topic: trafficking

topic: trafficking

Social media activity version | Lean version

In Peru, conservationists and authorities struggle to get turtle eggs off the menu
- A staple dish in Peruvian cuisine, turtles eggs are being illegally poached in the upper Peruvian Amazon, with little oversight or intervention from authorities.
- Belén, a floating market in the town of Iquitos, has long been a hub for illegally trading turtles and their eggs, fueling a phenomenon that is threatening several species of Amazonian turtles.
- Poachers harvest not just the eggs, but also take away the nesting turtles, further threatening the sustainability of the trade.
- A local conservation group in Tapiche is working to protect the eggs and turtles before poachers get to them and hopes that more awareness will improve turtles’ chances of survival.

Rehabilitation of Guatemalan fauna highlights opacity of illegal wildlife trade
- Endangered monkeys, some of them trafficked into the pet trade, were among the animals released into the wild in Guatemala’s Maya Biosphere Reserve last November after rehabilitation at a nonprofit center.
- According to conservationists, there are major information gaps when it comes to the illegal wildlife trade in Guatemala, with government institutions doing very little to control it.
- In Latin America, increasing sophistication and specialization in the illegal wildlife trade are complicating detection and enforcement.

Takin’ out the trash: How do transnational waste traffickers operate?
- Despite Western European countries having increasingly high rates of recycling, difficult-to-recycle plastic and other trash are frequently sent abroad.
- Sneaky use of waste codes, fake documentation, corruption and taking advantage of control loopholes are among the many ways waste is illegally trafficked to countries with more competitive rates and lower environmental standards.
- When discovered, however, these trash schemes can lead to international scandals like the lengthy one that recently involved Italy and Tunisia.

Borders between Mercosur countries have become a hub for trafficking agrochemicals
- Seizures of counterfeit, adulterated and stolen agrochemicals in Brazil have grown with the global economic impacts since the COVID-19 pandemic, with much of the contraband originating in China and arriving via neighboring South American countries.
- The trafficking in agrochemicals has been co-opted by organized crime syndicates that control the routes from Paraguay to Brazil, with most of the crimes recorded with these products also linked to drug trafficking.
- Half of the pesticide seizures in Brazil involve illicit products, up from just 5% in 2010, and involve products banned in the country yet widely used for growing soybean, corn, cotton and bean crops.
- The Brazilian market for pesticides is valued at $14.4 billion a year, yet tax and economic losses due to crimes involving agricultural inputs was almost $4 billion in 2022.

Illegal mines and “floating towns” on the Puré River leave uncontacted Indigenous peoples at risk
- The Yurí-Passé are at risk of coming into contact with illegal miners and drug traffickers, which violates their right and deliberate decision to live in isolation from the Western world.
- According to one study, mercury levels in the blood of communities living along the Caquetá river and its tributaries, such as the Puré River, are much higher than the average.
- Although the Puré River area is located in a protected area, mining activity has increased following a number of threats made against park rangers and an arson attack on a cabin belonging to Colombia’s Natural National Parks authority (PNN) by FARC dissidents. Despite military operations, mining activities continue, with dozens of dredgers thought to be operating on the river.

New protections for sharks, songbirds, frogs and more at CITES trade summit
- The 19th meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, or CITES, known as CoP19, ended Nov. 25 in Panama, after two weeks of negotiations.
- Member states agreed on new trade regulations for more than 600 animal and plant species, including the protection of sharks, glass frogs, turtles, songbirds and tropical timber species.
- Experts say that while these new regulations are essential, implementing and enforcing the rules will have the most significant conservation impact.

‘It’s just a bird’: Online platforms selling lesser-known Indonesian species
- Social media and online marketplaces are known to offer up a variety of wildlife, opening new avenues for traffickers.
- A recent survey of online trade shows that a lesser-known Indonesian species, the pink-headed fruit dove, is being openly sold on Facebook and online marketplaces.
- Experts say the trade in this and other “inconspicuous” species is fueled in part by rising demand overseas, which stimulates interest in collecting them domestically, where they’ve historically not been kept captive.
- They call for existing laws to be enforced locally, and for online platforms to do more to address the presence of wildlife traders on their platforms.

