The Ins and Outs of the Illegal Wildlife Trade

Credit: Ken Goulding

Poaching (alongside the trafficking of narcotics, weapons, and people) is one of the four most lucrative illegal industries in the world. INTERPOL states that the illicit wildlife trade (IWT) may be worth up to USD $20 billion per year - though proper figures are extremely difficult to acquire. Poaching is closely linked to ecological breakdown and social woes - but how, and how do we address it?

As with any issue, the best place to start is with definitions that describe to us exactly what we’re studying. Poaching is the illegal hunting of game, fish, or plants from a private property, or in areas where such practices are explicitly forbidden. Its practice actually goes as far back as medieval Europe, when subsistence poachers (who would steal animals to supplement poor diet) would be imprisoned by feudal lords that owned the land they hunted on, due to their use of animals for their own food and even sport. Poaching is ultimately fueled by a demand for animal resources. Demand is global, but seems particularly prevalent across Asia, where exotic animals are used in the creation of traditional medicines, served as delicacies, or kept as pets. Consequently, the five animals most at risk of poaching are African elephants, rhinoceroses, Bengal tigers, mountain gorillas, and sea turtles. The commonality held across these five species is that of their resources - ivory, bushmeat, or even body parts to be used in medicine or as trophies.

Credit: Kartik Iyer

The effects of poaching are also widespread and devastating - far beyond the animals that are the direct victims. The reduction of certain animal species in their natural habitat causes imbalances in the food chain, as predators (or prey) are no longer present to control the population of other species. A number of animal-based diseases (including COVID-19) can be transferred to humans through the consumption of bushmeat, especially if purchased in an unregulated black market for animal products. In Africa, nearly 600 park rangers have lost their lives to violent poachers between 2009 and 2016, with 170 being killed in the DR Congo’s Virunga National Park since 2002.

So with the emergence of direct threats to human health, ecological wellbeing, and social cohesion - how does a national or global society address poaching?

Organisations like WWF help out by financing security groups and park rangers in threatened areas, providing everything from housing to drinking water. They are also conducting advocacy towards local governments, and launching initiatives to shift consumer behaviour away from demand for illegal animal resources. More specifically, WWF’s Wildlife Crime Initiative describes four key pillars to tackling IWT: Stop Poaching, Stop Trafficking, Stop Buying, and Establishing International Policy. The results speak for themselves - China’s ivory ban, which began in 2017, has caused domestic demand to fall by half. One year later, the United Kingdom and Hong Kong (a major location for ivory trafficking) passed similar bans. Similar bans already exist in the United States and Singapore. Another method of tackling poaching is to stop it at its very source, by addressing the economic desperation of poachers. Most of the countries home to the most frequently poached animals are extremely poor, with the average person in the DR Congo earning just over $1 per day in 2020, while a single elephant tusk can fetch over $1,500 on the black market. Although it is far easier said than done, proper economic development efforts where they are needed most - especially those centered around conservation - will reduce (or even eliminate) the need for poaching activities to take place.

TAI Score: Degree 3. The impact of the illegal wildlife trade strengthens transnational crimes, and weakens natural ecosystems. Poachers, who do not contribute to the national economy, place further strains on local societies. These points are especially relevant to threat analysts, particularly those involved in forensics and crime prevention.