Towards informed and multi-faceted wildlife trade interventions

Assessing the global prevalence of wild birds in trade

Trade represents a significant threat to many wild species and is often clandestine and poorly monitored. Information on which species are most prevalent in trade and potentially threatened by it therefore remains fragmentary. We used 7 global data sets on birds in trade to identify species or groups of species at particular risk and assessed the extent to which they were congruent in terms of the species recorded in trade. We used the frequency with which species were recorded in the data sets as the basis for a trade prevalence score that was applied to all bird species globally. Literature searches and questionnaire surveys were used to develop a list of species known to be heavily traded to validate the trade prevalence score. The score was modeled to identify significant predictors of trade. Although the data sets sampled different parts of the broad trade spectrum, congruence among them was statistically strong in all comparisons. Furthermore, the frequency with which species were recorded within data sets was positively correlated with their occurrence across data sets, indicating that the trade prevalence score captured information on trade volume. The trade prevalence score discriminated well between species identified from semi-independent assessments as heavily or unsustainably traded and all other species. Globally, 45.1% of all bird species and 36.7% of globally threatened bird species had trade prevalence scores ≥1. Species listed in Appendices I or II of CITES, species with large geographical distributions, and nonpasserines tended to have high trade prevalence scores. Speciose orders with high mean trade prevalence scores included Falconiformes, Psittaciformes, Accipitriformes, Anseriformes, Bucerotiformes, and Strigiformes. Despite their low mean prevalence score, Passeriformes accounted for the highest overall number of traded species of any order but had low representation in CITES appendices. Geographical hotspots where large numbers of traded species co-occur differed among passerines (Southeast Asia and Eurasia) and nonpasserines (central South America, sub-Saharan Africa, and India). This first attempt to quantify and map the relative prevalence in trade of all bird species globally can be used to identify species and groups of species that may be at particular risk of harm from trade and can inform conservation and policy interventions to reduce its adverse impacts.

Financial speculation meets cultural heritage in China's wildlife markets

Environmental regulations restricting the use of a natural resource or species often have unintended consequences. One example is prohibitions on the international trade in culturally important endangered wildlife. Trade restrictions may artificially increase scarcity and, consequently, value. In China, international trade restrictions may trigger bouts of speculative investment that have the opposite effect of the restrictions' intent. We examined how China's speculative economy and cultural history have together led to unintended consequences when regulating wildlife trade. In China, wildlife markets occupy a legal gray area that can make regulations ineffectual or even counterproductive. In extreme cases, prohibiting trade can provoke market booms. Further unintended consequences include potential cultural backlash. In China and across the Global South, international trade restrictions are sometimes considered a continuation of a longstanding history of Western intervention and thus may not be enforced as strongly or may generate resentment. This pushback has contributed to rising calls to decolonialize conservation and may lead to growing alliances between China and other Global South countries when negotiating international wildlife trade restrictions in the future.

A practical approach to meeting national obligations for sustainable trade under CITES

Reconciling conservation goals with sustainable resource use requires adaptive management strategies. The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) regulates global trade for species listed on Appendix II, partly by requiring member countries (parties) to ensure exports do not damage wild populations (called making positive "nondetriment findings" [NDFs]). Unfortunately, when parties find NDFs difficult, they often suspend legal trade, imposing economic costs and driving trade underground. To make it easier for parties to examine the detrimental nature of exports, we devised a spatial approach and applied it to seahorses (Hippocampus spp.) in Tamil Nadu, India, as an example. Our approach involves mapping answers to 5 key questions on species distribution (QA), pressures (QB), management measures (QC), management implementation (QD), and species' population status (QE). We gathered data from fisher interviews and published literature. Seahorse abundance was greatest in southern Palk Bay and the northern Gulf of Mannar, primarily in seagrasses and coral reefs (QA). Fishing pressure was highest in Palk Bay, primarily from bottom trawlers and dragnetters operating in shallow seahorse habitats near the coastline (QB). Management measures including a marine protected area (MPA), bottom trawl exclusion zone, and closed season were theoretically in place (QC), but their implementation was poor (QD). Fishers reported seahorse catches in 85% of the area covered by the MPA and the exclusion zone; bottom trawlers were responsible for most violations. Seahorses were also captured in Sri Lankan waters, where bottom trawling is banned. Fisher reports indicated declining seahorse catches and reduced body sizes (QE), highlighting unsustainable exploitation. Our results highlight the need for better implementation of existing management measures before a positive NDF can be made and suggest mitigation beyond bans. Such pragmatic spatial analyses can help regulate exports at sustainable levels, supporting CITES implementation for its vast range of species.