All coked up: The global environmental impacts of cocaine
- Cocaine is one of the most widely used illicit drugs in the world, consumed by an estimated 20 million people in 2019, mostly in North America and Europe.
- Production, transit and consumption of the drug are exacting a heavy environmental toll, impacting tropical forests, freshwater and estuary ecosystems. Some of these effects, such as pollution impacts on eels and other aquatic species, have been documented, but most are still poorly understood, with many unresearched.
- Indigenous peoples are often at the front lines of criminal gangs’ activities in producer and trafficking countries. Often, when new narco-trafficking transport routes are established, like those in Central America, those same routes are used for other criminal activities such as wildlife and weapons trafficking.
- Researchers argue that detaching the environmental harm caused by the cocaine trade from the long-lasting war on drugs is not possible. Solutions implemented to deal with the drug problem, such as the aerial spraying of illegal coca crops, while locally effective in curbing illegal cultivation, also cause deforestation and biodiversity damage.

Coalition against online wildlife trafficking shares little evidence of success (analysis)
- Officials from the Coalition to End Wildlife Trafficking Online say progress is being made, but the evidence is minimal, a new analysis shows.
- The Coalition’s three NGO partners – TRAFFIC, IFAW and WWF – divide up primary “point of contact” duties with big online platforms like eBay where wildlife and illegal animal products can be found for sale.
- Critics call the Coalition “a black box” from which little light emerges, allowing member companies like Facebook to say they’re part of the solution by pointing to their Coalition membership.
- This post is an independent analysis by the author and does not necessarily reflect the views of Mongabay.

Where trafficked pangolins originate is a puzzle, hobbling efforts to save them
- Trafficking of pangolin parts, especially scales, from Africa to Asia has increased in recent years, while efforts to determine where seized scales originated from have not been able to keep pace.
- These scaly anteaters are one of the most trafficked mammals globally, and trade in all eight pangolin species, four of which are found in Africa, is banned.
- Scientists at the University of Washington who developed a technique using genetic data to pinpoint where ivory originated from and now are trying to replicate it for pangolins.
- Dismantling trafficking networks may not, by itself, protect dwindling pangolin populations, experts say, as there is a pressing need to understand what is driving the illegal trade.

Demand for sea cucumbers turns India-Sri Lanka waters into trafficking hotspot
- From 2015 to 2020, authorities in Sri Lanka and India seized nearly 65 metric tons of sea cucumbers worth more than $2.8 million and arrested 502 people in connection with the attempted trafficking.
- The sea cucumber fishery is banned in India and restricted under a licensing system in Sri Lanka, but growing demand for the animals in East Asia has turned the waters between these South Asian countries into a hotspot for the illegal trade.
- The presence of the legal trade in Sri Lanka means Indian fishers can smuggle their catches into the country and launder them into the legal market for export.
- The overharvesting of sea cucumbers has severely depleted their populations; from 21 species of sea cucumber deemed commercially viable for fishing in 2008, there were only nine by 2015, according to surveys.

Wild cat trade: Why the cheetah is not safe just yet (commentary)
- Data collected by researchers show that the cheetah trade has actively continued between East Africa/Horn of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, although news reports say there’s been a major decline in cub trafficking.
- The high numbers involved in this illegal trade is relevant to actions by the CITES, which determined that cheetah trade was limited and agreed to delete important decisions adopted in previous years pertaining to enforcement and demand reduction.
- As exotic pets are considered a status symbol in the Gulf States, fueled by the popularity of posts on social media, most people fail to understand that these pets were acquired illegally and the trend will not stop
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

‘Mismanaged to death’: Mexico opens up sole vaquita habitat to fishing
- The Mexican government has eradicated a “no tolerance” zone in the Upper Gulf of California meant to protect the critically endangered vaquita porpoise.
- The former refuge will now be open for fishing and there will be minimal monitoring and enforcement of illegal activity, experts say.
- Conservationists say this move will certainly lead to the extinction of the vaquita, whose numbers have recently dwindled down to about nine.

