The illegal wildlife trade (IWT) is a major form of transnational organised crime, generating annual income of between $7 billion and $23 billion a year for the criminal syndicates involved. Wildlife crime threatens biodiversity, fuels corruption and impacts public health and the economy.
Tackling wildlife crime, stepping up anti-corruption efforts and enhancing access to information and justice are key to achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
EIA conducted a review of the information gathered between 2017 and 2020 by its Wildlife and Forests teams in Africa and Asia in order to examine the relationship between wildlife and forest crime. Detailed analysis of this information revealed a relationship (or ’nexus’) between the two crime types in three key areas...
Out of Africa: How West and Central Africa have become the epicentre of ivory and pangolin scale trafficking to Asia details how endemic corruption, weak or absent rule of law, low levels of development and hotspots of armed conflict have left the region wide open to exploitation by well-organised transnational criminal gangs.
EIA has prepared analysis of the draft revision of China's Wildlife Protection Law, published for public comment in October 2020, along with recommendations for further revisions urgently needed to secure positive changes for threatened wildlife, including tigers, leopards, pangolins, elephants, rhinos and bears.
The world’s eight pangolin species are experiencing catastrophic levels of poaching and trafficking to feed demand for their scales, meat and other body parts. In 2016, the global community agreed to make the international commercial trade in pangolins and their parts and derivatives illegal.