Since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, humans have so vastly altered Earth’s systems that we’re now in the midst of what many are calling the Anthropocene Epoch. Human activity has become the dominant influence on climate and the environment, inflicting changes that may persist for millennia.

We are razing the planet’s last intact wild lands, degrading, deforesting, carving up, and destroying huge swathes of habitat. We’re overfishing and poisoning our rivers and oceans. We continue to pump greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, raising CO2 levels and hastening climatic changes that are already affecting all life on Earth.

These impacts have sparked a global loss of plants and animals so severe that it has been dubbed the Sixth Extinction. A recent study published in the journal Science noted that “the tree of life is being pruned by human activities at an unprecedented rate.”

This demise has been hastened by illegal international trade in endangered flora, fauna, timber, and fish. Poaching for a lucrative black market has skyrocketed over the last decades and now ranks among the greatest threats to these species’ survival. This transnational commerce is prohibited under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), a treaty signed by 183 nations that regulates that trade.

The massive slaughter of elephants and rhinos over the past dozen years has shined global attention on a much larger crisis. Illegal trade in wildlife is taking out thousands of species across the globe in unimaginably high numbers. It includes both live and dead specimens and the products made from them—from rosewood, sharks, orchids, and chimpanzees to ginseng, birds, reptiles, and aquarium fish.

Perhaps 3,900 wild tigers remain today. A third of Latin America’s parrot species are facing extinction. Most tropical hardwoods are on the endangered species list. Turtles and pangolins have essentially been poached off the Asian continent.

A report to Congress back in 2008 characterized the trade in endangered species as “the wildlife version of blood diamonds.” In 2016, the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) and Interpol called the growth rate of environmental crime “astonishing.”

The impacts of diminished wildlife cascade throughout entire ecosystems: Every species is intricately woven into interconnected communities that evolved in synchrony over millennia. The loss of a top predator, a food source, a key seed disperser, or a creature that manicures the landscape or consumes carrion reverberates throughout the entire ecosystem, triggering other declines.

Poaching often requires local involvement, but the killing is high-tech: poachers are often armed with weapons-of-war assault rifles, silencers, and night vision equipment. Locals are hired by transnational organized criminal syndicates that move endangered species products to buyers, operating like global multinational businesses. Because this is a low-risk, high profit enterprise, cartels that deal in weapons, drugs, human trafficking (including modern slavery), financial crime, fraud, and corruption have expanded their portfolios to include rare species. In Latin America, there is evidence that some wildlife trafficking is linked to drug cartels. And this trade also involves militias: Ivory smuggling reportedly funds the Lord’s Resistance Army and the Sudanese Janjaweed.

The Global Environment Fund describes the illegal wildlife trade as “one of the most lucrative illegal businesses in the world”: it’s now ranked as the fourth largest source of criminal earnings, generating up to US $23 billion annually. UNEP has valued forestry crimes (including illegal logging) as a $51 to $152 billion-per-year industry; illegal fishing estimates run from $11 to $24 billion.

The rising demand for endangered species products comes mainly from Asia; China is, by far, the largest consumer. Rhino horn commands higher prices on the black market than gold or platinum. It’s considered to be a cure. Traditional remedies using rhino blood, skin, urine, and horn were first compiled by Chinese physician and herbalist Li Shizhen in 1597 in the Pen Tsao Kang Mu (The Great Herbal). According to Bernard Read’s 1931 translation, rhino products have been used to cure devil possession, typhoid, headache, dysentery and carbuncles; remove hallucinations and “bewitching nightmares”; to expel fear and anxiety; as an antidote to poison, a hangover cure—and more.

However, the horn is primarily made of keratin, the protein that makes up horses’ hoofs, turtle beaks, and cockatoo bills, according to a 2006 Ohio University study—and a 1983 study by Hoffman-La Roche, s Swiss pharmaceutical company, found no medicinal properties.

