During his tenure as CITES Secretary-General (2010-2018), John Scanlon sought to overcome the Convention`s limitations in the fight against illegal wildlife trafficking by integrating CITES into the work programmes of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), INTERPOL (International Criminal Police Organization) and the World Customs Organization (WCO). These organizations are better placed to enforce measures to combat wildlife crime. The establishment of the International Consortium on Combating Wildlife Crime (ICCWC) in 2010 further strengthened the international cooperation needed to support national efforts to strengthen enforcement efforts (UNODC, 2020). Given that the local population is likely to poach mainly for socio-economic reasons (sale of bushmeat, ivory or rhino horn), such acts would be extremely difficult to sustain without cooperation and complicity between the population from which the poachers come. This shows that the resistance of the authorities is a key element for the sustainability of poaching. Poaching as an act of resistance is carried out through informal rural social networks; They even hide and encourage poachers and middlemen to hunt game and buy bee, ivory and rhino horn. It should be emphasized that the role of national governments in conservation is not overshadowed by these community-centered approaches to conservation, but is shifted from addressing local issues such as anti-poaching patrols to overseeing, coordinating and supporting roles at the national level. This could include coordinating global conservation networks including various ministries, semi-governmental organizations, local and international NGOs, researchers and private sector interests that support and promote the success of community conservation projects. Duffy, R., St.
John, F. A. V., Büscher, B., & Brockington, D. (2015). The militarization of the fight against poaching: undermining long-term goals? Surround. Preserve. 42, 345–348. doi: 10.1017/s0376892915000119 Ongoing poaching, fuelled by demand for elephant ivory and rhino horn, continues to threaten these species. In addition, poaching has been linked to armed militias in Africa suspected of smuggling ivory to fund their operations, and it often occurs alongside other crimes such as corruption and money laundering.
And poached animals can spread diseases like Ebola and SARS. Poaching is the illegal trade and slaughter of wild animals. Sometimes animal or plant parts are sold as trophies or “folk remedies” and sometimes they are sold as pets or houseplants. With more captive tigers than wild ones, the scale of poaching cannot be overstated. Preserving the Earth`s biodiversity is crucial because we depend on it for ecosystem services, making life possible. To achieve this, poaching must be stopped. Rhino horn, elephant ivory and tiger products continue to reach high prices among consumers, particularly in Asia. In Vietnam, the recent myth that rhino horn can cure cancer has led to massive poaching in South Africa and brought the price of rhino horn into competition with gold. It also means that local communities have to decide if they want to practice trophy hunting in their area. It is a direct violation of the decision-making rights of local communities for governments to introduce nationwide hunting bans, as it significantly undermines the ability of the former to demonstrate ownership and value of wildlife.
Botswana`s hunting ban has resulted in loss of access to game meat and collapsed wildlife income streams in local communities, leading to resentment against external top-down control of conservation against their will, leading to an increase in poaching. Across Africa, national governments refuse to delegate decision-making authority and the benefits of wildlife to local communities. As a result, poaching is unsurprisingly out of control. African governments have therefore reaped the benefits of their bad policy decisions and continue to reap them. So far, only the Namibian government has had the courage to implement adequate, science-based policies that transfer ownership, decision-making rights and benefits of wildlife to local communities. The Namibian government now enjoys very low poaching rates and growing rhino populations in its country. A wise and orderly policy works! Animals can be hunted to make a living for meat. But there is a much larger and growing market for game meat and other animal products. These markets exist locally, nationally, but also internationally as commercial goods between countries. The global wildlife trade industry – which includes regulated and unregulated, legal and illegal trade – is estimated to be between $4 billion and $20 billion annually.4 Jonathan Kolby, National Geographic Explorer (2020), notes that “even though the coronavirus emerged due to the illegal wildlife trade (for which no evidence has been presented), legal wildlife trade is equally likely to cause the next pandemic (Kolby, 2020).
Then there`s the tragic way poaching affects people. In Africa, between 2009 and 2016, nearly 600 rangers charged with protecting wildlife were shot by poachers while on duty. At least 170 rangers have been killed in the Democratic Republic of Congo`s Virunga National Park, one of the most dangerous on the continent, over the past two decades. There are complex patterns of illicit trade that facilitate the killing, transport and sale of valuable species such as pangolins, rhinos and elephants. Some traffickers are wealthy people with political ties that facilitate poaching and illegal trade. These links often include foreign aid workers – individuals uniquely positioned to support human trafficking because of their ties to countries where high-value species is found, their access to remote areas, and their political influence to circumvent border controls. In a human trafficking chain, five to more than fifteen people could be involved (UNODC, 2020, pp. 68-69).
The transfer of power and benefits to local communities will allow local communities to assume full responsibility for anti-poaching operations, which they are much better able to do than external agencies that lack the social networks and local knowledge to effectively carry out surveillance functions in the region. As observed in the Luangwa Valley and Namibian nature reserves, it is very likely that there will be a significant decrease in poaching once community conservation is properly implemented. The importance of the positive results of these community conservation projects becomes evident in relation to the indelible tide of rhino poaching in Botswana and South Africa, where local communities have no ownership and decision-making power over wildlife, and derive no benefit from wildlife. Another example is the Rovuma Elephant Project, a community-based project in Tanzania. Here, local communities are involved in decision-making and members of their villages engage in anti-poaching activities. While elephants are devastated by poaching throughout their territory in the government-controlled PAs of Selous Game Reserve, elephant poaching in their immediate vicinity has decreased significantly. The debate on a new treaty began long before COVID. The question in 2019 was whether CITES should remain the main venue for combating legal and illegal trade, or whether a new treaty is warranted to address “wildlife crime”. But now it is not just a new treaty to combat illegal wildlife trade, but a new treaty dealing with the One Health approach, human, veterinary and wildlife health issues, and the relationship to wildlife trade. In addition to protecting local animals, many countries make poaching a criminal offense punishable by imprisonment or fines. Since poachers in Africa and Asia are often poor locals who make small profits compared to traders and kingpins, penalties for wildlife poaching are generally less severe than those for wildlife trade.
Global Environment Facility (2020). Illegal wildlife trade. www.thegef.org/topics/illegal-wildlife-trade Ngorima, A., Brown, A., Masunungure, C., & Biggs, D. (2020). The local community benefits from elephants: can the will to support the fight against poaching be strengthened? Preserve. Sci. Pract. 2:E303.
doi: 10.1111/csp2.303 Keywords: poaching, illegal wildlife trade, local communities, livelihoods, efficiency An obvious solution to poaching would be to increase the number and extent of protected areas. Of course, this is based on the assumption that protected areas succeed in preventing this. Is that really true? Ongoing poaching, fuelled by demand for elephant ivory and rhino horn, continues to threaten these species. Despite international trade restrictions in place since the 1970s, limiting poaching has remained a significant challenge over the past decade. Poaching of these storable goods is driven by a combination of sustained consumer demand and market speculation, and is made possible by weak governance, lack of adequate resources for species conservation and alienation of the local population, who pay the cost of living alongside these species. We argue that restricting the legal supply of these wildlife products has created ideal conditions for the poaching industry to thrive. Strategies to strengthen local communities by strengthening property rights over wildlife and bringing them greater benefits, including through carefully regulated legal trade, are underutilized elements in the current fight against the onslaught of international illegal wildlife trade. Much of WWF`s work to end illegal wildlife trade is carried out in partnership with TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade monitoring network. We also work closely with other partners, including conservation organizations, local communities and governments. WWF`s expertise ensures that the environmental threats posed by wildlife trade are addressed from an informed and global perspective.