Wildlife trafficking is the third-largest criminal industry worldwide—after drugs and the sex trade—involving $20 billion in global trade each year. Illegal wildlife traffickers are difficult to track down, as they employ increasingly sophisticated methods, showing higher levels of organization and technological savvy. In addition, the resources devoted to halting wildlife trafficking are extremely limited, due in part to other issues—such as terrorism and climate change—dominating the international dialogue. Animal trafficking has become a forgotten crisis, and with devastating impacts on species’ survival and ecological health, said experts at a May 20 Wilson Center meeting.

Global Traffic Problems

The extent of wildlife trafficking is difficult to assess, in part due to the large legal trade in wildlife that often acts as cover for smugglers. Laurel Neme, author of Animal Investigators: How the World’s First Wildlife Forensics Lab is Catching Poachers, Solving Crimes, and Saving Endangered Species, pointed out that every year 25,000 primates, 2-3 million birds, 10 million reptile skins, and more than 500 million tropical fish are legally traded, and it is believed that illegal trade at least matches, and probably exceeds, these numbers. Rare and endangered species are in particular danger of being trafficked, since rare animals generally fetch a higher price on the black market. For instance, ounce for ounce, rhino horn is worth more than diamonds, fetching $50,000 per kilogram.

The scope and complexity of trafficking is the primary obstacle to confronting it. Wildlife trafficking knows no borders and involves countries in every region of the globe. Traffickers are also diverse, ranging from petty criminals to criminal organizations to terrorists. While wildlife trafficking is a global problem, the two largest participants are China and the United States.

Jamming Traffic

Kevin Garlick of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) outlined the challenges facing U.S. law enforcement officials investigating the supply side of trafficking. For one, the industry is very lucrative; a sea turtle skin that sells for $70 in Mexico can be made into boots that sell for $500 in the United States. Organized crime has become increasingly involved, resulting in detailed planning and financial support for trafficking operations, sophisticated forgery of permits, and international management of huge shipments.

In contrast, enforcement officials lack human and financial resources. The FWS has 115 wildlife inspectors who staff only 38 of the nearly 300 points of entry into the United States, as well as 199 criminal investigators who pursue leads from confiscations and tips. By way of comparison, the FBI has 2,000 and the Drug Enforcement Agency has 5,000 investigators.

China’s Wildlife Challenges

WWF’s Crawford Allen explained that increasing affluence in China is leading to increasing demand for traditional medicines, which often include parts of rare animals; unusual meats, which are considered delicacies; and luxury products such as tiger bone wine. Rising demand in China has fueled a number of wildlife crises, particularly for tiger, elephant, and freshwater turtle populations.

China’s Southeast Asian neighbors have been affected by China’s growing wealth. For instance, the pangolin, a nocturnal anteater that is sought after for its meat, as well as its skin (for fashionable leather) and scales (an ingredient in traditional Chinese medicine), is now highly endangered. Today, the pangolin trade is so profitable that organized traffickers have set up processing plants to butcher and package the meat, which is shipped out via airplane and is difficult to identify. The 100 tons of pangolin seized last year in Southeast Asia are only “the tip of the iceberg,” according to Allen.

Despite the seriousness of the global wildlife-trafficking situation, the speakers agreed that there is hope in the increasing international cooperation that is taking place and in scientific improvements in investigative techniques.

By China Environment Forum Intern Alan Campana. Edited by China Environment Forum Director Jennifer Turner.

Photo: Illegal medicinal products in China. Courtesy of Flickr user avlxyz.

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“Kenya is destroying itself,” Julius Kipng’etich, director of the Kenya Wildlife Service, told The Observer. “The population has reached an unsustainable level. We are killing ourselves by slowly destroying the forests and settling there.” Drought, poverty, and population growth have led large numbers of the rural poor to encroach on protected forests in search of arable land, reports The Observer, jeopardizing Kenya’s food and water security and hydroelectric energy production. The government’s inability to manage land tenure has further exacerbated the situation.

In response to these developments, a local conservation group called Rhino Ark has erected a 250-mile electric fence (see photo slideshow) around the Aberdare mountain range north of Nairobi. When members began the project in 1989, they were attempting to protect the area’s rhinoceroses. However, their efforts eventually grew into a broader campaign to safeguard the Aberdares’ critical water and forest resources.

Proponents of the Aberdare fence—including Nobel Peace Prize-winning environmentalist Wangari Maathai—contend that it serves multiple purposes. First, it discourages settlers from grazing livestock in the forest or felling trees to make way for crop cultivation. Other regions of the country—notably the Mau Forest Complex, the water source for millions of people in Kenya, northern Uganda, and southern Sudan—have suffered severe deforestation and degradation, with serious consequences for human and ecological health. Forests provide a wide spectrum of essential ecosystem services, such as regulating the water cycle, filtering groundwater, and sequestering atmospheric carbon.

The fence also mitigates human-wildlife conflict, argue its supporters. According to a recent 60 Minutes report, some Maasai herdsmen have resorted to poisoning lions and other predators to protect their livestock. Farmers have targeted elephants and other animals that trample crops to safeguard their livelihoods. As a result, wildlife populations—the lifeblood of the Kenyan tourism industry—have been devastated. A study published in the Journal of Zoology found precipitous declines in wildlife at Maasai Mara, one of Kenya’s most renowned national parks. Robin Reid, a co-author of the paper, explains, “There appears to be a ‘tipping point’ of human populations above which former co-existence between Maasai and wildlife begins to break down.”

