Why the Middle East and North Africa region is crucial in the fight against the illegal wildlife trade
Interview with Jennifer Croes, Associate Director of Emirates Nature-WWF
Today, the world celebrates World Wildlife Day under the theme: “Recovering key species for ecosystem restoration.” We depend on the biodiversity of our planet to support our existence, yet globally, we are depleting wildlife populations and habitats faster than they can recover. One of the major setbacks to recovering key wildlife species is the Illegal Wildlife Trade.
So this year’s World Wildlife Day theme presents an important opportunity to turn the spotlight on ongoing and emerging efforts to tackle the illegal trade in wildlife particularly in the Middle East and North Africa and the role this region can play in recovering threatened species.
Illegal trade in wildlife, with an estimated value of US$23 billion a year, is the world’s fourth most lucrative crime, affecting many different wild animal and plant species and poses a major threat to the biodiversity of our planet.
Emirates Nature-WWF has joined forces with United for Wildlife (UfW) in calling for a renewed focus on the Middle East and North Africa region (MENA), in what could be a potential game-changer in efforts to tackle global organised wildlife crime. This follows the recent launch of UfW’s regional Chapter at Expo 2020 in Dubai, which was capped with a visit from its founder, the UK’s H.R.H. Duke of Cambridge, Prince William.
Speaking during the launch, Associate Director of Emirates Nature-WWF, Jennifer Croes said “Together, we are calling for major regional action. The Middle East and North Africa region is a transit hotspot for trafficked wildlife. Our collective task,” she stated, “is to make it absolutely impossible for wildlife traffickers to use existing infrastructures to move illicit goods within the region.
We have the opportunity to position the Middle East and North Africa region as a global leader in the fight to stop wildlife crime. Countries can start by making a commitment to prioritize wildlife crime in their regional and national mandates, and respond to this global biodiversity emergency, turning concern into action to protect Nature.”
In a recent interview, Croes answered some of the critical questions surrounding Illegal Wildlife Trade across the MENA region:
What exactly is the illegal wildlife trade? How does it work?
The illegal wildlife trade, also known as wildlife trafficking, is an environmental crime involving the illegal exchange of wild animals and plants. The trade involves a wide-reaching supply chain, from poaching to trafficking, purchasing and consumption. It often involves covert operations by underground, organized criminal networks.
Why is there a demand for illegal wildlife?
If you’ve seen the Netflix documentary Tiger King, you may have an insight into how widespread human interaction with endangered wildlife is. Social media exacerbates the problem, leading people to believe that this kind of association and socialization is normal. Aside from the trade in exotic pets, many threatened wild animals are stripped for parts to make products such as tiger bone wine, ivory statues and trophies.
Some illegally traded animal and plant species are used in traditional medicine or as culinary delicacies. It’s common to think of iconic mammal species such as elephants, rhinos and lions as being at a higher risk, but there is a wide range of birds, reptiles and a number of furry and scaly friends, that are also sought out through illegal channels.
What are the main issues around the illegal wildlife trade in the Middle East and North Africa?
Some countries play a bigger role in the Illegal Wildlife Trade as the source of supply and others as destination hotspots. However no country or region is immune to wildlife trafficking. Unfortunately, this region has been identified as a thriving transit hub for the illegal trade in wildlife. Its strategic location and role as a key international economic and commercial hub, with major airports and shipping ports is often exploited by organized criminal networks to facilitate the illegal trade in wildlife.
Customs officials regularly intercept packages containing illegally sourced live animals such as pangolins, grey parrots, cheetahs, chimpanzees or snakes, or animal products including elephant ivory or rhino horn poached and trafficked from Africa’s main smuggling hotspots. In one such incident, two passengers travelling from Johannesburg were recently arrested while on transit in Doha enroute to Kuala Lumpur carrying 23 rhino horns in their luggage.
So what’s being done to address illegal wildlife trade in the region?
In February, United for Wildlife launched its Middle East and North Africa Chapter and one of its key mandates is to help stamp out illegal wildlife trade in the region. The UK government and United for Wildlife have been leading illegal wildlife trade discussions, hosting two global diplomatic conferences in London in 2014 and 2018, to ensure that this conservation topic remains on the agenda of the G20, G7 and the UN General Assembly. This new regional chapter brings together key transport and financial sector stakeholders as part of the Transport and Financial Taskforce and support a global commitment and call to action, to put an end to wildlife trafficking in the Middle East and North Africa region.
