Global wildlife crime – mostly trade in endangered species – extends to at least 83% of the world's countries and territories, a new U.N. report finds.
The World Wildlife Crime Report on Monday shows just how widespread wildlife crime remains globally. Among the 162 countries and territories with illegal wildlife seizures from 2015 to 2021, authorities targeted traffickers attempting trades involving 4,000 plant and animal species.
Some 81%, or 3,250 of these species are listed in the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, or CITES. It aims to protect 40,900 species overall – including 6,610 species of animals and 34,310 species of plants – from commercial over-exploitation.
The largest numbers of individual seizures reported during that seven-year timeframe involved corals, 16%, crocodilians, 9%, and elephants and bivalve molluscs, 6% each. The last years for which data was available was 2020-2021; the study is published every four years.
"It is more than just the rhinos and the elephants and others that are very attractive, very iconic animals," CITES Secretary-General Ivonne Higuero told a news conference in Vienna. "There are less iconic species, including plants and trees, that are severely affected by wildlife crime."
The threats to endangered species extend to the humans defending them.
The Vienna-based U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime’s third major report on global wildlife crime says 2,351 wildlife rangers lost their lives in the line of duty between 2006 to 2021, four-fifths in Africa and Asia. Some 40% were murdered, while the other leading causes of death were vehicle and aircraft accidents, firefighting, drowning and illness.
More than elephants, tigers and rhinos
Wildlife trafficking did not substantially fall in two decades, UNODC finds, despite "signs of progress in reducing the impacts of trafficking for some iconic species" by fighting trade in elephant ivory and rhinoceros horn.
It concludes that nations must use law enforcement to crack down on both supply and demand, toughen their anti-corruption laws, and strengthen monitoring and research about wildlife crimes.
“Despite gaps in knowledge about the full extent of wildlife trafficking and associated crime, there is sufficient evidence to conclude that this remains a significant global problem far from being resolved," it says.
In 2020, the Financial Action Task Force reported that the illegal wildlife trade launders US$7 billion-$23 billion in profits a year.
Over the seven years covered in UNODC's report, authorities seized 16,000 tons of wildlife, or 13 million items. "This illegal trade flows into a wide range of end use sectors, including food, medicine, live animal and plant keeping, and 'luxury' goods," the report says.
And while elephants, tigers and rhinos typically make the headlines, it says, "some of the clearest examples of conservation harm caused by wildlife crime receive comparatively little attention, such as the illegal collection of succulent plants and rare orchids, and the trafficking of a wide range of reptiles, fish, birds, and mammals for which illegal trade appears to have played a major role in local or global extinctions."