But the horn, along with ivory, pangolin and other products, are also status symbols in China. In 2014, the CITES secretariat found that tiger parts “are now consumed less as medicine and more as exotic luxury products.” Some investors are now buying and warehousing rare species products, banking on extinction.

Few people realize that the US ranks as the second largest market for illegal wildlife trafficking; Europe is another substantial buyer, and poaching and illegal sale is occurring in every country across the globe. These endangered species products are consumed as food, purported cures, and fashioned into furniture, jewelry, tourist trinkets, rugs, clothing and other items. Many animals are bought as pets or land in exploitive zoos or circus acts.

This explosion of trafficking in wildlife is not only decimating critically endangered species, but it is also affecting human health and destabilizing livelihoods, economies and political security.

Healthy ecosystems act as huge carbon vaults, mitigating extreme weather and providing buffers from flooding. They provide food and pollination. They clean the air and purify drinking water for millions of people. Decimating these environments deprives communities of natural capital and the ability to benefit from nature-based tourism. Illegal trade in fish, timber, and other natural resources undermines legal and sustainable businesses and livelihoods. Overall, these illegal activities compromise our ability to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

With cartels and terrorist groups as the perpetrators, environmental crime has been elevated to national security status in countries across the globe. It’s sparked growing attention from   INTERPOL, the UN Security Council, the UN Development Programme, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime and the UN Counter-Terrorism Executive Directorate. The US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) has stationed attachés—experienced criminal investigators—in trafficking hubs around the world.

A declaration signed by 65 countries in 2018 stated that we “need to deploy the full range of public and private tools, legal frameworks and responses developed to tackle other transnational organized crimes.” That includes tracking illicit financial flows associated with wildlife trafficking.

The sheer scale and sophistication of environmental crime demands informed, coordinated responses that span national ministries and jurisdictions—and international borders. Poor nations with inadequate governance and widespread corruption are hardest hit. Many range states have weak laws with light penalties, poor enforcement and low conviction rates, offering little deterrent.

To prevent poaching and stem the trade, source countries must meet their CITES treaty mandate to enact and enforce stringent national laws and participate in unified regional conservation strategies. This will require political will and funding, and efforts must engage local communities, offering tangible rewards for conserving wildlife. Part of the solution lies in generating alternative livelihood options and sustainable jobs for communities that live in or adjacent to wildlife habitats—and may otherwise turn to poaching for income.

Knowledge of shifting demand and smuggling routes is key: most seizures and arrests happen after animals are already dead, trees are cut, or fish are on ice. The Wildlife Protection Society of India, the Environmental Investigation Agency, and the EAGLE Network are among top investigative nonprofits that use an intelligence-led approach to wildlife crime. They work with law enforcement to help identify, track, and apprehend poachers and trafficking syndicates, and whenever possible, stopping the killing before it happens.

Addressing ever-growing consumer demand is also critical. Consumers often don’t realize that the exotic creatures and tourist souvenirs they’re purchasing, the food they’re eating, or the elephant or chimpanzee they’re watching perform are endangered species that were pulled from the wild.

To educate the public on endangered species laws, USFWS has set up display cases in major US airports. Other initiatives exert social pressure in China and other Southeast Asian consumer countries. Some of the most successful are ads and public service announcements produced by the International Fund for Animal Welfare and WildAid that feature Jackie Chan, Yao Ming, and other celebrities, athletes, religious leaders, and CEOs denouncing the purchase wildlife products.

There have been some victories. For example, shark fin soup is no longer served at Chinese government functions, and consumption across the country has dropped by 50 to 70 percent since 2011. In 2015, China and the US—the number one and number two consumers of ivory—negotiated a near-total bilateral ban on domestic ivory sales.

Environmental crime increases the fragility of an already embattled planet. “Nature and the security of humankind are more inextricably linked than we sometimes realize,” said The Prince of Wales in a speech during a visit to Washington in 2015. “So it is essential to our wellbeing, and ultimately to our survival, that we address them together.” He added that it will require “strong, decisive and far-sighted leadership” to avoid destroying our grandchildren’s future inheritance.