A review of commercial captive breeding of parrots as a supply-side intervention to address unsustainable trade

The volume and scale of commercial captive breeding of parrots have grown dramatically in recent decades. Although it has been proposed, and is often assumed, that captive breeding can reduce pressure on wild populations, there has been little scrutiny of the scale, viability, or impacts of captive breeding to prevent overexploitation among parrots, compared with similar approaches in other threatened taxa, such as pangolins or tigers. We reviewed the primary and gray literature to quantitatively and qualitatively evaluate evidence concerning 5 criteria, established a priori, for commercial captive breeding of parrots as an effective supply-side intervention. We focused on a sample of 16 threatened parrot species that are heavily traded or for which unsustainable trade has been a factor in the decline of wild populations, representing a range of taxonomic groups, life histories, and native regions. We identified multiple major gaps in knowledge of the extent to which these criteria are met, including a lack of quantitative data on breeding productivity under current commercial breeding practices, the scale and scope of commercial breeding practices in growing parrot markets, particularly in the Middle East and Asia, and the lack of financial viability of captive breeding under effective regulation to prevent laundering or use of wild-sourced specimens as breeding stock. The capacity for captive breeding to displace demand for wild-sourced parrots varied between species, and complex interactions between trade in different species and contexts sometimes made consequences of commercial production difficult to predict. Decision makers and regulatory authorities should approach commercial captive breeding of parrots with caution and take into account knowledge gaps and cross-linkages between trade in different species to avoid unanticipated consequences from stimulating and facilitating unsustainable trade in wild-sourced parrots.

Genomic analyses reveal poaching hotspots and illegal trade in pangolins from Africa to Asia

The white-bellied pangolin (Phataginus tricuspis) is the world's most trafficked mammal and is at risk of extinction. Reducing the illegal wildlife trade requires an understanding of its origins. Using a genomic approach for tracing confiscations and analyzing 111 samples collected from known geographic localities in Africa and 643 seized scales from Asia between 2012 and 2018, we found that poaching pressures shifted over time from West to Central Africa. Recently, Cameroon's southern border has emerged as a site of intense poaching. Using data from seizures representing nearly 1 million African pangolins, we identified Nigeria as one important hub for trafficking, where scales are amassed and transshipped to markets in Asia. This origin-to-destination approach offers new opportunities to disrupt the illegal wildlife trade and to guide anti-trafficking measures.

Identifying species likely threatened by international trade on the IUCN Red List can inform CITES trade measures

Overexploitation is a major threat to biodiversity and international trade in many species is regulated through the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). However, there is no established method to systematically determine which species are most at risk from international trade to inform potential trade measures under CITES. Here, we develop a mechanism using the International Union for Conservation of Nature's Red List of Threatened Species to identify species that are likely to be threatened by international trade. Of 2,211 such species, CITES includes 59% (1,307 species), leaving two-fifths overlooked and in potential need of international trade regulation. Our results can inform deliberations on potential proposals to revise trade measures for species at CITES Conference of the Parties meetings. We also show that, for taxa with biological resource use documented as a threat, the number of species threatened by local and national use is four times greater than species likely threatened by international trade. To effectively address the overexploitation of species, interventions focused on achieving sustainability in international trade need to be complemented by commensurate measures to ensure that local and national use and trade of wildlife is well-regulated and sustainable.

Global hotspots of traded phylogenetic and functional diversity

Wildlife trade is a multibillion-dollar industry1 targeting a hyperdiversity of species2 and can contribute to major declines in abundance3. A key question is understanding the global hotspots of wildlife trade for phylogenetic (PD) and functional (FD) diversity, which underpin the conservation of evolutionary history4, ecological functions5 and ecosystem services benefiting humankind6. Using a global dataset of traded bird and mammal species, we identify that the highest levels of traded PD and FD are from tropical regions, where high numbers of evolutionary distinct and globally endangered species in trade occur. The standardized effect size (ses) of traded PD and FD also shows strong tropical epicentres, with additional hotspots of mammalian ses.PD in the eastern United States and ses.FD in Europe. Large-bodied, frugivorous and canopy-dwelling birds and large-bodied mammals are more likely to be traded whereas insectivorous birds and diurnally foraging mammals are less likely. Where trade drives localized extinctions3, our results suggest substantial losses of unique evolutionary lineages and functional traits, with possible cascading effects for communities and ecosystems5,7. Avoiding unsustainable exploitation and lost community integrity requires targeted conservation efforts, especially in hotspots of traded phylogenetic and functional diversity.

Determining the sustainability of legal wildlife trade

Exploitation of wildlife represents one of the greatest threats to species survival according to the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. Whilst detrimental impacts of illegal trade are well recognised, legal trade is often equated to being sustainable despite the lack of evidence or data in the majority of cases. We review the sustainability of wildlife trade, the adequacy of tools, safeguards, and frameworks to understand and regulate trade, and identify gaps in data that undermine our ability to truly understand the sustainability of trade. We provide 183 examples showing unsustainable trade in a broad range of taxonomic groups. In most cases, neither illegal nor legal trade are supported by rigorous evidence of sustainability, with the lack of data on export levels and population monitoring data precluding true assessments of species or population-level impacts. We propose a more precautionary approach to wildlife trade and monitoring that requires those who profit from trade to provide proof of sustainability. We then identify four core areas that must be strengthened to achieve this goal: (1) rigorous data collection and analyses of populations; (2) linking trade quotas to IUCN and international accords; (3) improved databases and compliance of trade; and (4) enhanced understanding of trade bans, market forces, and species substitutions. Enacting these core areas in regulatory frameworks, including CITES, is essential to the continued survival of many threatened species. There are no winners from unsustainable collection and trade: without sustainable management not only will species or populations become extinct, but communities dependent upon these species will lose livelihoods.