New bill seeks to end Hong Kong’s days as an illegal wildlife trade hub
- Hong Kong is a leading transportation hub for the illegal wildlife trade: In the past two years, Hong Kong authorities seized more than over 649 metric tons of illegal wildlife and wildlife products across 1,404 seizures, according to a new report.
- While many seizures lead to prosecution, the people who tend to be punished are the “mules” rather than the leaders of organized criminal syndicates. Additionally, some of the largest wildlife seizures in Hong Kong have not been followed by any prosecution, possibly due to the lack of evidence.
- A new bill may change the status quo by allowing wildlife crimes to be subject to the provisions of Hong Kong’s Organised and Serious Crimes Ordinance, which would allow authorities to conduct more in-depth investigations and hand out harsher penalties.
- Supporters of the bill say there is a strong possibility that it will pass into law due to strong political support and a lack of opposition.

Skin in the game? Reptile leather trade embroils conservation authority
- The reptile skin trade is a controversial issue, with some experts saying that harvesting programs help conserve species and provide livelihood benefits, while others say that the trade is fraught with issues and animal welfare concerns.
- From a conservation standpoint, there is evidence that the reptile skin trade is sustainable for some species and in some contexts, but other research suggests that the trade could be decimating wild populations and doing more harm than good.
- Exotic leather is falling out of favor in the fashion industry: Numerous companies and brands have banned products made from reptile skin as well as fur, replacing them with products made from materials such as apple, grape or mushroom leather.
- Experts connected with the IUCN have written open letters and op-eds to lament the decisions of companies to ban exotic leather, arguing that these bans have damaged conservation efforts, but other experts question the IUCN’s unfailing support of an imperfect trade.

Study highlights ‘terrible’ signs of species decline from wildlife trade
- A new study found that the wildlife trade has led to a near 62% decrease in species abundance, raising concerns about its impact on terrestrial biodiversity.
- The authors found there to be a paucity of literature on the subject, and were only able to identify 31 studies that compared species abundance in exploited habitats with species abundance in unexploited areas.
- The paper calls for increased protections for species and better management of protected areas.

In the fight to save the vaquita, conservationists take on cartels
- The critically endangered vaquita porpoise, a species endemic to the Sea of Cortez in the Upper Gulf of California in Mexico, is at severe risk of extinction due to illegal gillnet fishing for the critically endangered totoaba fish.
- Andrea Crosta of Earth League International (ELI) says the key to saving the species is arresting all criminals involved in the illegal totoaba trade, while other NGOs work to patrol the Sea of Cortez for illegal gillnet use or to introduce seafood sanctions.
- With only nine vaquita porpoises believed to be left in the world, most experts agree that this year will be critical to the vaquita’s survival.

Crimefighting NGO tracks Brazil wildlife trade on WhatsApp and Facebook
- A nonprofit, the National Network Combating Wild Animal Trafficking (RENCTAS) was founded in 1999, and since then has won international awards and acclaim for its innovative approach to tracking and combating the global illegal wildlife trade, especially the sourcing of animals in the Brazilian Amazon rainforest and Cerrado savanna biomes.
- The group’s pioneering strategy: use social media to track the sale and movement of animals out of Brazil, and turn over the data to law enforcement. In 1999, it identified nearly 6,000 ads featuring the illegal sale of animals on e-commerce platforms. By 2019, it reported 3.5 million advertisements for the illegal trade on social networks.
- The most trafficked Brazilian animals currently: the double-collared seedeater (Sporophila caerulescens); a small, finch-like songbird with a yellow bill that thrives in the southern Cerrado, and the white-cheeked spider monkey (Ateles marginatus), found across the Amazon basin. Sales of animals have been tracked to 200+ illegal trafficking organizations.
- Tragically, of the millions of Brazilian animals captured, sold, resold, and transported, only an estimated 1 in 10 ever reach Brazilian and foreign consumers alive. The rest, ripped from their homes, starved and abused, die in transit.

