Query: illegal wildlife trade

title: Taking a more nuanced look at behavior change for demand reduction in the illegal wildlife trade
abstract: The illegal wildlife trade threatens the future of many species, and undermines economies and livelihoods. Conservationists have largely responded with supply side interventions, such as antipoaching patrols, but these often fail to stem the tide of wildlife trafficking. There is now increasing interest in demand side interventions, which seek to lower poaching pressure on sought after species by reducing consumer's desire for, and purchase of, specific wildlife products. Individual behavior change approaches, from environmental education to social marketing, have been widely advocated by academics, practitioners, and policy makers. However, this is an emerging field and we lack the breadth of evidence needed to understand and predict the potential outcomes of demand reduction interventions. To help us gain broader insights, we examine the literature from public health and international development on the effectiveness of behavior change interventions, and critique the current conceptualization of strategies for reducing consumer demand in the illegal wildlife trade. We show that behavior change is difficult to achieve and interventions may have unintended and undesirable consequences because of unaddressed systemic, cultural and environmental drivers, and limited resourcing. We conclude that some sections of the conservation community are advocating a shift from one reductionist approach based on limiting supply, to another based on limiting demand, and argue that conservationists should learn from the public health and international development projects that have integrated systems thinking. By accounting for the multiple interactions and synergies between different factors in the wildlife trade, we can develop more strategic approaches to protecting endangered species.

title: Emerging illegal wildlife trade issues: A global horizon scan
abstract: Illegal wildlife trade is gaining prominence as a threat to biodiversity, but addressing it remains challenging. To help inform proactive policy responses in the face of uncertainty, in 2018 we conducted a horizon scan of significant emerging issues. We built upon existing iterative horizon scanning methods, using an open and global participatory approach to evaluate and rank issues from a diverse range of sources. Prioritized issues related to three themes: developments in biological, information, and financial technologies; changing trends in demand and information; and socioeconomic, geopolitical shifts and influences. The issues covered areas ranging from changing demographic and economic factors to innovations in technology and communications that affect illegal wildlife trade markets globally; the top three issues related to China, illustrating its vital role in tackling emerging threats. This analysis can support national governments, international bodies, researchers, and nongovernmental organizations as they develop strategies for addressing the illegal wildlife trade.

title: Differentiating criminal networks in the illegal wildlife trade: organized, corporate and disorganized crime
abstract: Historically, the poaching of wildlife was portrayed as a small scale local activity in which only small numbers of wildlife would be smuggled illegally by collectors or opportunists. Nowadays, this image has changed: criminal networks are believed to be highly involved in wildlife trafficking, which has become a significant area of illicit activity. Even though wildlife trafficking has become accepted as a major area of crime and an important topic and criminologists have examined a variety of illegal wildlife markets, research that specifically focusses on the involvement of different criminal networks and their specific nature is lacking. The concept of a 'criminal network' or 'serious organized crime' is amorphous getting used interchangeably and describes all crime that is structured rather than solely reflecting crime that fits within normative definitions of 'organized' crime. In reality, criminal networks are diverse. As such, we propose categories of criminal networks that are evidenced in the literature and within our own fieldwork: (1) organized crime groups (2) corporate crime groups and (3) disorganized criminal networks. Whereas there are instances when these groups act alone, this article will (also) discuss the overlap and interaction that occurs between our proposed categories and discuss the complicated nature of the involved criminal networks as well as predictions as to the future of these networks.

title: Conservation and crime convergence? Situating the 2018 London Illegal Wildlife Trade Conference
abstract: The 2018 London Illegal Wildlife Trade (IWT) Conference was the fourth and biggest meeting on IWT convened at the initiative of the UK Government. Using a collaborative event ethnography, we examine the Conference as a site where key actors defined the problem of IWT as one of serious crime that needs to be addressed as such. We ask (a) how was IWT framed as serious crime, (b) how was this framing mobilized to promote particular policy responses, and (c) how did the framing and suggested responses reflect the privileging of elite voices? Answering these questions demonstrates the expanding ways in which thinking related to crime and policing are an increasingly forceful dynamic shaping conservation related policy at the global level. We argue that the conservation crime convergence on display at the 2018 London IWT Conference is characteristic of a conservation policy landscape that increasingly promotes and privileges responses to IWT that are based on legal and judicial reform, criminal investigations, intelligence gathering, and law enforcement technologies. Marginalized are those voices that seek to address the underlying drivers of IWT by promoting solutions rooted in sustainable livelihoods in source countries and global demand reduction. We suggest that political ecology of conservation and environmental crime would benefit from greater engagement with critical criminology, a discipline that critically interrogates the uneven power dynamics that shape ideas of crime, criminality, how they are politicized, and how they frame policy decisions. This would add further conceptual rigor to political ecological work that deconstructs conservation and environmental crime.