Global governance for pandemic prevention and the wildlife trade

Although ideas about preventive actions for pandemics have been advanced during the COVID-19 crisis, there has been little consideration for how they can be operationalised through governance structures within the context of the wildlife trade for human consumption. To date, pandemic governance has mostly focused on outbreak surveillance, containment, and response rather than on avoiding zoonotic spillovers in the first place. However, given the acceleration of globalisation, a paradigm shift towards prevention of zoonotic spillovers is warranted as containment of outbreaks becomes unfeasible. Here, we consider the current institutional landscape for pandemic prevention in light of ongoing negotiations of a so-called pandemic treaty and how prevention of zoonotic spillovers from the wildlife trade for human consumption could be incorporated. We argue that such an institutional arrangement should be explicit about zoonotic spillover prevention and focus on improving coordination across four policy domains, namely public health, biodiversity conservation, food security, and trade. We posit that this pandemic treaty should include four interacting goals in relation to prevention of zoonotic spillovers from the wildlife trade for human consumption: risk understanding, risk assessment, risk reduction, and enabling funding. Despite the need to keep political attention on addressing the current pandemic, society cannot afford to miss the opportunity of the current crisis to encourage institution building for preventing future pandemics.

The ecological drivers and consequences of wildlife trade

Wildlife trade is a key driver of extinction risk, affecting at least 24% of terrestrial vertebrates. The persistent removal of species can have profound impacts on species extinction risk and selection within populations. We draw together the first review of characteristics known to drive species use - identifying species with larger body sizes, greater abundance, increased rarity or certain morphological traits valued by consumers as being particularly prevalent in trade. We then review the ecological implications of this trade-driven selection, revealing direct effects of trade on natural selection and populations for traded species, which includes selection against desirable traits. Additionally, there exists a positive feedback loop between rarity and trade and depleted populations tend to have easy human access points, which can result in species being harvested to extinction and has the potential to alter source-sink dynamics. Wider cascading ecosystem repercussions from trade-induced declines include altered seed dispersal networks, trophic cascades, long-term compositional changes in plant communities, altered forest carbon stocks, and the introduction of harmful invasive species. Because it occurs across multiple scales with diverse drivers, wildlife trade requires multi-faceted conservation actions to maintain biodiversity and ecological function, including regulatory and enforcement approaches, bottom-up and community-based interventions, captive breeding or wildlife farming, and conservation translocations and trophic rewilding. We highlight three emergent research themes at the intersection of trade and community ecology: (1) functional impacts of trade; (2) altered provisioning of ecosystem services; and (3) prevalence of trade-dispersed diseases. Outside of the primary objective that exploitation is sustainable for traded species, we must urgently incorporate consideration of the broader consequences for other species and ecosystem processes when quantifying sustainability.

Policies to prevent zoonotic spillover: protocol for a systematic scoping review of evaluative evidence

INTRODUCTION

The increasing incidence of pathogen transmission from animals to humans (zoonotic spillover events) has been attributed to behavioural practices and ecological and socioeconomic change. As these events sometimes involve pathogens with epidemic or pandemic potential, they pose a serious threat to population health. Public policies may play a key role in preventing these events. The aim of this review is to identify evaluations of public policies that target the determinants of zoonotic spillover, examining approaches taken to evaluation, choice of outcomes measures and evidence of effectiveness. Our approach to identifying and analysing this literature will be informed by a One Health lens, acknowledging the interconnectedness of human, animal and environmental health.

METHODS AND ANALYSIS

A systematic scoping review methodology will be used. To identify articles, we will search Medline, SCOPUS, Web of Science and Global Health in May 2021 using search terms combining animal health and the animal-human interface, public policy, prevention and zoonoses. We will screen titles and abstracts and extract data according to published guidelines for scoping reviews. All evaluations of public policies aiming to prevent zoonotic spillover events will be eligible for inclusion. We will summarise key data from each study, mapping policies along the spillover pathway and outlining the range of policies, approaches to evaluation and outcome measures. Review findings will provide a useful reference for researchers and practitioners, outlining the state of the evaluative evidence around policies to prevent zoonotic spillover.

ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION

Formal ethical approval is not required, because the study does not involve primary data collection. The findings of this study will be disseminated through a peer-reviewed publication, presentations and summaries for key stakeholders.

