“The world is still feeling the full brunt of the COVID-19 pandemic which most likely had its origins in a wild animal,” says John Scanlon AO, Former Secretary-General of CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) and Chair of the Global Initiative to End Wildlife Crime, in this week’s Friday Podcast. Scanlon spoke at a recent Wilson Center event on the connections between wildlife crime, human health, and security.

“We need to recalibrate our relationship with nature for many compelling interrelated reasons, including to protect biodiversity, combat climate change, and to prevent future pandemics,” says Scanlon. “This is going to require profound changes in how we regulate the taking, trade, and consumption of wildlife, how we combat wildlife crime, and how we manage and finance the protection of wildlife at its source.”

Currently, there is no global agreement for combatting wildlife crime. CITES, a 50-year-old global agreement that exists to regulate international trade in wildlife only considers biological risks to a species’ survival and does not take into account the risks to human or animal health. We need to adopt a One Health approach to regulating wildlife trade that considers the biological impacts on human and animal health, says Scanlon. However, CITES member states remain wary of expanding the treaty’s mandate to include human and animal health criteria. Another approach, proposed by the global health community, is to include legally binding commitments in an international pandemics treaty to prevent the spillover of viruses and other pathogens from wild animals to people.

Not only does wildlife crime endanger health, but it also comes at a financial cost. The World Bank estimates that illicit wildlife trafficking and the impacts of these crimes on ecosystems cost the global economy a staggering $1-2 trillion a year. Scanlon says that a new international agreement is needed to criminalize wildlife trafficking. “It would apply to any species of wild fauna and flora, including fish and timber species, that is protected under any international or importantly, any national law.” Such an agreement would perform needed functions including, “setting out the conduct that should be criminalized, committing states to make it a criminal offence to import any wildlife it is being acquired in contravention of the national laws at the source country, and on the exchange of critically important information.”

An international agreement on wildlife trafficking has been publicly endorsed by the presidents of Costa Rica and Gabon and, if adopted, would be the first time that a crime significantly impacting the environment is embedded into the international criminal law framework, says Scanlon. “If we get it right, the local communities living amongst wildlife and the governments of source countries, as well as our global biodiversity, climate health and security will all be beneficiaries.”

“We’re struggling to combat climate change and staring down the loss of a million species. Given the scale of the risk to people and planet, we must ratchet up both our national and global response,” says Scanlon. By promoting changes to the existing international legal framework, we can change how states commit to working with each other to help avoid future pandemics and to end wildlife crime in a manner that delivers multiple local and global benefits.