title: The geopolitical ecology of conservation: The emergence of illegal wildlife trade as national security interest and the re shaping of US foreign conservation assistance
abstract: In this article we develop a geopolitical ecology of foreign conservation assistance. While the literature on the political nature of foreign assistance writ large highlights how geopolitical agendas are pursued through foreign assistance, we focus on how this geopolitics of foreign assistance articulates with biodiversity conservation concerns. We draw attention to how conservation donor agencies negotiate shifting geopolitical contexts in which the protection of biodiversity from the illegal wildlife trade (IWT) is increasingly framed in the language of national security concerns.  Does framing IWT as a national security concern shape the allocation of foreign conservation assistance? What can answering this question tell us, both empirically and conceptually, about the geopolitical ecology of foreign conservation assistance specifically, and about the meaning of biodiversity conservation efforts to the state more broadly? We approach these questions by combining in depth qualitative and quantitative analyses of the foreign conservation assistance provided by the US' lead wildlife conservation agency, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) Between 2002 to the end of fiscal year 2018, the USFWS Division of International Affairs provided assistance to 4142 projects across 106 countries worth over USD $301 million. Our results show that an increasing portion of foreign assistance for biodiversity conservation is allocated to projects that have the specific objective of combating wildlife trafficking (CWT) at the expense of other conservation priorities. This transformation of what it means to fund conservation work overseas, we argue, lies at the heart of an emerging and intensifying geopolitical ecology of conservation, marked by increasing efforts to link the illicit harvesting and trafficking of wildlife with concerns about threats to national security. We conclude by discussing what a geopolitical ecology lens offers for understanding international assistance, biodiversity conservation, more traditional geopolitical concerns, and the intersections between them.

title: Trends in illegal wildlife trade: Analyzing personal baggage seizure data in the Pacific Northwest
abstract: The illegal import of wildlife and wildlife products is a growing concern, and the U.S. is one of the world's leading countries in the consumption and transit of illegal wildlife and their derivatives. Yet, few U.S. studies have analyzed the illegal wildlife trade (IWT) on a national or local scale. Moreover, to our knowledge, no studies have specifically examined the trends associated with IWT moving through personal baggage. This work aimed to better understand the magnitude of illegal wildlife importation into U.S. ports of entry by determining trends associated with illegal wildlife products from personal baggage seizures, using the Pacific Northwest (PNW) as a specific case study. To identify the most influential factors determining the numbers and types of personal baggage seizures into PNW, we analyzed 1,731 records between 1999 and 2016 from the Fish and Wildlife Service's (FWS) Law Enforcement Management Information System (LEMIS) database. We found five significant contributors: taxonomic classification of wildlife, categorical import date, wildlife product, source region, and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) status. While wildlife seizures across taxonomic categories have generally decreased in the PNW since 2008, other findings provide a reason for concern. More specifically, mammals were identified as the largest animal group of seized wildlife, and temporal trends indicate increases in seizures for this and several other taxonomic groups. Many of the seizures originated from overseas, with East Asia serving as the largest source. Our PNW case study can be a model for how large scale geographical seizure data can be used to inform about the major factors that have historically and presently contribute to IWT, with conservation implications globally.