Seeking serpents: Ball python trade in Benin, West Africa

Ball pythons are traded as bushmeat, leather and belief-based medicine in West Africa, and specimens are exported in large numbers for the exotic pet trade. Here, we focused on understanding the purpose and socio-economic context of this trade in Benin through interviews with 44 actors involved in the trade of this species. We provided a snapshot of trade dynamics during a period when hunters are not predominantly actively involved in supplying eggs, neonates and gravid females for ranching and export as exotic pets. Our findings revealed that hunters and traders were largely focused on supplying the bushmeat and medicine markets in West Africa during this time. We estimated that the 21 collectors engaged in hunting in our study collectively hunt between 576 and 5,083 ball pythons from the wild each year. Collection rates reported by some suggests that they could earn more than 15,000 USD from ball python sales in bushmeat markets annually. Ball pythons hunted in Benin were mainly sold to local customers as “bushmeat” (53%) or for belief-based uses (39%) (including “fetish”, “medicinal products” and “voodoo”). However, cross-border trade with neighboring countries of Togo, Nigeria, and Ghana (or even further) also occurred. Although profitable for some, the scale of this practice, together with the widely reported decline in ball python populations in Benin, raises concern about the sustainability and long-term economic viability of this type of large-scale commercial wildlife trade in West Africa, especially as it occurs alongside extensive ranching practices to support the exotic pet trade.

Discussion of wildlife trade before and during the COVID-19 pandemic in professional opinion pieces and scientific articles

Wildlife trade is a multi-billion-dollar sector that impacts a wide range of species, and thus is of significant research and conservation interest. Wildlife trade has also become a prominent topic in the public-facing media, where coverage has intensified following the outbreak of the global COVID-19 pandemic due to the potential connection between wildlife trade and the origin of the SARS Cov2 virus. Given the importance of the media in shaping public understanding and discourse of complex topics such as wildlife trade, this could impact the implementation of and public support for policy decisions. In this study, we followed a standardised protocol to extract wildlife trade-related discussion from 285 professional opinion pieces (NGO reports or articles in conservation-themed forums) and 107 scientific articles published in two time periods: "pre-COVID" (June 1-December 31, 2019) and "during-COVID" (January 1-May 31, 2020). We compared opinion pieces and scientific articles across the two time periods and to each other to investigate potential differences in the presentation of wildlife trade and associated speakers. We found a shift in the way that wildlife trade was discussed in professional opinion pieces between the periods, in that the discussion became less specific in terms of defining the legality and purpose of trade, and the animal groups involved in the "during-COVID" period. The generalised framing of wildlife trade in our dataset also coincided with an increased discussion of highly generalised management strategies, such as blanket bans on wildlife trade. We also found that publications included more quotes from researchers in the "during-COVID" period. In both professional opinion pieces and scientific articles, we found that quotations or research were often from speakers whose affiliation region was different to the geographic range of the trade they were speaking about. This highlights the importance of incorporating local knowledge and considering the diversity of speakers and interviewees in both research and the public-facing media about the wildlife trade.

Concerned or Apathetic? Using Social Media Platform (Twitter) to Gauge the Public Awareness about Wildlife Conservation: A Case Study of the Illegal Rhino Trade

The illegal wildlife trade is resulting in worldwide biodiversity loss and species’ extinction. It should be exposed so that the problems of conservation caused by it can be highlighted and resolutions can be found. Social media is an effective method of information dissemination, providing a real-time, low-cost, and convenient platform for the public to release opinions on wildlife protection. This paper aims to explore the usage of social media in understanding public opinions toward conservation events, and illegal rhino trade is an example. This paper provides a framework for analyzing rhino protection issues by using Twitter. A total of 83,479 useful tweets and 33,336 pieces of users’ information were finally restored in our database after filtering out irrelevant tweets. With 2422 records of trade cases, this study builds up a rhino trade network based on social media data. The research shows important findings: (1) Tweeting behaviors are somewhat affected by the information of traditional mass media. (2) In general, countries and regions with strong negative sentiment tend to have high volume of rhino trade cases, but not all. (3) Social celebrities’ participation in activities arouses wide public concern, but the influence does not last for more than a month. NGOs, GOs, media, and individual enterprises are dominant in the dissemination of information about rhino trade. This study contributes in the following ways: First, this paper conducts research on public opinions toward wildlife conservation using natural language processing technique. Second, this paper offers advice to governments and conservationist organizations, helping them utilize social media for protecting wildlife.

Averting wildlife-borne infectious disease epidemics requires a focus on socio-ecological drivers and a redesign of the global food system

A debate has emerged over the potential socio-ecological drivers of wildlife-origin zoonotic disease outbreaks and emerging infectious disease (EID) events. This Review explores the extent to which the incidence of wildlife-origin infectious disease outbreaks, which are likely to include devastating pandemics like HIV/AIDS and COVID-19, may be linked to excessive and increasing rates of tropical deforestation for agricultural food production and wild meat hunting and trade, which are further related to contemporary ecological crises such as global warming and mass species extinction. Here we explore a set of precautionary responses to wildlife-origin zoonosis threat, including: (a) limiting human encroachment into tropical wildlands by promoting a global transition to diets low in livestock source foods; (b) containing tropical wild meat hunting and trade by curbing urban wild meat demand, while securing access for indigenous people and local communities in remote subsistence areas; and (c) improving biosecurity and other strategies to break zoonosis transmission pathways at the wildlife-human interface and along animal source food supply chains.