Following Aberdare’s example, the Kenyan government is considering building thousands of miles of fencing around similarly vulnerable forests and parks. Yet fences may soon prove inadequate. The country’s population has grown from 10 million to 36 million over the past 45 years, and it could exceed 65 million by 2050, given that the decline in its fertility rate has stalled. In addition, its GDP per capita has steadily decreased, leaving more than 55 percent of citizens below the official poverty line.

With more people clamoring for more resources, a sustainable future will depend on robust community conservation programs and land-rights reform. Successful models of community conservation in East Africa include the Lion Guardians and Il Ngwesi Group Ranch, as well as other efforts discussed at the Wilson Center last year. A 2008 report from the Rights and Resources Initiative argues that authorities should shift away from traditional forms of conservation, which focus on excluding people from protected areas, in favor of approaches that empower local communities to care for and benefit from the land through customary tenure or individual property rights.

Finally, Nairobi should craft national forest management practices with an eye toward ongoing international climate negotiations. Policymakers are poised to include provisions for compensating developing countries for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in the next international climate treaty, to be concluded in Copenhagen this December. Kenya could benefit substantially if the government takes appropriate action.

Photo: A giraffe in Maasai Mara, where their population has declined 95 percent over the last 15 years. Courtesy Flickr user angela7dreams.

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Photo: Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka receives the Whitley Gold Award from Her Royal Highness The Princess Royal. Courtesy of the Whitley Fund for Nature.

“Almost every conflict in Africa you can point at has something to do with competition over resources in an environment which has bad governance,” said Wangari Maathai, founder of the Green Belt Movement and recipient of the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize, at an April 13, 2009, event co-sponsored by the Wilson Center’s Environmental Change and Security Program and Africa Program and the International Gateway at the Ronald Reagan Building & International Trade Center. Maathai discussed her new book, The Challenge for Africa, with Environmental Change and Security Program Director Geoff Dabelko.

“This is why I wrote this book: Because I really was challenging us as Africans to think outside the box and to begin to see why when we seem to move forward, we make two steps forward, and we make one step backward, and so we look like we are not moving,” said Maathai. “Some of these issues are complex, they are difficult—but they have a lot to do with the way we have decided to manage our resources and to manage our politics and economics.”

The Three Legs of Stability

Maathai used the traditional African three-legged stool as a metaphor for what she views as the three essential components of a stable society: sustainable environmental management, democratic governance, and a culture of peace. “Those legs are chiseled by a craftsman…[who] chisels all the three legs at the same time, in order to create a balance,” she said. “If we don’t have these three legs, no matter who comes, and with whatever [loans or aid], we shall never develop.”

Land, Politics, and Ethnicity: An Explosive Combination

Maathai explained that in the absence of democratic governance and sustainable environmental management, natural resources have repeatedly ignited conflict in her native Kenya. For instance, the advent of private land ownership during colonialism pitted Maasai herders, who need large tracts of land to graze their cattle, against Kikuyu farmers, who for the first time obtained deeds to their land and began to erect fences to mark the boundaries.

In addition, Maathai noted that politicians often use Kenya’s ethnic divisions and land scarcity to whip up animosity toward internal migrants and bolster their own re-election prospects. “If you don’t, then, therefore, ensure that the resources within the country are equitably distributed, and you encourage these prejudgments that communities have against each other, you’re going to have conflict,” she said.

Holistic Approach Is Key to Successful Development

The Green Belt Movement began as a small, grassroots project that envisioned tree-planting as a way to address rural women’s needs, including firewood, food, clean water, and soil erosion. “Even though that’s how we started, it very quickly became clear to me that these are symptoms, and therefore we needed to get to the causes. And it is in search of the causes that eventually led me into understanding how interconnected these issues were,” said Maathai, who urged governments, development agencies, and nonprofits to adopt an integrated approach to development.

“Unless you deal with the cause, you are wasting your time. You can use all the money you want for all the years you want; you will not solve the problem, because you are dealing with a symptom. So we need to go outside that box and deal with development in a holistic way.”

“I can’t say, ‘Let us deal with governance this time, and don’t worry about the resources.’ Or, ‘Don’t worry about peace today, or conflicts that are going on; let us worry about management of resources.’ I saw that it was very, very important to use the tree-planting as an entry point,” explained Maathai.

“Even though it is the women who provide the drive for planting trees—partly because it is they who suffer when the environment is destroyed, it is also they who work in the field—once we are in the community, we will have to deal with the women, deal with the men, deal with the children, deal with the livestock, deal with everything,” said Maathai.

Climate Change, Forests, and Environmental Justice

According to Maathai, 20 percent of greenhouse gas emissions are due to deforestation and forest degradation—more than the percentage due to transportation. She is working with Avoided Deforestation Partners to make avoiding deforestation part of the Copenhagen agreements—a step that would not only slow global climate change, but also help those who are directly dependent on natural resources like forests for their livelihoods, and therefore most vulnerable to climate change. “This is the one issue which really comes to tell us that indeed, the planet is a small village, and all of us are in this little village together.”

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