President Donald Trump has in many ways worked as President Barack Obama’s foil, rolling back legacy environmental protection regulations and questioning the merit of environmental causes. However, since taking office, his administration has also taken a hard policy line against wildlife crime, continuing and even furthering Obama’s momentum.

Dueling Perspectives

Last month at the UK-sponsored International Wildlife Trade Conference, governments, businesses, NGOs, scientists, and law enforcement experts gathered to energize the fight against wildlife criminals.

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who represented the United States at the event, highlighted Washington’s strong track record on conservation and combatting wildlife crime, including the recently re-negotiated NAFTA deal, known as the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, that includes provisions to combat trafficking in wildlife, timber, and fish. In his remarks, Sessions said that “President Trump fully supports strong prosecution of those involved in the illegal wildlife trade” and added that “our nation sees ending the poaching and trafficking of protected wildlife as a worldwide conservation imperative.”  

However, some say the reality is different. Elephant Project founder Dane Waters has said that “the Trump Administration is reversing hard fought gains made over the past several decades in the fight to protect elephants.” Waters even said that the United States has abdicated its conservation leadership role since President Donald Trump took office.

These perspectives are far apart. But a closer look at the Trump Administration’s record on combatting wildlife crime reveals areas where it has built on Obama’s legacy and where it veers away.

Obama’s Focus on Wildlife Crime

Anti-poaching efforts received crucial presidential backing during President Obama’s second term. In 2013, a report prepared by the intelligence community determined that poaching and wildlife crime were, in fact, a national security issue, and that these illicit networks tend to converge with those that traffic drugs and arms, and even terrorism. This presented an opportunity to dramatically shift the debate and even boost resources to fight wildlife crime.

President Obama signed an executive order that established an inter-agency task force to coordinate the U.S. government response across all sectors of wildlife counter-trafficking: source, supply-chain and demand. It also provided an immediate $10 million in anti-poaching training and technical assistance to countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.

During President Obama’s tenure, financial resources to combat wildlife crime at the State Department’s law enforcement bureau rose from a few hundred thousand to today’s $50 million level. Hybrid partnerships across the conservation-security continuum improved, for example between Fish and Wildlife Services (FWS) and the Department of Defense’s Special Operations Command (SOCOM). The Administration also issued a comprehensive National Strategy for Combatting Wildlife Trafficking. In November of 2016, President Obama signed into law the bipartisan Eliminate, Neutralize, and Disrupt (END) Wildlife Trafficking Act, which builds upon the National Strategy and calls for deploying law enforcement assets to dismantle illegal wildlife trade networks and their financing overseas. Together, the Obama Administration and Congress initiated an interagency response to wildlife crime and laid the groundwork for further action.

Continued Momentum under Trump

Despite being at odds with the environmental community over a range of issues, including regulatory rollbacks in the oil and gas sector, the shrinking of national monuments, and the decision to allow elephant trophies to be brought back into the US, the Trump Administration is continuing the country’s harder stance against wildlife trafficking.

One of the first executive orders that President Trump signed ordered swift action against transnational illicit organizations and transboundary trafficking. Illegal smuggling in wildlife was included among the threats listed, together with drugs, arms, and human trafficking. In addition, Trump’s 2018 National Security Strategy calls on military and security partnerships in Africa to counter the illegal trade in natural resources, which encompasses wildlife trafficking. As a follow-up, in early 2018, Trump’s Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats highlighted the negative security consequences to the United States as a result of wildlife trafficking, including threats to economies, biodiversity, food supply security, and human health, while testifying at the Senate Intelligence Committee during the annual worldwide threat assessment hearing.

As Sessions highlighted in his speech at the London conference, the U.S. Intelligence agencies are enhancing their ability to gather, share, and leverage intelligence about wildlife traffickers. Part of this expanded intelligence gathering involves continuing to strategically place Senior Fish and Wildlife Service Special Agent Law Enforcement Attachés at American Embassies around the world.

Today, the overall annual spending on combatting wildlife crime across the U.S. government is about $90 million. This is far short of the about $50 billion the U.S. spends on countering drug trafficking every year, but the importance of the increase cannot be understated as a force multiplier for the counter wildlife trafficking community that has traditionally been resource-starved.

The Treasury Department has also begun using its threat finance authority to go after wildlife criminals, in addition to more traditional terrorist financiers. In fact, the Treasury Department, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Department of State were all asked to do more to stop wildlife trafficking in the report language from Congress accompanying the recent FY2018 Appropriations Bill.

Furthermore, since President Trump took office, the Justice Department’s prosecutors have convicted more than 30 people for wildlife trafficking crimes, with another 25 charged in the same period. Trump has directed the U.S. government to use all tools at their disposal to disrupt and dismantle wildlife trafficking criminal networks. Actions from both the Trump and Obama Administrations illustrate that a framework for pragmatic policy has been set, providing cover for many branches of the government to multilaterally work to combat wildlife crime.

While President Trump is not often seen as a leader on environmental or conservation issues, wildlife trafficking is an issue his administration has paid particular attention to. It is one of the few Obama legacies that his successor has worked to enhance, to combat transnational organized crime and safeguard vulnerable species worldwide.