Trading Animal Lives: Ten Tricky Issues on the Road to Protecting Commodified Wild Animals

Wildlife commodification can generate benefits for biodiversity conservation, but it also has negative impacts; overexploitation of wildlife is currently one of the biggest drivers of vertebrate extinction risk. In the present article, we highlight 10 issues that in our experience impede sustainable and humane wildlife trade. Given humanity's increasing demands on the natural world we question whether many aspects of wildlife trade can be compatible with appropriate standards for biodiversity conservation and animal welfare, and suggest that too many elements of wildlife trade as it currently stands are not sustainable for wildlife or for the livelihoods that it supports. We suggest that the onus should be on traders to demonstrate that wildlife use is sustainable, humane, and safe (with respect to disease and invasion risk), rather than on conservationists to demonstrate it is not, that there is a need for a broad acceptance of responsibility and, ultimately, widespread behavior change. We urge conservationists, practitioners, and others to take bold, progressive steps to reach consensus and action.

Building a global taxonomy of wildlife offenses

Most countries have many pieces of legislation that govern biodiversity, including a range of criminal, administrative, and civil law provisions that state how wildlife must be legally used, managed, and protected. However, related debates in conservation, such as about enforcement, often overlook the details within national legislation that define which specific acts are illegal, the conditions under which laws apply, and how they are sanctioned. Based on a review of 90 wildlife laws in 8 high-biodiversity countries with different legal systems, we developed a taxonomy that describes all types of wildlife offenses in those countries. The 511 offenses are organized into a hierarchical taxonomy that scholars and practitioners can use to help conduct legal analyses. This is significant amidst competing calls to strengthen, deregulate, and reform wildlife legislation, particularly in response to fears over zoonotic threats and large-scale biodiversity loss. It can be used to provide more nuance legal analyses and facilitate like-for-like comparisons across countries, informing processes to redraft conservation laws, review deregulation efforts, close loopholes, and harmonize legislation across jurisdictions. We applied the taxonomy in a comparison of sanctions in 8 countries for hunting a protected species. We found not only huge ranges in fines (US$0 to $200,000) and imprisonment terms (1.5 years to life imprisonment), but also fundamentally different approaches to designing sanctions for wildlife offenses. The taxonomy also illustrates how future legal taxonomies can be developed for other environmental issues (e.g., invasive species, protected areas).

Systems Approaches to Combating Wildlife Trafficking: Expanding Existing Frameworks to Facilitate Cross-Disciplinary Collaboration

Wildlife trafficking is a complex conservation issue that threatens thousands of species around the world and, in turn, negatively affects biodiversity and human well-being. It occurs in varied social-ecological contexts; includes numerous and diverse actors along the source-transit-destination trade chain, who are involved in illicit and often covert human behaviors driven by interacting social, economic, cultural, and political factors; and involves numerous stakeholders comprising multiple sectors and disciplines. Such wicked problems can be difficult to define and usually lack simple, clear solutions. Systems thinking is a way to understand and address complex issues such as wildlife trafficking and requires multisectoral, cross-disciplinary collaboration to comprehensively understand today's increasingly complex problems and develop holistic and novel solutions. We review methods utilized to date to combat wildlife trafficking and discuss their strengths and limitations. Next, we describe the continuum of cross-disciplinarity and present two frameworks for understanding complex environmental issues, including the illegal trade in wildlife, that can facilitate collaboration across sectors and disciplines. The Open Standards for the Practice of Conservation provides guidance and tools for defining complex social-ecological systems and identifying strategic points of intervention. One Health focuses on the nexus of human, wildlife, and environmental health, and can provide a framework to address concerns around human-wildlife interactions, including those associated with the illegal wildlife trade. Finally, we provide recommendations for expanding these and similar frameworks to better support communication, learning, and collaboration in cross-disciplinary efforts aimed at addressing international wildlife trafficking and its intersections with other complex, global conservation issues.

Can Substitutes Reduce Future Demand for Wildlife Products: A Case Study of China's Millennial Generation

China is one of the world's leading consumer markets for wildlife products, yet there is little understanding of how demand will change in the future. In this study, we investigate the consumptive habits and attitudes of the millennial 'Juilinghou' demographic - a subset of society in China with the potential to substantially influence future demand for wildlife products. We surveyed 350 Chinese university students across Harbin and Beijing, China, and found that the intended future consumption of wildlife products was relatively low in this population but with a strong orientation towards wildlife products with medicinal properties. Seventy percent of those respondents who had used and/or intended to use wildlife products were willing to try substitutes, but this was heavily dependent on their price (cheaper) and quality. The insights gained through this survey are intended to meaningfully inform future initiatives to introduce sustainable substitutability into wildlife markets to alert future wildlife product consumers to alternative choices.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10745-021-00279-0.