The aim is to make it impossible for traffickers to use existing infrastructure to move illicit goods within the region. There are three intervention areas:
1. Disrupt transport networks and platforms
To disrupt transport networks, a concerted effort is required across air, sea and road supply chains. The private sector, including airlines, air and shipping ports and courier companies will combine forces with governments as well as collaborating with civil society organizations such as Emirates Nature-WWF.
2. Address illicit financial flow
We have invested a lot in anti-poaching efforts and towards intercepting wildlife trafficking along major supply routes, but it’s only recently that governments and financial institutions have begun to examine more critically money laundering and illicit financial flows connected with wildlife crime.
To look at disrupting the trade chain holistically, we need to ‘Follow the Money’ that fuels and facilitates wildlife trade. To this end, WWF is delighted to have collaborated on an important Illegal Wildlife Trade (IWT) Financial Flows toolkit led by the UK government. Its launch today in the UAE, as part of World Wildlife Day celebrations puts the spotlight on the role that financial systems can play in wildlife and ecosystem restoration through halting wildlife crime. By implementing this toolkit here in the UAE and across the region, we can assist the financial sector and banking industry to identify, report, and mitigate wildlife trafficking-related money laundering.
3. Combat the cyber-crime that facilitates wildlife trafficking
Digital technology and connectivity across the world, combined with rising buying power, has provided new, cost-effective, anonymous channels to exchange goods and services between poacher, trader and consumer. Collaboration among multiple stakeholders is crucial for effective monitoring of online trade and to stop sales in the region.
How easy is it to keep track of illegal wildlife trade online
Monitoring the trade online is particularly difficult. While the laws exist, many endangered species are offered for sale online contravening international and federal laws. Traders in the wider MENA region continue to sell banned and endangered animals via social media platforms, advertising and sharing photographs, videos and stories with their followers. Further negotiations take place in the deep, dark web, sometimes using WhatsApp for security-encrypted messages.
The Coalition to End Wildlife Trafficking Online is a partnership between WWF, TRAFFIC and IFAW that works with the largest technology, e-commerce and social media companies such as Google, Amazon, eBay, Facebook and Instagram, to shut down the online marketplace for wildlife trade.
Current Coalition partners are mainly Asia-oriented, but there is an opportunity to expand this initiative into the MENA region, to monitor, identify and detect suspicious online activities of illegal wildlife. But it’s also up to all of us, the role of consumers and civil society, to act as responsible citizens and report any illicit activity we may see on the internet and social media.
How can the public in this region get involved?
WWF Singapore and WWF Hong Kong initiated a dedicated Citizen Science programme called Cyber Spotters, training volunteers to report any suspicious content they find online to the Coalition for removal. To date, they have reported 5,900 prohibited wildlife products and achieved an average accuracy rating of 94% in identifying wildlife sales online.
Bringing a Coalition presence to the MENA region would be an opportunity to pilot the Cyber Spotters initiative locally — which would fit in brilliantly with the Citizen Scientist elements of Emirates Nature-WWF’s Leaders of Change programme. However with the speed of smart technology, we should also explore innovative solutions such as a machine learning and AI to investigate and identify audio-visual content and focus on filtering through huge data sets, impossible for the human eye alone.
Any parting words?
The Middle East and North Africa region has the capacity and capability to address the growing threat of illegal wildlife trade. The UAE in particular is a transformative, global leader on the world stage, and that comes with a responsibility to lead the fight against this industry that is devastating our planets most threatened wildlife. But it’s not just the governments that we’re calling on to undertake these efforts.
Emirates Nature-WWF’s Leaders of Change programme empowers all members of the UAE’s public to participate actively in the protection of wildlife. As well as learning more about these pressing issues and what can be done about them, the programme’s change makers co-create solutions to make this fight a sustained, consolidated effort from all areas of society. Together we can build a nature-first future that protects our planet’s wildlife for the benefit of people today and for generations to come.