China still making pangolin-based treatments despite banning use of scales, report says
- A new report has found that medicines containing pangolin scales are still being produced and sold throughout China, despite a recent ban on pangolin scales from the official list of approved ingredients in traditional Chinese medicine.
- According to the report, 56 companies are actively producing and selling 64 medicines containing pangolin scales, and that an additional 165 companies and 713 hospitals have the authority to produce such medicines.
- The only legal way for pharmaceutical companies and hospitals to obtain pangolin scales is through government-registered stockpiles, but conservationists say these stockpiles are poorly regulated and allow for the possibility of illegal trade.

Landed by the thousands: Overfished Congo waters put endangered sharks at risk
- More than 100 commercial trawlers and about 700 smaller boats of the Republic of Congo’s artisanal fleet are putting intense pressure on 42 shark and ray species, according to a new survey by TRAFFIC, an NGO that tracks the global wildlife trade. All are on the IUCN red list.
- The 150-mile Congo coast makes up a tiny part of Africa’s shoreline, but overfishing is taking a heavy toll. One example: Ten thousand metric tons of hammerheads were reported caught in Congo from 2007 through 2017 — the equivalent weight of 10,000 small cars.
- Republic of Congo is a signatory of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), but not one CITES-listed shark species is on the country’s endangered species list. A new law aimed at meeting international commitments has been in the works since 2018, but has not been ratified by the Parliament.
- A new international market incentivized shark fishing around 2000, with the arrival of Chinese companies in Congo. The fins are exported illegally to Asia for shark fin soup, but authorities say they have no idea how the shark fins are being smuggled out of the country. Without knowledge of export routes, little can be done to prevent the illegal trade.

The other Corona: Rescued pangolin is a rehabilitation success story
- In February, a 2-year-old female pangolin named Cory was rescued in a sting operation led by the African Pangolin Working Group.
- Cory was in poor condition immediately after her rescue, but she responded well to rehabilitation, likely due to her young age.
- She was released on Manyoni Reserve in KwaZulu-Natal province, South Africa, where pangolins have been ecologically extinct for the past 30 to 40 years.

Illegal trade of Philippine pangolins is surging, report shows
- A new report published by TRAFFIC found that the illegal pangolin trade in the Philippines increased nine-fold in the last two years, with the authorities confiscating an estimated 6,894 pangolins between 2018 and 2019.
- Data included seizures of pangolin scales and retrievals of live pangolins that escaped from wildlife traffickers.
- TRAFFIC researchers also conducted ad hoc surveys around Manila to discover pangolin meat being served at restaurants and shops selling pills made from pangolin derivatives.
- It’s estimated that Philippine pangolins, a critically endangered species of the pangolin, have declined up to 95% in the last 40 years.

Double blow to Colombian Amazon and Indigenous groups from armed militants, COVID-19
- Staff from the National Nature Parks of Colombia (PNN) have been forced by former FARC rebels and other illegal armed groups to abandon 10 Amazonian parks that cover nearly 9 million hectares (22 million acres) and are home to an estimated 43,000 undiscovered species.
- The absence of PNN staff has negatively impacted surrounding campesino and Indigenous communities, as well as the monitoring of natural resources, threatened species, and climatic and hydrological information, which are all vital for decision-making and generating alerts.
- Indigenous communities in Colombia’s Amazon play a vital conservation role, but COVID-19 has been especially devastating to them.
- Infections have been reported among 33 of the region’s 60 Indigenous groups, 13 of which were already in danger of physical and/or cultural extermination.