The perils of flawed science in wildlife trade literature

Despite broad scientific consensus that sustainable use of wildlife can enhance conservation efforts, ethical concerns have led some community groups to oppose use of wild animals. Voicing those concerns is legitimate, but underlying philosophical bias should not influence science-based analysis and interpretation. We argue that philosophical biases are common in the scientific literature on trade in wildlife. The critically important case of bias surrounding the use of reptile leathers for luxury fashion illustrates the problem. Based on analysis of official seizures of fashion products made from wildlife, a recent study inferred that criminal activity (as inferred by noncompliance with regulations) was common and increasing and, hence, that authorities needed to adopt more stringent restrictions on the trade. In fact, the conclusions of that study are artifacts of pseudoreplication (e.g., multiple counts of single violations) and biased sampling (e.g., focus on companies with high rates of error) and run directly opposite to actual patterns in the data. As a proportion of overall trade, rates of noncompliance are exceptionally low (<0.4%), are declining, and result primarily from paper-work errors rather than criminal intent (e.g., such errors are more frequent for goods shipped by government authorities than by the commercial fashion industry). The recommendation by the study authors to prohibit the international trade in wildlife-based fashion products is imperiling a sustainable trade that can benefit biodiversity and people's livelihoods by providing financial incentives for conservation of species and habitats. This example offers a warning of the dangers of basing research on the wildlife trade on ethical or philosophical positions rather than objective evaluations of evidence.

Husbandry and Herding: A Community-Based Approach to Addressing Illegal Wildlife Trade in Northern Botswana

Illegal bushmeat hunting is a major driver of wildlife population declines in Northern Botswana. Such declines raise concerns about the principles and integrity of the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA) and regional economic stability which is heavily reliant on wildlife-based tourism. The KAZA landscape between Northern Botswana's protected areas consists of non-state land utilized communally by small agropastoralist communities. These communities are economically challenged by international beef trade policies, restricted access to grazing in nearby wildlife management areas and high conflict costs from living in close proximity to wildlife; some of the key factors identified as drivers of bushmeat hunting in the region. Here we describe how a model called Herding for Health (H4H) could address these drivers. We discuss strategies using a socio-economic centered Theory of Change (ToC) model to identify the role agropastoral communities can have in addressing illegal wildlife trade (IWT). The ToC conceptual framework was developed with input from a resource team consisting of scientific and implementation experts in H4H, wildlife conservation, illegal wildlife trade and livelihood development between September and December 2018, and with a validation workshop in March 2019 with government representatives from relevant ministries, NGO's, community-based organizations and private sector participants. We identify three pathways deriving from the ToC driven by community level actions to address IWT in the region. These include: increasing institutions for local enforcement, developing incentives for ecosystem stewardship and decreasing the costs of living alongside wildlife. The success of these pathways depends on underlying enabling actions: support for the development of institutional frameworks; building community capacity to facilitate informed best farming practices; and strengthening commitments to sustainable resource management to increase resilience to climatic and economic shocks.

An analysis of threats, strategies, and opportunities for African rhinoceros conservation

The complexity and magnitude of threats to black (Diceros bicornis) and white (Ceratotherium simum) rhinoceros conservation in Africa have triggered global concerns and actions. In this study, we analyzed (i) threats to rhinoceros conservation including external shocks, (ii) historical rhinoceros conservation strategies in Zimbabwe and Africa, more broadly, and (iii) opportunities for enhanced rhinoceros conservation in Zimbabwe and Africa. A literature search from 1975 to 2020 was carried out using a predefined search protocol, involving a number of filters based on a set of keywords to balance search sensitivity with specificity. A total of 193 articles, which were most relevant to key themes on rhinoceros conservation, were used in this study. The common threats to rhinoceros conservation identified in this paper include poaching, habitat fragmentation and loss, international trade in illegal rhino products, and external shocks such as global financial recessions and pandemics. Cascading effects emanating from these threats include small and isolated populations, which are prone to genetic, demographic, and environmental uncertainties. Rhinoceros conservation strategies being implemented include education and awareness campaigns, better equipped and more antipoaching efforts, use of innovative systems and technologies, dehorning, and enhancing safety nets, and livelihoods of local communities. Opportunities for rhinoceros conservation vary across the spatial scale, and these include (a) a well-coordinated stakeholder and community involvement, (b) strategic meta-population management, (c) enhancing law enforcement initiatives through incorporating real-time surveillance technologies and intruder detection sensor networks for crime detection, (d) scaling up demand reduction awareness campaigns, and (e) developing more certified wildlife crime and forensic laboratories, and information repository for international corporation.

International socioeconomic inequality drives trade patterns in the global wildlife market

The wildlife trade is a major cause of species loss and a pathway for disease transmission. Socioeconomic drivers of the wildlife trade are influential at the local scale yet rarely accounted for in multinational agreements aimed at curtailing international trade in threatened species. In recent decades (1998-2018), approximately 421,000,000 threatened (i.e., CITES-listed) wild animals were traded between 226 nations/territories. The global trade network was more highly connected under conditions of greater international wealth inequality, when rich importers may have a larger economic advantage over poorer exporting nations/territories. Bilateral trade was driven primarily by socioeconomic factors at the supply end, with wealthier exporters likely to supply more animals to the global market. Our findings suggest that international policies for reducing the global wildlife trade should address inequalities between signatory states, possibly using incentive/compensation-driven programs modeled after other transnational environmental initiatives (e.g., REDD+).

