Wildlife Trade
Wildlife trade is the legal and illegal commerce of wild organisms, such as animals, plants and fungi, their parts or derived products
The wildlife trade is a massive global industry, valued at tens of billions of dollars annually. This trade spans thousands of species and involves live animals, plants, and wildlife products, making it one of the largest illicit markets in the world, alongside drugs, arms, and human trafficking.
The commodification of wildlife is a major threat to biodiversity1-4, both directly, as harvesting specimens depletes populations and disrupts ecosystems, and indirectly, by exposing wildlife to pathogens through human contact. The latter poses an additional threat to humans and other organisms given the spillover risk of zoonotic diseases3.
What’s the difference between legal and illegal wildlife trade?
Legal wildlife trade refers to the buying, selling, or exchanging of wild animals, plants, or products made from them that is permitted by law. Illegal wildlife trade refers to the buying or exchanging of wild animals, plants, or products made from them, in contravention of the international or national laws that protect such species1. This could include poaching, smuggling, importing and exporting, processing, possessing, collecting and consuming. However, how wildlife trade is regulated and what is considered legal and illegal varies between and within taxonomic groups, and depends on where and how the trade of this species occurs.
While the focus usually lies on the illegal trade, which currently holds a tenth of the revenue of its legal counterpart ($20 billion4,5 versus $220 billion6), the impact that the legal trade has on biodiversity is also worth noting. There are plenty of legal wildlife trade activities that are unsustainable and threaten biodiversity (e.g. industrial fishing), and the distinction between the legal and illegal trade is not always clear2.
Scale of wildlife trade and legal framework?
While commercial trade can generally be described as trade to obtain economic benefit (whether in cash or otherwise)2, wildlife trade can take place for a variety of reasons including but not limited to, educational purposes, scientific, zoological, personal purposes, trophy hunting and breeding in captivity. It is also worth noting that wildlife trade is not limited to involving a commercial transaction at all.
The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) regulates trade of around 40 000 species of wild animals and plants threatened with extinction7,8, which is only a portion of the species being traded2. Some species have different protection statuses across countries9, with some not covered by CITES, compromising the ability to assess the true scale and impact of trade2.
What is FOUR PAWS doing to address this issue?
CITES goal is, “to ensure that international wildlife trade does not threaten the survival of wild species of flora and fauna”7, by regulating or restricting international trade of species threatened with extinction, but some studies continue to question its success9-12.
FOUR PAWS works within the framework of CITES to advocate for the same level of protection for big cats. All five big cat species, tiger, lion, leopard, snow leopard and jaguar, are traded around the world for various reasons including for zoos, commercial purposes, circuses, private ownership and their parts are traded as trophies, used in traditional medicine or as luxury goods items.
While tigers were traditionally the most sought-after for use in traditional medicine in parts of Asia, due to the decline in their wild populations, other big cats are now being used to substitute their demand. This convergence in the use of big cat parts means all big cats are threatened by trade. Big cats are being increasingly bred and traded in captive facilities and contrary to popular belief, many captive facilities breed big cats for commercial purposes only and have no conservation benefit. FOUR PAWS advocates that all big cats be granted the same level of protection under CITES and we are working in specific trade hotspots in South Africa and across Europe to bring about this change.
References:
1 Hughes AC. Wildlife trade. Current Biology. 2021;31(19):R1218–R1224. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2021.08.056
2 Hughes A, Auliya M, Altherr S, Scheffers B, Janssen J, Nijman V, Shepherd CR, D’Cruze N, Sy E, Edwards DP. Determining the sustainability of legal wildlife trade. Journal of Environmental Management. 2023;341:117987. doi:10.1016/j.jenvman.2023.117987
3 Fukushima CS, Mammola S, Cardoso P. Global wildlife trade permeates the Tree of Life. Biological Conservation. 2020;247:108503. doi:10/gg4bss
4 Scheffers BR, Oliveira BF, Lamb I, Edwards DP. Global wildlife trade across the tree of life. Science. 2019;366(6461):71–76. doi:10.1126/science.aav5327
5 https://www.interpol.int/en/News-and-Events/News/2023/Illegal-wildlife-trade-has-become-one-of-the-world-s-largest-criminal-activities
6 CITES Secretariat (2022). World Wildlife Trade Report 2022. Geneva, Switzerland.
7 Resolution Conf. 18.3 on CITES Strategic Vision: 2021-2030
8 Wildlife trade. [accessed 2024 Dec 4]. https://environment.ec.europa.eu/topics/nature-and-biodiversity/wildlife-trade_en
9 Morton, O., Scheffers, B. R., Haugaasen, T., & Edwards, D. P. (2022). Mixed protection of threatened species traded under CITES. Current Biology, 32(5), 999-1009.
10 Eyal G. Frank, David S. Wilcove, Long delays in banning trade in threatened species. Science363,686-688(2019).DOI:10.1126/science.aav4013
11 Altherr S, Lameter K. The Rush for the Rare: Reptiles and Amphibians in the European Pet Trade. Animals. 2020; 10(11):2085. [accessed 2024 Dec 4]. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani10112085
12 Marshall, B. M., Strine, C., & Hughes, A. C. (2020). Thousands of reptile species threatened by under-regulated global trade. Nature communications, 11(1), 1-12.