Arrests in Indonesian probe into latest case of labor abuses on Chinese fishing boats
- Police in Indonesia have arrested and charged six recruitment agency executives in connection with the death of a migrant worker and abuse of 21 others on board Chinese fishing boats.
- This development is the latest crackdown by Indonesian authorities since May, following a spate of revelations about Indonesian workers suffering abusive conditions on board Chinese fishing boats. Three investigations are underway in connection to at least six deaths.
- The Indonesian police say they are partnering with Interpol to investigate the network of migrant seafarer trafficking abroad.
- Fisheries and human rights experts say forced labor at sea, particularly on distant-water fishing vessels, is frequently linked to illegal, unregulated and undocumented (IUU) fishing.

Indonesia presses China for witness in deaths of fishing boat crews
- Indonesia is calling for a Chinese witness to testify in a human trafficking probe over the deaths of four Indonesian sailors on board Chinese fishing vessels.
- Police in Indonesia have pressed charges against three worker placement agencies that recruited the men, but need further evidence to charge a fourth agency, responsible for recruiting two of the four men who later died.
- Three of the victims died at sea and were dumped overboard; the fourth died at a South Korean port.
- The vessel where two of the men died, the Long Xing 629, is suspected of engaging in illegal fishing; experts note that slavery at sea and illegal fishing are strongly intertwined.

Drug trafficking could be putting ‘fragile fisheries’ at risk, study says
- A new study found that fishing vessels are increasingly being used to traffic drugs, tripling over the past eight years, and accounting for 15% of the global retail value of illegal drugs.
- Small-scale fishermen commonly get involved in the drug trade, possibly due to collapsing fish stocks and strict conservation measures threatening their livelihoods, or because they have been coerced.
- While most fishing vessels carrying drugs don’t appear to be involved in other maritime crimes like illegal fishing, drug traders may reinvest profits into illegal fishing activities, which could lead to fisheries collapse and environmental destruction.
- The COVID-19 pandemic may intensify the issue of drug trafficking on small fishing vessels due to global economic stress, and maritime routes currently being more accessible than land routes.

Banned: No more pangolin scales in traditional medicine, China declares
- The Chinese government has banned pangolin scales from use in traditional Chinese medicine, and elevated pangolins to be a level one protected species within China.
- Conservationists say they believe this move will completely shut down the commercial trade of pangolin parts within China and slow the international trade of the species.
- Pangolins are one of the most widely trafficked animals in the world, despite being protected under CITES Appendix I, which bans most international trade.

Chinese boat that dumped Indonesian crews at sea was also shark-finning: Reports
- A Chinese fishing company under scrutiny for the deadly labor abuses of its Indonesian boat crews was likely also engaged in illegal fishing, conservationists say.
- Jakarta has demanded answers for the slavery-like conditions under which the crew members worked on board a tuna boat belonging to the Dalian Ocean Fishing Co. Ltd.
- Four of the crew members died of illness, with three of them dumped at sea; photos provided by the surviving crew indicate the boat was engaged in the illegal finning of threatened shark species.
- “[Illegal] fishing and modern slavery practices at sea are two sides of the same coin,” said Greenpeace Indonesia oceans campaigner Arifsyah Nasution.

Authorities seize record 26 tons of illegal shark fins in Hong Kong
- Hong Kong customs officials have discovered a shipment of 26 tons of shark fins from CITES-protected species, the largest of its kind ever to be seized in the region.
- Officials identified the fins as belonging to 31,000 thresher sharks and 7,500 silky sharks, which are both listed as vulnerable species by the IUCN.
- Conservationists are concerned by the large volume of thresher and silky sharks in this consignment, especially as these species are slow to reproduce in the wild.
- More than 73 million sharks enter the global shark fin trade each year, primarily to make a luxury food item called shark fin soup, although conservationists believe the demand for this soup is waning in China and Hong Kong.

Malaysian authorities seize record 6 tons of African pangolin scales
- On April 1, authorities seized more than 6 tons of African pangolin scales in Port Klang, Malaysia. This is the biggest shipment of pangolin scales ever to be discovered in this particular port.
- The exact origins of this shipment are unknown, especially since traffickers frequently change their routes.
- Pangolins are the most trafficked animal in the world, with over 1 million animals taken from the wild and traded since 2000.
- Wildlife trafficking continues despite the pandemic, and smugglers may be trying to take advantage of the lockdowns.