A Literature Synthesis of Actions to Tackle Illegal Parrot Trade

The order Psittaciformes is one of the most prevalent groups in the illegal wildlife trade. Efforts to understand this threat have focused on describing the elements of the trade itself: actors, extraction rates, and routes. However, the development of policy-oriented interventions also requires an understanding of how research aims and actions are distributed across the trade chain, regions, and species. We used an action-based approach to review documents published on illegal Psittaciformes trade at a global scale to analyze patterns in research aims and actions. Research increased exponentially in recent decades, recording 165 species from 46 genera, with an over representation of American and Australasian genera. Most of the research provided basic knowledge for the intermediary side of the trade chain. Aims such as the identification of network actors, zoonosis control, and aiding physical detection had numerous but scarcely cited documents (low growth rate), while behavior change had the highest growth rate. The Americas had the highest diversity of research aims, contributing with basic knowledge, implementation, and monitoring across the whole trade chain. Better understanding of the supply side dynamics in local markets, actor typology, and actor interactions are needed. Protecting areas, livelihood incentives, and legal substitutes are actions under-explored in parrots, while behavior change is emerging.

China's Legalization of Domestic Rhino Horn Trade: Traditional Chinese Medicine Practitioner Perspectives and the Likelihood of Prescription

Despite the international ban on the trade of rhino horn that has been in place since 1977, persistent demand for horn in Asia has driven a spike in poaching over the past decade. This has embroiled the conservation community in a debate over the efficacy of banning trade relative to other solutions. Proposals for trade to be legalized and supplied through the dehorning of live rhinos or the production of synthetic horn are contentious. The need for empirical research into the potential impacts of legalization on demand was made more urgent in 2018 when China publicized its intentions to reopen its domestic trade and permit the use of rhino horn in medical treatment. In this study, we interviewed 84 Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) practitioners in the Chinese province of Guangdong. While 58 (69.05%, n = 84) of our interviewees were in favor of trade legalization, only 32 (38.10%, n = 84) thought it likely that trade legalization would cause them to increase their prescription of rhino horn over current levels. This is probably because clinical cases in which rhino horn is medically appropriate are uncommon. We also found that 33 (39.29%, n = 84) practitioners were open to using synthetic horn for patient treatment, which has implications for the viability of synthetic horn as a conservation tool. This research contributes empirical insight to advance the discourse on rhino horn trade policy.

Impacts of wildlife trade on terrestrial biodiversity

The wildlife trade is worth billions of dollars annually and affects most major taxonomic groups. Despite this, a global understanding of the trade's impacts on species populations is lacking. We performed a quantitative meta-analysis of the wildlife trade that synthesized 506 species-level effect sizes from 31 studies, estimating trade-driven declines in mammals (452 effect sizes), birds (36) and reptiles (18). Overall, species declined in abundance by 62% (95% confidence interval (CI), 20 to 82%) where trade occurs. Reductions involving national or international trade were greatest, driving declines of 76% (95% CI, 36 to 91%) and 66% (95% CI, 12 to 87%), respectively. The impacts of trade were pervasive, requiring over 102 hours of travel time from settlements for trade to have no mean effect. Current protective measures fail species, with significant declines even where the harvesting for trade occurs in protected areas. Population declines tracked species threat status, indicating heightened extirpation and extinction risk in traded species. Critically, for such a severe global threat to wildlife, our analysis unearthed a limited number of studies using treatment versus control comparisons, and no studies on amphibians, invertebrates, cacti or orchids. Improved management, tackling both unsustainable demand and trade reporting, must be a conservation priority to prevent rampant trade-induced declines.

Motivations for the use and consumption of wildlife products

The dominant approach to combating the illegal wildlife trade has traditionally been to restrict the supply of wildlife products. Yet conservationists increasingly recognize the importance of implementing demand-side interventions that target the end consumers in the trade chain. Their aim is to curb the consumption of wildlife or shift consumption to more sustainable alternatives. However, there are still considerable knowledge gaps in understanding of the diversity of consumer motivations in the context of illegal wildlife trade, which includes hundreds of thousands of species, different uses, and diverse contexts. Based on consultation with multiple experts from a diversity of backgrounds, nationalities, and focal taxa, we developed a typology of common motivations held by wildlife consumers that can be used to inform conservation interventions. We identified 5 main motivational categories for wildlife use: experiential, social, functional, financial, and spiritual, each containing subcategories. This framework is intended to facilitate the segmentation of consumers based on psychographics and allow the tailoring of interventions-whether behavior change campaigns, enforcement efforts, or incentive programs-to the specific context in which they will be used. Underlining the importance of consumer research and collaborating with local actors is an important step toward promoting a more systematic approach to the design of demand reduction interventions.

