Wildlife crime threatens security, political stability, economic prosperity, biodiversity, ecosystems, species survival, health and well-being, and the rule of law. Yet it remains a low-risk, high-reward crime, with no international framework to combat the crime and inconsistent enforcement at the national and local levels. A comprehensive international legal framework to prevent and combat wildlife crime is needed to promote human rights, animal well-being, and planetary health.
Wildlife crime (also referred to as wildlife trafficking), the poaching or other taking of protected or managed flora and fauna species, is a primary driver of the biodiversity and extinction crises, and it threatens human communities’ health and social capital. With revenues estimated at $1-2 trillion annually, wildlife trafficking is the fourth most lucrative international trafficking crime, after drugs, humans, and arms. Wildlife trafficking is also “unarguably among the top-ranking modes of transmission” of zoonotic and emerging infectious diseases. The transnational organized criminal networks that traffic in wildlife threaten security, political stability, economic prosperity, biodiversity, ecosystems, species survival, health and well-being, the biosphere, and the rule of law.
Despite the immense harms it poses to humans, animals, and the environment, wildlife trafficking remains a low-risk, high-reward crime, largely due to the lack of an international framework to combat these crimes and inconsistent enforcement at the national and local level that often focuses on low level offenders. Accordingly, various stakeholders have called on the United Nations to address wildlife trafficking at a global level to improve cooperation and enforcement.
The disastrous effects of wildlife crime impact individual wildlife, herds and family groups, species populations, habitats, ecosystems, and the biosphere, as well as the public health, well-being, and stability of human communities (local, indigenous, regional, and national), described below.
Wildlife and the Environment. Wild flora and fauna are illegally killed, captured, bred, traded, and sold as luxury goods, medicine, entertainment, and exotic pets, and for other commercial uses. Trafficking causes immense animal suffering at every stage of the supply chain—from capture and transport to private ownership, commercial use, captive breeding, and slaughter. Many animals do not survive the initial journey, and protective adults are often killed immediately for easier capture and transport of their young. Wildlife exploitation is also a key driver of biodiversity loss. As trafficking ravages the environment, altering critical habitat, ecosystems, and the biosphere, it reduces natural disease resistance. Confining diverse animal species under high-stress circumstances (often in atypical and close contact with other species) increases disease transmission and mutation risk.
Local, Indigenous, and National Communities. Wildlife crime strips communities of spiritual, social, and natural capital. Wildlife crime destroys flora and fauna that local communities rely on for sustainable ecotourism revenue, ecosystem services, and sustenance, fueling poverty and threatening autonomy and livelihoods. Because it is typically wealthy (and often foreign) criminal enterprises running the trafficking networks, these crimes perpetuate existing economic inequities in local and national communities. The cumulative effect is significant: an estimated $7-12 billion in annual national revenues in source countries is lost due to wildlife crime.
Public Health. Wildlife trafficking amplifies zoonotic disease spillover and spillback risk between animals and humans, endangering public health. An estimated 72 percent of human emerging infectious diseases are caused by animal to human transmission. Trafficked animals suffer physical and emotional stress, and extended, close confinement, often near species they would not naturally encounter. This exacerbates the public health risk by compromising immunity and increasing the likelihood of disease transmission along the supply chain. Wildlife crime also increases public health risk as it degrades and destroys biodiversity and native habitats. Human encroachment and deforestation dismantle the natural protections of native ecosystems and push animals (and potentially novel diseases) closer to human communities.
Institutions and authorities recognize the connection between a healthy planet and human rights. Both the UN Human Rights Council and the UN General Assembly have recognized that a clean, healthy, sustainable environment is a universal human right. However, despite its severe impact across the entire spectrum of human and non-human communities, no comprehensive international legal framework exists to combat wildlife crime. The absence of a global agreement fundamentally constrains efforts to effectively combat wildlife crime, especially where local and national law enforcement is inconsistent across jurisdictions and too often focuses on low-level offenders rather than the transnational syndicates. Transnational criminals exploit those inconsistencies and perpetuate corruption and injustice to create incentives or economic desperation that enable crime, but are antithetical to wildlife and to local community interests.
The UN has called for action on wildlife crime, encouraging Member States to cooperate to prevent, combat, and eradicate wildlife crime through the use of international legal instruments, such as the UN Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice (CCPCJ) and the UN Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime (UNTOC). UNTOC is the primary international instrument in the struggle against transnational organized crime. UNTOC was adopted by the UN General Assembly on November 15, 2000, and has been ratified by 190 parties, including the United States. Three protocols currently exist under the UNTOC Convention, each targeting a specific transnational organized crime: trafficking in persons, smuggling of migrants, and trafficking in firearms.
In May 2022, the CCPCJ adopted a resolution co-sponsored by the United States reaffirming that UNTOC and its protocols “represent the principal worldwide legal instruments to prevent and combat the scourge of transnational organized crime, which affects individuals and societies in all countries,” and that the Convention “offers a broad scope for cooperation to address existing and emerging forms of transnational organized crime.” The CCPCJ noted that the existing UNTOC protocols have adopted internationally agreed-upon definitions, provided comprehensive frameworks to prevent and combat crimes, and led to increased capacity and more effective international cooperation in law enforcement.
UNTOC Member States and other stakeholders have called for the inclusion of wildlife crime under UNTOC for years, recognizing the need for global integration, cooperation, and action. Last year, the Presidents of Gabon and Costa Rica issued a Joint Statement calling for a new global agreement in the form of a fourth protocol to UNTOC to prevent and combat wildlife crime; they have since been joined by the leaders of Angola and Malawi. The European Commission also expressed support in the EU Strategy to tackle Organised Crime (2021-2025) for an UNTOC protocol.
A UNTOC protocol would serve several important purposes, namely, to: (1) define the term “wildlife crime” so that all Parties have a common understanding of the criminal activity at issue; (2) identify the measures that Parties would be called upon to adopt in their domestic laws to prevent and combat wildlife crime; and, critically, (3) identify transnational measures that would enhance cooperative global enforcement efforts to prevent and combat wildlife crime. It “would automatically trigger all of UNTOC’s provisions on international cooperation, mutual legal assistance, joint investigations, special investigative techniques (such as controlled deliveries), and law enforcement cooperation in tackling the illicit trafficking of wildlife.” A protocol could include, among other commitments, increasing the exchange of information between UNTOC parties (including on known organized groups suspected of illicit trafficking), enhancing border controls, and taking measures to discourage demand for illegally trafficked animals or plants.
We are at a crossroads. The biodiversity, extinction, pollution, and pandemic crises are overlapping and interconnected. Wildlife crime is a significant contributor to these crises; it harms both human and nonhuman animals and their communities. Now is the time for action, and an UNTOC protocol is one step toward combatting the devastation caused by wildlife crime.