Fuel trafficking sustains illegal mining in Peru’s Madre de Dios
- Mongabay Latam confirmed that one of the new trafficking methods is the modification of fuel tanks in vehicles to allow room for more fuel, which is permitted by the Ministry of Transport and Communications.
- After Operation Mercury 2019, the communities of San Gabán (in the Puno region) and Amarakaeri (in the Madre de Dios region) were identified as areas that could see an influx of displaced illegal miners.

Colombia gasoline fueling cocaine production
- Despite efforts by the U.S. and Colombia to crack down on cocaine production, the land used to grow the crop in Colombia is at an all-time high.
- After cattle ranching and land grabbing, coca cultivation is one of the main drivers of deforestation in Colombia, especially in protected areas such as national parks.
- Although road development plans promised by a 2016 peace deal do not appear to be producing new transportation infrastructure in these remote regions, Global Forest Watch shows many of the country’s coca regions reported a large number of deforestation alerts within primary rainforest.

Social media enables the illegal wildlife pet trade in Malaysia
- Conservationists say that prosecuting wildlife traffickers in Malaysia for trading in protected species isn’t easy, as traders have several loopholes to aid their efforts.
- One wildlife trafficker known as Kejora Pets has been operating in Peninsular Malaysia for years, selling “cute” pets to individuals through social media.
- Malaysia’s wildlife act doesn’t address the posting of protected animals for sale on social media, and operators like Kejora Pets appear to avoid ever being in possession of protected animals, allowing them to skirt statutes aimed at catching illicit traders.
- Proposed changes to Malaysia’s wildlife act could offer some relief to besieged populations of protected species by making it easier to prosecute online trafficking of protected animals.

Singapore acquits trader in world’s biggest rosewood bust, worth $50m
- On April 8, Singapore’s highest court acquitted a businessman who brought Malagasy rosewood valued at $50 million into the city-state in 2014, one of the largest wildlife seizures in the history of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (CITES).
- The move reversed the ruling of a lower court that had sentenced the businessman to jail time and imposed $1 million in fines for importing protected wildlife.
- The court ordered Singapore authorities to return the rosewood to the businessman and his firm “as soon as practicable.”
- Environmental groups have been looking on anxiously as the case wound its way through Singapore’s courts for nearly five years, only to be disappointed by the final verdict.

Possible vaquita death accompanies announcement that only 10 are left
- The environmental organization Sea Shepherd said it found a dead vaquita in a gillnet on March 12.
- One day later, scientists from the group CIRVA announced that around 10 — as many as 22 or as few as six — vaquitas survive in the Gulf of California.
- Despite a ban on gillnets used catch totoaba, a fish prized for its swim bladders used in traditional Chinese medicine, vaquita numbers have continued to decline.

Late timber kingpin who plundered Myanmar’s forests unmasked
- A Chinese kingpin managed to stockpile thousands of tons of high-grade Burmese teak after paying millions in bribes to corrupt officials in Myanmar, according to a new report.
- Cheng Pui Chee, who died last year, “worked with the state to defraud the state,” say investigators from the Environmental Investigation Agency.
- Some of this teak ends up in the EU and the U.S., in defiance of regulations meant to ensure imported wood is legally harvested and properly labeled and traded.

Tracing the safeguards against illegal logging in Vietnam
- The groundwork for obtaining and verifying legally-sourced timber in Vietnam is being laid with a new agreement between Vietnam and the EU.
- The agreement comes at a time when the timber industry in Vietnam remains blighted by cases of corruption, theft and illegal logging.
- An estimated 30,000 to 50,000 forest violations are reported every year in the Southeast Asian country.

Illegal wildlife trade’s ‘dirty money’ targeted by big banks
- Leading global banks and financial institutions have pledged their commitment to a financial task force to uncover laundering of profits derived from the illegal wildlife trade.
- Alongside the task force, there are also calls for a greater focus on the role corruption plays in facilitating the poaching of fauna and flora.
- There have also been warnings that efforts to combat the illegal wildlife trade should not focus too heavily on large, charismatic mammals like elephants and rhinos.