Promotion of in situ Forest Farmed American Ginseng (Panax quinquefolius L.) as a Sustainable Use Strategy: Opportunities and Challenges

The cultivation of wild-harvested plant species is one strategy to achieve species conservation while meeting continued demand. A limitation to this approach for species used in Traditional Chinese Medicine, however, is that products produced under ex situ artificial agricultural conditions are often not a perfect replacement for their wild-collected counterparts, so demand for wild-harvested materials persists. This situation applies to American ginseng, an internationally protected species by the Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) since 1975. In this paper, we trace the trade the history and conservation need for American ginseng in North America, including a summary of the development and evolution of in and ex situ cultivation methods. We report results from a preliminary survey of product labeling of American ginseng sold online in China and adjacent regions and provide recommendations for promoting forest farmed ginseng to consumers as a sustainable use strategy. We suggest that the use of CITES’s new “human assisted” production category amongst trade partners, coupled with “green” product certification and e-commerce platforms, provides a new opportunity to encourage consumption of wild-cultivated rather than wild ginseng in east Asia, and the continued development of ginseng forest farming and supply transparency mechanisms in the eastern United States.

To Trade or Not to Trade? Using Bayesian Belief Networks to Assess How to Manage Commercial Wildlife Trade in a Complex World

International commercial trade in wildlife, whether legal or illegal, is one of the greatest threats to multiple species of wildlife today. Opinions on how to address it are deeply divided across the conservation community. Approaches fall into two broad categories: making the trade illegal to protect against any form of commercial trade or allowing some or all of the trade to be legal and seeking to manage it through sustainable trade. The conservation community is often deeply polarized on which is the better option. We posit that a way to choose between these options is by considering species-specific attributes of biological productivity, management context, and demand. We develop a conceptual framework to assess which option is more likely to result in successful conservation of a species. We show how to construct a Bayesian Belief Network (BBN) to model how these attributes (1) interact to affect the sustainability of the species’ population and (2) vary under different trade management regimes. This approach can support scientifically based decision-making, by predicting the likely sustainability outcome for a population of a species under different trade management regimes, given its particular characteristics and context. The BBN allows identification of key points at which conservation interventions could change the potential outcome. It also provides the opportunity to explore how different assumptions about how humans might respond to different trade regimes affects outcomes. We illustrate these ideas by using the BBN for a hypothetical terrestrial mammal species population and discuss how the BBN can be extended for species with different characteristics, for example, those that can be stockpiled or when there are multiple products. This approach has the potential to help the conservation community to assess the most appropriate regime for managing wildlife trade in a transparent, open, and scientifically based way.

Information About Zoonotic Disease Risks Reduces Desire to Own Exotic Pets Among Global Consumers

Demand for exotic pets is a substantial driver of the illegal wildlife trade. Previous work has suggested that this demand could be reduced by conservation marketing messaging highlighting the potential consequences to individual purchasers, in the form of zoonotic disease risks, or legal ramifications. Such work, however, has been limited only to respondents from culturally Western countries, and has not accounted for how underlying attitudes to the keeping of exotic pets may influence desire to own one, or affect the effectiveness of demand reduction messaging. We surveyed 1,000 respondents in each of Brazil, China, USA and Vietnam, showing each five mammal, bird, and reptile pets in random order. Each pet was accompanied with either a “control” statement, describing the species' diet, or one of four types of “treatment” statement describing zoonotic disease, animal welfare, legal or species conservation consequences. Respondents were asked to rate how much they would like to own the pet on a 1–10 scale. All respondents demonstrated decreased desire to own a given exotic when shown any of the types of treatment information, but disease information provoked the greatest decrease, relative to controls (a mean decrease of 26.9%, compared with 16.2, 17.9, and 18.9% for legality, welfare and conservation information, respectively). We also found that respondents with the highest stated likelihood of purchasing pets possessed a series of beliefs that could facilitate this purchase while maintaining an ethical self-image: in particular they believed that shops were well-regulated, and that they were able to distinguish captively-bred from wild caught animals. In summary all respondents of any nationality were motivated particularly to avoid the risk of zoonotic disease, and we recommend that demand reduction campaigns leverage this desire, particularly in the new context of COVID-19.

Understanding wildlife crime in China: Socio-demographic profiling and motivation of offenders

Wildlife crime presents a growing threat to the integrity of ecological communities. While campaigns have raised consumer awareness, little is known about the socio-demographic profile of wildlife offenders, or how to intervene. Using data from China Judgements Online (2014–2018), we documented 4,735 cases, involving 7,244 offenders who smuggled, hunted, transported, sold and/or purchased protected species in contravention of China’s Criminal Law. Offenders were predominantly men (93.0% of 7,143 offenders), aged 30–44 (43.9% of 4,699), agricultural workers (48.4% of 3,960), with less schooling (78.6% of 4,699 < senior secondary school). Socio-economic profiles related to crime seriousness, the type of illegal activity, motivation and taxon involved. These generalizations reveal scope to tailor specific intervention and mitigation approaches to offender profiles, through public information campaigns, proactive incentives opposed by punitive disincentives, and provision of alternative incomes.