Despite concerted efforts to control illegal wildlife trafficking globally, more than 13 million items of wildlife parts were seized and reported in 162 countries in just the last seven years, according to the World Wildlife Crime Report 2024 by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). These wildlife parts came from more than 4,000 species, of which at least 3,250 are CITES-listed.

However, the reported seizures reflect only a fraction of the true scale of illegal wildlife trade, as developed countries have better detection and reporting mechanisms, but many countries in Latin America, Africa and Asia, which are biodiversity hotspots and significant sources of trafficked wildlife, do not have adequate capacity and resources to detect, record and report seizures. Worryingly, the real picture is vastly different from what is captured when it comes to the full extent of wildlife crime.

There is no doubt that uncontrolled and unsustainable wildlife exploitation damages ecosystems and biodiversity, but the continued prevalence of such crime goes far beyond impacting wildlife species’ survival. It also jeopardizes local communities’ well-being and livelihood, breaks down law and order in society, compromises people’s safety and security, and promotes overall corruption, especially as funding cuts loom large and budget allocations for conservation continue dwindling, even as the scale of nature exploitation shows few signs of decline. Hence, it is important to see wildlife crime as more than a conservation problem, and understand how controlling it has other significant benefits for society, and in maintaining law and order.

How wildlife crime harms human communities

Organized criminal networks often have to depend on local communities on the ground to poach and transport illegal wildlife parts to pass the country’s borders. When such actors are arrested and hit by hefty punishments, it is seen as a success for law enforcement and other agencies, who measure their impact based on the number of arrests made. However, my research experience shows that arresting lower-level actors in an illegal trade chain does little to eliminate the crime, as the organized crime network can easily recruit other people for that role.

The implications for the arrested local communities are also severe, damaging not only the life of the convicted person but also the family that depends on them. In the current approach, poor people bear the cost of stiff enforcement, but kingpins are able to escape the consequences and continue driving the exploitation. There is no question that all criminals should be punished, regardless of the scale of the crime, but just arresting low-level participants does not stop the crime.

For example, we have seen many people living near protected areas in Nepal indulge in wildlife crime, unaware of the stringent punishment, and how their families struggle for survival as a result of their long imprisonment. Despite that, wildlife crime continues to be a major risk for Nepal’s wildlife, such as rhinos and tigers, which fetch a high price in international markets, and local communities around these protected areas continue to be recruited for poaching and the transportation of wildlife parts.

Nepal’s Araniko highway is one of the major lifelines of the country, connecting Kathmandu to Kodari village on the Nepal-China border, which also serves as a major border crossing point facilitating large-scale trade and connectivity with China. Organized criminal groups often recruit truck drivers and helpers plying this route to smuggle wildlife parts across the border with the lure of small amounts of money or by downplaying the risk of illegal wildlife trade. Such unsuspecting victims are not only arrested and imprisoned if caught, but their vehicles are also impounded for years, causing them to lose their livelihood and jobs. It is quite common to see such vehicles decaying at forest or police offices across Nepal.

Many mountain communities in the country have always depended on medicinal plants, such as orchids and caterpillar fungus, for harvest and trade, which have been their key source of income for many generations. However, the situation is changing now, as many external, organized groups are exploiting those plants illegally, threatening not only the sustainability of the plants in the wild but also directly hitting the livelihoods of these rural people.

Corruption and disruption

Starting from the harvest site to the consumer market in another country, the illegal wildlife trade involves several steps of a specialized supply network of goods and payment. Securing access to wildlife sources and finally delivering the products to destinations happens via two main pathways: either by exploiting the existing main legal trade chain for loopholes and bribing officials, or avoiding the radar of enforcement entirely and smuggling via hidden networks.

In both cases, it forms a conduit that can be utilized to facilitate any form of illegal activity, not just wildlife crime. People involved in the illegal wildlife trade chain are often found involved in other crimes as well, such as drugs, arms and gold smuggling, and money laundering. All these activities promote various forms of corruption, harming societal development and entrenching the cycle of poverty.

Wildlife crime can also cause gun violence, disrupting social harmony and creating an unsafe environment for people who live in rural areas, which already have limited security presence, unlike cities. In 2020, one poacher was killed in a gun battle with the Nepal Army in Parsa National Park. Similarly, in 2023, a group of poachers in Nepal’s Kapilvastu fired shots at the patrolling team.

There have been several other instances of gun violence erupting between poachers and law enforcement in and around protected areas where prized wildlife like pangolins, rhinos, tigers, leopards and elephants are found. Here, highly prized wildlife are those species for which there is high demand in the international market, fetching eye-watering prices. This, in turn, attracts armed poachers and organized criminals to the wildlife habitats, creating a dangerous and unsafe situation for the local communities who are caught in the crossfire between poachers and law enforcement. As a result, frequent violence can become a part of vulnerable communities if wildlife crime is not controlled in such regions.

More than a conservation problem

This is why controlling wildlife crime is not only the responsibility of the wildlife departments but should be viewed as something that affects a much wider range of issues, including societal well-being, rural livelihoods and even national security. Saving threatened species by curbing wildlife crime addresses more than the conservation problems we face; it also contributes to the socioeconomic development of communities living alongside wildlife and in key wildlife trade routes. To solve this wicked problem, governments and philanthropies should prioritize wildlife crime control programs.

As natural resource exploitation reaches record levels, it is becoming increasingly difficult to ensure legal and sustainable use, harvest and trade of wildlife. Countries should commit to real action, by going beyond commitments on paper to invest in developing capacity that helps implement evidence-based actions on the ground.

Amid ongoing U.S. funding cuts and increased defense spending due to various conflicts worldwide, wildlife conservation and crime control programs are being defunded, which not only severely undermines global commitment to biodiversity protection but also reduces community resilience and fuels insecurity among communities that are usually the first line of defense against nature crime.

This is a call for all governments and conservation agencies to double down on prioritizing resources to help tackle this problem together.

Kumar Paudel is founding director of Greenhood Nepal, a science-driven conservation nonprofit.

Banner image: The fast-disappearing Sunda pangolin (Manis javanica) is native to 10 countries in Asia, and is considered critically endangered on the IUCN Red List. Image by Frendi Apen Irawan via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Related audio from Mongabay’s podcast: A discussion with Mongabay reporter Ashoka Mukpo about the human impacts of combatting the illegal wildlife trade and how the conservation role of rangers is evolving, listen here:

See related coverage:

Wildlife crime crackdown in jeopardy worldwide after US funding cuts

‘Killed while poaching’: When wildlife enforcement blurs into violence

Large-scale illegal wildlife shops in Laos found scamming Chinese tourists

Citations:

Paudel, K., Potter, G. R., & Phelps, J. (2019). Conservation enforcement: Insights from people incarcerated for wildlife crimes in Nepal. Conservation Science and Practice, 2(2). doi:10.1111/csp2.137

Bashyal, R., Paudel, K., Hinsley, A., & Phelps, J. (2023). Making sense of domestic wildlife and CITES legislation: The example of Nepal’s orchids. Biological Conservation, 280, 109951. doi:10.1016/j.biocon.2023.109951