title: Illegal wildlife trade, seizures and prosecutions: A 7.5 year analysis of trade in pig nosed turtles Carettochelys insculpta in and from Indonesia
abstract: The illegal wildlife trade is increasingly recognised as a major threat to biodiversity conservation, and one way of curbing it is to properly enforce existing legislation and where appropriate to prosecute to the full extent of the law. One of the taxa that suffers greatly from unregulated trade are the tortoises and freshwater turtles, with collection for trade currently being the most significant threat for most Asian species. Illegal trade in pig nosed turtles from Indonesia to supply international demand for pets, and to a lesser degree for meat and use in traditional medicines, continues on a large scale. We examined 26 reported seizures over the period 2013 to 2020, of which 20 took place in Indonesia and the remaining five in other parts of Asia with the turtles being trafficked from Indonesia. In total, this amounted to the seizure of 52,374 pig nosed turtles. Pig nosed turtles are totally protected in Indonesia, and nine of the 26 cases we examined were successfully prosecuted though never to the full extent of the law. Trade in and trafficking of pig nosed turtles is in violation of Indonesia's Fisheries and Customs Acts, yet these legal instruments were not used for prosecutions. In addition to the illegal trade, the Indonesia CITES Management Authority reported the export of 5415 pig nosed turtles, 95% of which were declared as wild caught, in direct contravention of Indonesia's own protected species legislation. We strongly recommend a strategy be developed and implemented to more effectively tackle this trade from point of collection through to point of sale, with improved use of all relevant pieces of national legislation to serve as a strong deterrent, and ultimately to protect this species from over exploitation.

title: Addressing the illegal wildlife trade in the European Union as a public health issue to draw decision makers attention
abstract: The European Union is one of the most important markets for the trafficking of endangered species and a major transit point for illegal wildlife trade. The latter is not only one of the most important anthropogenic drivers of biodiversity loss, it also represents a growing risk for public health. Indeed, wildlife trade exposes humans to a plethora of severe emerging infectious diseases, some of which have contributed to the most dramatic global pandemics humankind has endured. Illegal wildlife trade is often considered as a problem of developing countries but it is first and foremost an international global business with a trade flow from developing to developed countries. The devastating effects of the ongoing SARS CoV 2 outbreak should thus be an unassailable argument for European decision makers to change paradigm. Rather than deploying efforts and money to combat novel pathogens, mitigating the risk of spreading emerging infectious diseases should be addressed and be part of any sustainable socioeconomic development plan. Stricter control procedures at borders and policies should be enforced. Additionally, strengthening research in wildlife forensic science and developing a network of forensic laboratories should be the cornerstone of the European Union plan to tackle the illegal wildlife trade. Such proactive approach, that should further figure in the EU Wildlife Action Plan, could produce a win win situation: the curb of illegal wildlife trade would subsequently diminish the likelihood of importing new zoonotic diseases in the European Union.

title: Response to "The imaginary 'Asian Super Consumer' A critique of demand reduction campaigns for the illegal wildlife trade"
abstract: In a recent paper in Geoforum, Margulies et al. (2019) outline what they perceive as a bias toward an "Asian super consumer" They argue that wildlife trade demand reduction campaigns are unfocused, untargeted, and therefore have a tendency to place blame on people of colour and communities in the Global South as key actors in driving illegal wildlife trade. As researchers and practitioners, we have been studying the demand for wildlife and wildlife products for many years. While we agree that it is vitally important to consider the cultural nuances of illegal and unsustainable wildlife trade and to operate in a manner that is respectful toward different cultures, we believe that the authors have overlooked the fact that modern wildlife trade demand reduction campaigns are already conducting this research and using it to target their campaigns to specific groups.

title: Illegal Wildlife Trade: Scale, Processes, and Governance
abstract: Illegal wildlife trade (IWT) has increased in profile in recent years as a global policy issue, largely because of its association with declines in prominent internationally trafficked species. In this review, we explore the scale of IWT, associated threats to biodiversity, and appropriate responses to these threats. We discuss the historical development of IWT research and highlight the uncertainties that plague the evidence base, emphasizing the need for more systematic approaches to addressing evidence gaps in a way that minimizes the risk of unethical or counterproductive outcomes for wildlife and people. We highlight the need for evaluating interventions in order to learn, and the importance of sharing datasets and lessons learned. A more collaborative approach to linking IWT research, practice, and policy would better align public policy discourse and action with research evidence. This in turn would enable more effective policy making that contributes to reducing the threat to biodiversity that IWT represents.