$25m in funding to help African gov’ts prosecute poachers, traffickers
- The African Wildlife Foundation has pledged $25 million to projects aimed at combating the illegal wildlife trade across the continent over the next four years.
- The Nairobi-based NGO invests in outfitting wildlife rangers, training sniffer dogs to detect illicit shipments, and community-based development.
- AWF president Kaddu Sebunya emphasized the need to invest in homegrown solutions to the crisis when he announced the funding at the Illegal Wildlife Trade conference, held Oct. 11-12 in London.

Global wildlife trafficking still a ‘lucrative criminal activity,’ expert says
- Around the world, wildlife trafficking in animals and natural resources is a major security threat and environmental risk.
- Jessica Graham is a former contract expert for Interpol, and currently president of JG Global Advisory, an environmental security consultancy in Washington, D.C.
- Mongabay talked with Graham recently to get her perspective on the threat convergence of wildlife trafficking and organized crime.

Fingerprinting technology gives investigators an edge against pangolin traffickers
- Researchers in the U.K. have modified the gelatin lifters used in criminal forensic investigations so they can pick up clues from pangolin scales and other illegally traded wildlife body parts.
- Wildlife guards in Kenya and Cameroon are using packs of the gelatin lifters in the field to gather evidence.
- The researchers say this new technology allows wildlife conservation officials to collect this evidence more quickly in remote areas, which in turn helps to ensure their safety.

In Peru, coca puts one of the world’s best coffee crops at risk
- Of the more than 8,400 hectares (nearly 21,000 acres) of coffee planted, only 2,330 hectares (about 5,700 acres) remain in operation.
- A buffer zone around Bahuaja-Sonene National Park has been impacted: Drug trafficking has expanded into the protected area, damaging more than 400 hectares (over 980 acres) of important biological corridors.
- Coffee production of the area’s central coffee cooperative, Cecovasa, has dropped from 8.5 million pounds to 600,000 pounds, jeopardizing the group’s survival.

New technology leads to the arrest of eight people suspected of trafficking wildlife parts
- Eight men, including three government officials, all from African countries, have been arrested for allegedly trafficking wildlife body parts to Southeast Asia.
- Officers from the Lusaka Agreement Task Force, based in Nairobi, Kenya, used data analytics software to track down the alleged smugglers, who were arrested in the Republic of Congo and the Democratic Republic of Congo in May.
- The investigation linked the accused to shipments of pangolin scales and elephant tusks seized in Southeast Asia.

More murders: Conservationists allegedly killed by soldiers in Cambodia
- Three people have been shot and killed by soldiers in northeastern Cambodia, apparently in retaliation for seizing equipment from illegal loggers.
- A police report names three individuals as responsible for the killings: a border police officer and two border military officers.
- Illegal logging and timber smuggling is commonplace between Cambodia and Vietnam, and officials from both countries are often complicit.
- Around 200 land activists were murdered worldwide in 2016, up from 185 in 2015.

Fang trafficking to China is putting Bolivia’s jaguars in jeopardy
- Residents in Bolivia’s Sena community say that they can sell a jaguar canine for about $215 on the Chinese market.
- According to Bolivian authorities, the fangs are valued in the Asian market at prices as high as cocaine.
- Between 2013 and 2016, 380 jaguar canines were seized by Bolivian authorities, which correlates to 95 jaguars killed.
- Residents say an influx of Chinese companies to build roads and bridges in Bolivia is contributing to increased trafficking of jaguar parts. However, authorities deny these claims.

Rhino horn seizure taps into Southeast Asian trafficking ring
- Officials confiscated 12.5 kilograms (27.6 pounds) of South African rhino horn on Dec. 12.
- The seizure led to the arrest of a member of the Bach family, which is suspected of running a wildlife trafficking syndicate from Thailand.
- The NGO Elephant Action League provided Thai authorities with information that led to the arrest, as well as that of another wildlife trafficking ‘kingpin’ in December.

