Launched at this week’s Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice (CCPCJ), the report was developed by UNODC with data provided by partner organizations under the International Consortium on Combating Wildlife Crime (ICCWC), including the Secretariat of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) and the World Customs Organization (WCO).
One of the main messages the new report aims to convey is that wildlife and forest crime is not limited to certain countries or regions, but is a truly global phenomenon. The report looks at eight case studies of species products sorted by seven industrial sectors that make use of wild sourced materials across the world.
The trafficking of wildlife is increasingly recognized as both a specialized area of organized crime and a significant threat to many plant and animal species, and the World Wildlife Crime Report represents the first global assessment of its kind. The report builds on information taken from World WISE: a recently-unveiled data platform, which contains over 164,000 seizures related to wildlife crime from 120 countries. One of the key observations that the database illustrates is the extreme diversity of this illegal activity: nearly 7,000 species are included in the seizures, yet no single one represents more than six per cent of the total, nor does a single country constitute the source of more than 15 per cent of the seized shipments.
[Clip] Source: World Wildlife Crime Report: Trafficking in Protected Species, 2016
The report also offers an analysis of legal and illegal markets of wildlife and forest products, which can be useful in addressing vulnerabilities in the legal trade and promote better global regulatory systems.
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Through in-depth analysis of trade sectors, markets and representative case studies, the World Wildlife Crime Report sheds light on seven specific areas which best illustrate the scale of wildlife and forest crime: seafood; pets, zoos and breeding; food, medicine and tonics; art, décor and jewellery; cosmetics and perfume; fashion; and furniture.
Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area.
He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit.
Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com.
Launched at this week’s Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice (CCPCJ), the report was developed by UNODC with data provided by partner organizations under the International Consortium on Combating Wildlife Crime (ICCWC), including the Secretariat of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) and the World Customs Organization (WCO).
