Wildlife Trafficking: the illicit trade in wildlife, animal parts, and derivatives

Abstract

Wildlife trafficking threatens the existence of many plant and animal species and accelerates the destruction of wildlife, forests, and other natural resources. It contributes to environmental degradation, destroys unique natural habitats, and deprives many countries and their populations of scarce renewable resources. The more endangered a species becomes, the greater is the commercial value that is put on the remaining specimen, thereby increasing the incentive for further illegal activities. Preventing and supressing the illegal trade in wildlife, animal parts, and plants is presently not a priority in many countries. Despite the actual and potential scale and consequences, wildlife trafficking often remains overlooked and poorly understood. Wildlife and biodiversity related policies, laws, and their enforcement have, for the most part, not kept up with the changing levels and patterns of wildlife trafficking. Poorly developed legal frameworks, weak law enforcement, prosecutorial, and judicial practices have resulted in valuable wildlife and plant resources becoming threatened. The high demand for wildlife, animal parts, plants, and plant material around the world has resulted in criminal activities on a large scale. Considerably cheaper than legally sourced material, the illegal trade in fauna and flora offers opportunities to reap significant profits. Gaps in domestic and international control regimes, difficulties in identifying illegal commodities and secondary products, along with intricate trafficking routes make it difficult to effectively curtail the trade. Although several international and non-governmental organisations have launched initiatives aimed at bringing international attention to the problem of wildlife trafficking, political commitment and operational capacity to tackle this phenomenon are not commensurate to the scale of the problem. There is, to date, no universal framework to prevent and suppress this crime type and there is a lack of critical and credible expertise and scholarship on this phenomenon. As part of their joint teaching programme on transnational organised crime, the University of Queensland, the University of Vienna, and the University of Zurich examined the topic of wildlife trafficking in a year-long research course in 2018–2019. Students from the three universities researched selected topics and presented their findings in academic papers, some of which have been compiled in this volume. The chapters included in this v edited book address causes, characteristics, and actors of wildlife trafficking, analyse detection methods, and explore different international and national legal frameworks.

Sharkless Makeup > Sharkless Oceans

“…For long-lived species such as the blue shark ( Prionace glauca ) and shortfin mako shark ( Isurus oxyrinchus ), it may take dozens of years, especially under unfavourable environmental circumstances (FAO, 2020). And the more endangered a species becomes, the greater the commercial value put on the remaining specimens, thereby increasing the incentive for further and potentially illegal fishing activity (Ege et al, 2020;Clarke 2007).…”

Shining a LAMP on the applications of isothermal amplification to monitoring illegal wildlife trade

“…Pet releases are often a driver of invasive species introductions (Lockwood et al 2019). Additionally, the import and export of pets is often highly regulated or strictly banned under national jurisdictional law (Ege et al 2020). This has led to the development of detection methods for common aquatic pet species which double as invasive species in Malaysian waterways (Vythalingam et al 2021).…”

Special Challenges of Wildlife Forensics in Hungary

“…A megrendelők ugyanis a legtöbbször olyan tehetős személyek, akik az érintett biológiai környezettől fizikailag távol élnek, nem látják a következményeket, és a legtöbbször nem mérik fel, hogy egy-egy megrendelésük a bioszférára milyen drasztikus hatással van. A bűncselekményeket tettesként végrehajtó személyek vagy szervezett bűnözői csoportok esetében pedig nem az a döntő, hogy tudatosítják tetteik káros következményeit, hanem az, hogy a legtöbb esetben alappal számíthatnak arra, hogy illegális cselekvésüket nem fogja jogi retorzió követni (Beiglböck & Walzer, 2019;Purtill, 2020).…”

“…A legtöbb bűncselekménytípussal ellentétben a vadvilági bűnözés kapcsán a leggyakrabban feltett kérdés nem az, hogy ki követte el a bűncselekményt, hanem az, hogy vajon bűncselekménnyel állunk-e szemben (McFadden, 2020). A vadvilági bűnözésre adott társadalmi válasz, a jogszerű hatósági fellépés hatékony alkalmazásának első feltétele a halál/elhullás/pusztulás okának megállapítása (Nishant, Vrijesh & Ajay, 2017) mellett az, hogy az inkriminált vadvilági egyedet, illetve annak különböző derivátumait rendszertanilag, faj szinten azonosítsuk.…”