Five promising stories for Global Tiger Day
- Since the last Global Tiger Day in 2016, researchers have discovered tiger populations in unexpected areas, such as forested corridors along riverbanks and in areas that recently served as theaters of war.
- Several countries have worked to protect the tigers that live within their borders, including the creation of a massive national park and taking steps to end tiger farming.
- Camera trap surveys continue to prove invaluable to wildlife researchers in tracking down tigers and other species that can range over huge areas.

Investigation finds ‘thriving’ rhino horn trade in Asia
- Over 11 months, EAL investigators posed as potential buyers and identified 55 ‘persons of interest’ involved in the trade of rhino horn.
- The group mapped out the routes by which rhino horn – valued at tens of thousands of dollars per kilogram – arrives in China.
- Recorded conversations during the investigation allude to the fact that dealers and traders understand that rhinos face the threat of extinction.

Singapore convicts rosewood trader in historic CITES seizure
- Late last month a high court in Singapore found Wong Wee Keong guilty of importing rosewood from Madagascar in 2014 in violation of the Convention of International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (CITES).
- Environmental groups are heralding the ruling, which reversed the decision of a lower court and sidestepped conflicting claims about the legality of the shipment by Malagasy authorities.
- The outsized shipment to Singapore was larger than all of the other seizures of rosewood in the world, combined, over the past decade.

EGI: Filling in the gaps in law enforcement for the online wildlife trade
- Enforcement Gaps Interface (EGI) uses a computational algorithm to mine hundreds of commercial sites for ads potentially containing illegal wildlife and wildlife products.
- EGI aims to help law enforcement agencies, retailers and nongovernmental organizations reduce and ultimately eliminate rampant online wildlife trafficking.
- EGI’s creators are further developing it to incorporate more languages and image recognition into its searches.

From endangered species to commodities: report reveals scale of wildlife crime
- The report was produced by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime using data on thousands of species and seizures from more than 120 countries.
- It found that trafficking is faciliated by widespread corruption at many levels of government and society, and that crimes are generally not restricted to certain countries.
- To better fight wildlife crime, officials urge a stepping-up of enforcement and monitoring, as well as increased transnational cooperation.

Peru issues its first sentence against species traffickers, setting a precedent
- The men were sentenced with three years’ prison for illegal wildlife trafficking, and had to pay a $1,154 fine each.
- The ocelot is a protected species under Appendix I of CITES, and Peru’s Forests and Wildlife Law.
- Ocelots are still threatened in rural areas, where traffickers catch them in order to sell them as exotic pets.

Eden Besieged: Amazonia’s Matchless Wildlife Pillaged by Traffickers
- Jaguars, parrots, spectacled bears, giant river otters, turtles, and thousands of other species, already under pressure from Amazon habitat loss and development, are now threatened by a growing wave of animal trafficking.
- Uncounted numbers of animals, and animal parts, are smuggled into the U.S. annually, with America’s 130 US Fish and Wildlife Service agents overwhelmed by the millions of tons of imported goods entering the nation.
- As rainforests are drained of wildlife by traffickers — sometimes with the aid of indigenous hunters armed with modern weapons — indigenous people are drawn away from their traditional cultures into modern cash economies.

Journey to oblivion: unraveling Latin America’s illegal wildlife trade
- The trafficking of elephants in Africa has gained tremendous media attention. Not so the illegal trade in birds, amphibians, reptiles, mammals, and fish of Central and South America, a problem of epidemic proportion.
- The trafficking routes — out of rainforests and natural habitats, through local markets, to border crossings, airports and seaports, and on to consumers in the U.S., Europe, China and elsewhere — are shrouded in secrecy.
- Latin American trafficking laws are weak and full of loopholes; few traffickers are caught, and when they are, they are often given a slap on the wrist. Stricter laws, enforcement, and penalties are needed, before it is too late.

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