Evaluating the relationships between the legal and illegal international wildlife trades
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Evaluating the relationships between the legal and illegal international wildlife trades. / Tittensor, Derek P.; Harfoot, Michael; McLardy, Claire; Britten, Gregory L.; Kecse-Nagy, Katalin; Landry, Bryan; Outhwaite, Willow; Price, Becky; Sinovas, Pablo; Blanc, Julian; Burgess, Neil D.; Malsch, Kelly.
In: Conservation Letters, 2020.Research output: Contribution to journal › Letter › Research › peer-review
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T1 - Evaluating the relationships between the legal and illegal international wildlife trades
AU - Tittensor, Derek P.
AU - Harfoot, Michael
AU - McLardy, Claire
AU - Britten, Gregory L.
AU - Kecse-Nagy, Katalin
AU - Landry, Bryan
AU - Outhwaite, Willow
AU - Price, Becky
AU - Sinovas, Pablo
AU - Blanc, Julian
AU - Burgess, Neil D.
AU - Malsch, Kelly
PY - 2020
Y1 - 2020
N2 - The international legal trade in wildlife can provide economic and other benefits, but when unsustainable can be a driver of population declines. This impact is magnified by the additional burden of illegal trade, yet how it covaries with legal trade remains little explored. We combined law-enforcement time-series of seizures of wildlife goods imported into the United States (US) and the European Union (EU) with data on reported legal trade to evaluate the evidence for any relationships. Our analysis examined 28 US and 20 EU products derived from CITES-listed species with high volume and frequency of both reported trade and seizures. On average, seizures added 28% and 9% to US and EU reported legal trade levels respectively, and in several cases exceeded legal imports. We detected a significant but weak overall positive relationship between seizure volumes and reported trade into the US over time, but not into the EU. These results highlight the importance of maintaining long-term records of border seizures and enforcement effort, and accounting for illegal trade where possible in non-detriment findings. Our findings suggest a complex and nuanced temporal association between the illegal and legal wildlife trades.
AB - The international legal trade in wildlife can provide economic and other benefits, but when unsustainable can be a driver of population declines. This impact is magnified by the additional burden of illegal trade, yet how it covaries with legal trade remains little explored. We combined law-enforcement time-series of seizures of wildlife goods imported into the United States (US) and the European Union (EU) with data on reported legal trade to evaluate the evidence for any relationships. Our analysis examined 28 US and 20 EU products derived from CITES-listed species with high volume and frequency of both reported trade and seizures. On average, seizures added 28% and 9% to US and EU reported legal trade levels respectively, and in several cases exceeded legal imports. We detected a significant but weak overall positive relationship between seizure volumes and reported trade into the US over time, but not into the EU. These results highlight the importance of maintaining long-term records of border seizures and enforcement effort, and accounting for illegal trade where possible in non-detriment findings. Our findings suggest a complex and nuanced temporal association between the illegal and legal wildlife trades.
KW - CITES
KW - EU-TWIX
KW - LEMIS
KW - seizures
KW - sustainable trade
KW - wildlife crime
KW - wildlife trade
U2 - 10.1111/conl.12724
DO - 10.1111/conl.12724
M3 - Letter
AN - SCOPUS:85084349316
JO - Conservation Letters
JF - Conservation Letters
SN - 1755-263X
M1 - e12724
ER -
ID: 242417996