Illegal wildlife trafficking is stubbornly prevalent: UN report

Illegal trafficking of plant and animal wildlife remains stubbornly prevalent, according to a UN report on Monday, and it is critical governments focus on more than just “iconic” species such as elephants, where progress has been made.

While seizures reported in 2020 and 2021 were about half that in previous reports, that could be attributed to Covid-19-related disruptions rather than a decline in trafficking, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime's World Wildlife Crime Report said.

The study is published every four years and 2020-2021 were the last years for which data was available.

“Wildlife trafficking overall has not been substantially reduced over two decades,” the UN office said, calling for measures including better enforcement and implementation of legislation, including anti-corruption laws.

“Thousands of threatened species are affected by wildlife trafficking; a small minority of which, such as elephants, tigers and rhinoceroses, attract the most policy attention,” the report said.

Wildlife crime “such as the illegal collection of succulent plants and rare orchids” and trafficking of many kinds of reptile, fish, birds and mammals played a key role in local or global extinctions.

From 2015 to 2021, seizures of 13-million items showed an illegal trade in about 4,000 plant and animal species in 162 countries and territories, the report said. The most common species involved were corals (16%), crocodilians (9%) and elephants (6%).

A rare bright spot was in efforts to fight trafficking in elephant ivory and rhinoceros horn, the report said, pointing to drops in poaching, seizure levels and market prices over the past decade.