The illicit trade in endangered animals has grown to the fourth-largest kind of illegal trade worldwide, sparking concern about links to militants and organized crime in developing nations.

SHARE 414 135 5 COMMENTMORE
Elephants machine gunned for ivory. Rhinos driven nearly to extinction. Forest rangers murdered. The illegal international trade in endangered species has integrated with organized crime and militant groups worldwide, warns a wildlife report out Monday.
Despite long-standing worldwide concern over endangered species, the "Criminal Nature" report released by the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) details how wildlife crime has grown into the fourth-largest branch of illegal international trade in the past half-decade. Now worth $19 billion annually, the black market in animals and their parts, notably ivory and furs, threatens to eradicate many of the most iconic of wild species, such as rhinos, elephants and tigers.
"Within the last few years, poaching has grown tremendously from one-off killings to wholesale massacres using automatic weapons," says IFAW's Beth Allgood.
About 1,000 forest rangers worldwide have been killed in the past decade, she notes, often at the hands of militants involved in insurgencies. "We can't just see this as an environmental problem anymore, when it has grown into a criminal and security one."
The report comes as international observers have become more concerned about links between the illegal animal trade and terror groups in Africa and Asia. Last November, then-secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton declared illegal wildlife trade a security threat. In May, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon released a report linking the Lord's Resistance Army militant group to the illegal ivory trade and slaughter of elephants in Central Africa. Rebel groups killed 450 elephants in 2012 at a national park in Cameroon, for example, and more elephant massacres have happened there this year and in Chad and the Central African Republic. Worldwide demand for illegal ivory has driven the price of rhino tusk, used in folk medicines, to values exceeding gold and platinum.
"The recommendations in the report are in close alignment with the Department's own strategy to combat wildlife trafficking," said State Department spokeswoman Beth Gosselin, by email. "We welcome the release of this report."

Overall, the report draws a picture of militant groups worldwide increasingly turning to mass poaching to supply international organized wildlife smuggling rings in exchange for arms. More than just Africa's lions, elephants and rhinos are threatened:
  • A tiger is killed every day in India, where only about 3,200 are left in the wild.
  • Fish and Wildlife Service investigations suggest that 7 of 10 major East Coast importers in the U.S.have been relying on illegal caviar tied to a Caspian Sea "caviar mafia."
  • Roughly 100 of the world's 350 parrot species are threatened with extinction because of the illegal trade in live birds from Central America to Europe.

"It's time the world wakes up to this threat," says Richard Jenkins, manager of the IUCN Global Species Programme, an international wildlife science group that monitors the status of endangered species. Gains in preserving species made in past decades, through building parks and reserves staffed by rangers, have been overtaken by increasing instability in Africa, Jenkins says. "We have to look for greater cooperation with agencies that have more experience with criminal and security issues."
China, the USA and Europe are the leading markets for the illegal trade, the report concludes, calling for elevating wildlife crime penalties to equal those in human-trafficking and narcotics crimes. International trade organizations and military alliances should take steps to monitor and halt the trade as well. "If you don't care about animals, you should care about the instability fueled by the international trade in some of the world's poorest countries drawing us into their conflicts," Jenkins says.
Demand for illegal wildlife goods, from elephant ivory to antelope shawls needs to be reduced through education, says Allgood. "My advice is that tourists should think twice before they buy," she says, noting many people are unaware of the role that demand for illegal wildlife goods plays in driving species to extinction. It is illegal to bring any ivory back in the U.S., she notes, unless it is a trophy with appropriate paperwork, or antique ivory with a permit. "Preferably, decide not to," she says.