2 A Global Challenge: The Illegal Wildlife Trade Chain
Drawing upon the literature, the following two chapters consider the global challenges of the illegal wildlife trade, and policy responses at all stages of the transnational trade chain.
From supply to demand The illegal trade in ivory and rhino horn originates in Central and Eastern Africa and Southern Africa. The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) report ‘Elephants in the Dust’ highlights that poaching is exacerbated by poverty and food insecurity. Poachers may be driven by poverty, or are exploited by criminal organizations seeking to recruit hunters with knowledge of the local terrain. Poverty and inadequate bureaucracy enable criminal groups to corrupt poorly paid enforcement authorities.22 As noted above, however, poverty is not always a driver of participation in poaching. TRAFFIC’s 2008 report on economic and social drivers of the wildlife trade in East Asia asserts that wealth is a stronger driver of illegal and unsustainable wildlife trade in Southeast Asia than poverty, owing to the dynamics of increasing affluence and wider processes of economic growth in the region.23 Greed can also lure poachers to a trade that is supposedly low-risk and high-profit. Haken (2011) notes that the global illicit trade in wildlife products inflicts significant harm on developing countries, where ‘economic and structural damage imposed on already weak developing states’ is even more destructive than losses in biodiversity.24 Traffickers exploit poverty and inequality to entice poachers, operating in territories with little government presence. They have a vested interest in preventing source countries from developing economically and structurally.25 Rosen and Smith (2010) also note that illegal wildlife trade undermines the efforts of developing nations to manage their natural resources. This results in the loss of future profits that could be available through development and tourism;26 here it is important to recognize the correlation between insurgency groups and remote, almost stateless wildlife reserves which provide ideal cover and sustenance for rebels fleeing state authority. This ‘loss of earnings’ would be on top of the conservative estimate that the illegal trade in wildlife excluding timber and fisheries is worth $10 billion per year. Ivory poaching activity is centred on Central and Eastern Africa, particularly National Parks in the Great Lakes region such as Garamba National Park in the DRC, according to Agger and Hutson (2013), The Resolve and Invisible Children (2012) and Titeca (2013). Titeca analyses the 22 UNEP (2013), ‘Elephants in the Dust’, p. 41. 23 TRAFFIC (2008), ‘What’s Driving the Wildlife Trade? A Review of Expert Opinion on Economic and Social Drivers of the Wildlife Trade and Trade Control Efforts in Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR and Vietnam’, p. xiv. 24 Jeremy Haken (2011), ‘Transnational Crime in the Developing World’, Global Financial Integrity, p. 11. 25 Ibid., p. 13. 26 Gail Emilia Rosen and Katherine F. Smith (2010), ‘Summarizing the Evidence on the International Trade in Illegal Wildlife’, EcoHealth, p. 25.
