,590 tigers were seized in tiger range countries between January 2000 and April 2014, an average of two per week and increasing numbers of seizures have been made by most range States.

With over 218,000 pangolins reported to have been seized by enforcement agencies between 2000 and 2012 world-wide, we must also remember that wildlife crime is an issue that goes well beyond elephants, rhinos and tigers.

While these figures paint a bleak picture of the illegal wildlife trade landscape, it would be wrong to conclude that countries will have little to report in terms of progress at Kasane. Although the ivory seizure figures do demonstrate high levels of trade, they also demonstrate higher levels of law enforcement action, especially in Africa, and we hope these countries remain vigilant.

High-level political attention to the issue continues to be significant, with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon earlier this month expressing concern over the environmental, economic and social consequences of wildlife crime and Premier Li Keqiang of China last May pledging financial support for African countries to combat poaching.

Some countries have made improvements to legislation, including Thailand, which probably had one of the largest unregulated ivory markets in the world but has recently taken steps to improve the legislation governing its domestic ivory market.

There is still a very long way to go for Thailand before its illegal ivory markets are shut down, but this was an important step in the right direction. China has recognised the importance of a more targeted approach to reducing demand for ivory and this January organised a workshop to discuss strategies for curbing illegal ivory trade—particularly targeted at the collection and art investment circles.

Countries in Africa are working together on a common African Strategy on combatting illegal wildlife trade that will be discussed at an African Union conference just a month after Kasane.

While these green shoots of progress are promising, there is little doubt that much more needs to be done and it is hoped that Kasane can be the turning point where the lofty declarations of London can be translated into tangible actions on the ground.

Wildlife criminals are responding to the actions of last year by changing their trade routes and methods, using new technologies and getting more organised. To keep up with these developments, new approaches need to be agreed at Kasane that make it significantly harder for criminals to operate, increasing the indirect and actual risks they face and reduce the rewards they reap.

New players will also need to be brought into the fray. For example, with traffickers typically using the same transportation means as legal importers, the transport sector is inadvertently becoming a critical link within illegal wildlife trade chains.

Much more outreach is needed to the private sector, to prevent criminals abusing other legitimate business services in the finance, insurance and retail sectors.

Meanwhile the power of local communities, who live with and adjacent to wildlife, needs to be harnessed for they are the eyes and ears, the very guardians of the wildlife within their realm.

Community-led approaches need to strengthen the role these communities can play in reducing illegal wildlife trade—while safeguarding their dependence on natural resources.

The world’s governments in London last year declared they were up to the challenge and committed to end the scourge of illegal wildlife trade. A year later, Kasane provides the venue for those governments, and others, to show that they are able and willing to turn those words into action.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

Excerpt:

A carpenter organises a load of mahogany, precious wood seized by the authorities in Cuba's Ciénaga de Zapata wetlands. Credit: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 28 2014 (IPS)

A coalition of international organisations, led by INTERPOL and backed by the United Nations, is pursuing a growing new brand of criminals – primarily accused of serious environmental crimes – who have mostly escaped the long arm of the law.

Described as a worldwide operation, it is the first of its kind targeting individuals wanted for a wide range of crimes, including logging, poaching and trafficking in animals declared endangered species.

Widespread poaching, particularly in central Africa, has resulted in the loss of at least 60 percent of elephants in that region during the last decade.

Last week, INTERPOL, the world’s largest international police organisation, released photographs of nine fugitives charged with these crimes – and who are on the run.

The individuals targeted include, among others, Feisal Mohamed Ali, alleged to be the leader of an ivory smuggling ring in Kenya, according to the U.N. Daily News.

The international coalition is seeking help from the public for information that could help track down the nine suspects whose cases have been singled out for the initial phase of the investigations.

Rob Parry-Jones, manager of international policy at World Wildlife Fund (WWF), told IPS, “It sends a strong message that environmental crime is not merely an animal being illegally shot here or a tree illegally felled there. Environmental crime is highly organised crime and can have devastating impacts.”

He said INTERPOL’s response is something that WWF has wanted for some time. “It is also something that enforcement agencies have wanted for some time.”

The political platform and enabling environment for INTERPOL and other institutions to undertake the necessary research, and to be in a position to release such findings, is a welcome advance from a few years back when WWF and TRAFFIC first started their campaign to raise the political profile of wildlife crime, Parry-Jones said.

TRAFFIC (Trade Records Analysis of Flora and Fauna in Commerce) is a wildlife trade monitoring network supported by WWF.

