Wildlife trafficking involves illegal trade, smuggling, poaching, capturing or gathering endangered species and protected wildlife. Wildlife trafficking is the fourth largest organized crime in the world, after drug trafficking, counterfeiting and human trafficking. Wildlife trafficking is an international crisis involving poaching, smuggling and illegal trade in protected species. It is both a critical concern for conservation and a threat to global security, with significant effects on the national interests of the United States and our partners around the world. Wildlife trafficking can also harm people by increasing the risk of zoonotic diseases and seriously affecting the food, land and other natural resources that human beings depend on for survival.
Transnational criminal organizations that traffic in wildlife may also be related to other serious crimes, such as money laundering and trafficking in people, drugs and weapons. The Fish and Wildlife Service is committed to working with others to end wildlife trafficking while supporting legal and sustainable wildlife trade around the world. The illegal wildlife trade, which is now the fourth largest illegal transnational activity in the world, is the fuel that fuels wildfire-related fires. Continued consumer demand, mainly from Asia, for increasingly rare horns, ivory, bones, hides and precious woods is causing an unprecedented decline in the wildlife population. Wildlife trafficking is often driven by greed and a desire for financial or other material benefits.
As with crimes themselves, the types and severity of legal penalties for wildlife trafficking differ considerably between different jurisdictions. The world's largest e-commerce, technology and social media companies have joined forces to shut down online marketplaces for wildlife traffickers. In the Congo, wildlife declined by more than 25% in a single 3-week period after a logging company opened a forest; and in the forested areas of Malaysia, which had been accessible via a logging road for at least a year, there were no large mammals left. Animals that are part of the illegal wildlife trade have often been violently evicted from their habitats and families or have been killed despite their conservation status.
HSI combats wildlife trafficking and illegal trade in natural resources by using its customs and criminal authorities to disrupt wildlife trafficking networks, arrest and prosecute traffickers, confiscate and confiscate profits, and pursue civil and criminal penalties. However, technological advances and increasing globalization mean that wildlife traffickers and highly organized transnational criminal syndicates are increasingly able to capitalize on regulatory loopholes and weak law enforcement. This is dangerous work, but without the intervention of expert rangers, poachers and wildlife traffickers could exploit the environment unopposed. Maher and his colleague, HSI Special Agent Robert Patterson, recently helped bring two poachers to justice.
However, general rules related to criminal responsibility, criminal procedure, sentences and punishment are relevant to wildlife trafficking crimes, since they determine the way in which criminal offenses are composed, criminal liability is established, and the degree to which responsibility extends to attempts and participation (UNODC, 201). It also collaborates with key players in wildlife conservation and law enforcement to maximize the global impact of its projects and operations. Wildlife trade threatens local ecosystems and puts all species under pressure through threats such as overfishing, pollution, dredging, deforestation and other forms of habitat destruction. Traffickers smuggle illegal wildlife aboard passenger flights, hide wildlife in cargo loaded on planes and ships, and ship illegal wildlife products around the world.