Code-named INFRA-Terra (International Fugitive Round Up and Arrest), the global operation is supported by the International Consortium on Combating Wildlife Crime (ICCWC) – which is a collaborative effort of the Secretariat of the 1975 Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), along with INTERPOL, the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the World Bank and the World Customs Organisation.

In a press statement last week, Ben Janse van Rensburg, chief of enforcement support for CITES, said, “This first operation represents a big step forward against wildlife criminal networks.”

He said countries are increasingly treating wildlife crime as a serious offence, and “we will leave no stone unturned to locate and arrest these criminals to ensure they are brought to justice.”

Nathalie Frey, deputy political director at Greenpeace International, told IPS her organisation strongly supports the INTERPOL initiative to strengthen law enforcement against environmental crimes.

“Whilst INTERPOL has been looking more closely into environmental crimes for a number of years, this is the first time we have seen them reach out to the public appealing for further information and leads,” she said.

By giving environmental criminals a name and a face, she said, “it shows that law enforcement agencies are finally starting to take crimes such as illegal logging and fishing as seriously as murder or theft.”

WWF’s Parry-Jones told IPS that addressing environmental crimes effectively across international borders requires legal frameworks that can talk with each other.

Dual criminality where crimes of this scale are recognised in countries’ legal frameworks as serious crimes — a penalty of four-plus year’s imprisonment — brings the crimes within the scope of the U.N. Convention against Transnational Organised Crime (UNTOC), enabling international law enforcement cooperation and mutual legal assistance, he said.

The nature of the crimes illustrates the links with other forms of transnational crime, including people trafficking and arms smuggling, and reinforces the argument over the past few years, both by WWF and TRAFFIC, that environmental crime is a cross-sectoral issue and a serious crime, he added.

Greenpeace’s Frey told IPS environmental crime is “big business”, and at an estimated 70-213 billion dollars per year, the earnings are almost on a par with other criminal activities such as drugs and arms trafficking. That estimate includes logging, poaching and trafficking of a wide range of animals, illegal fisheries, illegal mining and dumping of toxic waste.

Behind these perpetrators, she pointed out, are large networks of criminal activities, with corruption often permeating the whole supply chain of valuable commodities such as timber or fish.

Illegal logging, for example, is rife in many timber-producing countries, and is one of the main culprits for wiping out vast areas of forest that are often home to endangered species.

“Consumer markets are still awash with illegal wood despite regulations to ban the trade,” Frey said.

This, she said, is reflected in the staggering figures released by INTERPOL that illegal logging accounts for 50-90 percent of forestry in key tropical producer countries.

“Whilst we strongly welcome INTERPOL’s initiative to track down offenders and crack down on corruption it is very important that CITES [the U.N. convention to regulate international trade in endangered species] takes much greater action to encourage its parties to step up enforcement and controls,” Frey said.

She singled out the example of Afrormosia, a valuable tropical hardwood found in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

This species is under threat and has been listed as requiring special trade regulation under CITES, yet a blind eye continues to be turned to many cases of illegal trade.

Industrial loggers have a free pass to harvest Afrormosia in the country, despite illegal logging estimated to be almost 90 percent, she said.

CITES is supposed to verify legality, yet hundreds of CITES permits were unaccounted for. Traceability in the country is also non-existent, Frey added.

By allowing the continued trade of species that have been illegally harvested, CITES fails to protect species from extinction, and its lack of controls and weaknesses only serve to fuel environmental crimes, she declared.

According to the U.N. Daily News, wildlife crime has become a serious threat to the security, political stability, economy, natural resources and cultural heritage of many countries.

The extent of the response required to effectively address the threat is often beyond the sole remit of environmental or wildlife law enforcement agencies, or even of one country or region alone, it said.

Last June, the joint U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP)-INTERPOL Environmental Crime Crisis report, pointed to an increased awareness of, and response to, the growing global threat.

It called for concerted action aimed at strengthening action against the organised criminal networks profiting from the trade.

According to the report, one terrorist group operating in East Africa is estimated to make between 38 and 56 million dollars per year from the illegal trade in charcoal.

“Wildlife and forest crime also play a serious role in threat finance to organized crime and non-State armed groups, including terrorist organizations,” it said.

Ivory provides income to militia groups in the DRC and the Central African Republic. And it also provides funds to gangs operating in Sudan, Chad and Niger.

Last week, Uganda complained the loss of about 3,000 pounds of ivory from the vaults of its state-run wildlife protection agency.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

The writer can be contacted at thalifdeen@aol.com