Global Initiatives

The IWT Map and Database do not include large global initiatives combating IWT that are broad in scope and encompass many countries on different continents. However, these initiatives are equally important to bring actors together from various organizations, to build alliances across sectors and countries, and to share lessons learned. To account for that and to add to the Resources above, some of these initiatives are listed and linked below.

Coalition to End the Trade

The Coalition to End the Trade aims to help ensure a disaster like the COVID19 pandemic never happens again, by addressing the likely cause of this pandemic and others: the commercial trade and sale in markets of wild terrestrial animals (particularly mammals and birds), for consumption. The Coalition reasons that the commercial trade of wild terrestrial animals gives pathogens that have evolved with animals the perfect opportunity to jump to new hosts – humans – and spread through a globalized population. In order to achieve this goal, the Coalition drafted a Petition to call on the world’s governments to permanently end the commercial trade and sale in markets of wild terrestrial animals, for consumption, worldwide, and to recognize that this is among the most important decisions that the global community can make to prevent future pandemics and global disruption.

Learn more about the Coalition to End the Trade and the Petition here.

Coalition to End Wildlife Trafficking Online

The Coalition to End Wildlife Trafficking Online was founded in March 2018 with the objective to collaboratively shut down online trafficking routes for wildlife cybercriminals. Wildlife trade experts from WWF, TRAFFIC and IFAW are collaborating with tech companies and e-commerce platforms, like Alibaba, ebay, and Tencent, worldwide to unite the industry and maximize the impact on reducing wildlife trafficking online. To meet this target, Coalition members agree to a multifaceted approach, acknowledging that there is no one-size-fits-all solution to shutting down online illegal wildlife trade. Dialogues are initiated to share lessons learned and best practices, and companies are provided with updated global and regional trade trend data, training materials, policy guidance and educational information for users to help spot illegal products.

Learn more about the Coalition to End Wildlife Trafficking Online by clicking here.

EndPandemics

EndPandemics is a Global Alliance to Protect and Regenerate Nature. Its campaign seeks to reduce the risks of pandemics by addressing the root causes, or main drivers, of zoonotic outbreaks in general: The destruction of wild habitat and rampant wildlife trade. The Alliance calls for changing the relationship with nature and proposes solutions to this effect under four Action Pillars:

Reduce Demand
Protect Nature
Stop Trafficking
Reform Farming

The Alliance collects and shares solutions developed by alliance members, which is work in progress, to promote cross-country and cross-sectoral collaboration, benefiting from innovative approaches and lessons learned.

Learn more about EndPandemics here.

Global Initiative to End Wildlife Crime

The Global Initiative to End Wildlife Crime is an alliance of individuals and organisations that support the need for certain law reforms to close gaps in international law. It is hosted by the ADM Capital Foundation, overseen by a small steering group, and is chaired by John E. Scanlon, former Secretary General of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). The Initiative reasons that these reforms are necessary, seeing that, despite the severe impacts of wildlife crimes, there is no global agreement on wildlife crime and the existing wildlife trade laws are not adequately enforced.

End Wildlife Crime therefore offers technical support to: 1) Advocate for the adoption of a fourth Protocol on wildlife crime under the UN Convention against Transnational Organised Crime (UNTOC), and 2) Amend CITES to include public health and animal health criteria into the Convention’s decision-making processes.

Learn more about End Wildlife Crime by clicking here.

Global Wildlife Program

The Global Wildlife Program (GWP) is a World Bank-led global partnership that promotes wildlife conservation and sustainable development by combating illicit trafficking in wildlife. The US$213 million (Phase I and II) grant program is funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF), and is expected to leverage an additional US$704 million in co-financing from a wide range of partners.

By supporting governments across 32 countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, and by addressing the poaching crisis holistically through 37 country projects, the project recognizes the transboundary nature of illegal wildlife trade (IWT) and the need for global collaboration to learn from each other and to use regional and international synergies in project design and implementation. Projects included under the GWP seek to reduce the poaching, the trafficking, and the demand that drives IWT, as well as to protect species and habitats through integrated landscape-level management, learning and awareness, and by promoting community-based natural resource management and tourism development. The Asian Development Bank/GEF Project “Combating Environmental Organized Crime in the Philippines”, implemented by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, is one of the projects under the GWP.

Learn more about the Global Wildlife Program by clicking the link here.

International Consortium on Combating Wildlife Crime

The International Consortium on Combating Wildlife Crime (ICCWC) is the collaborative effort of five intergovernmental organizations cooperating towards the common goal of delivering multi-agency support in preventing and combating illegal wildlife trade (IWT) together with affected countries. The five partner agencies to ICCWC are the:

Secretariat of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES)
International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL)
United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC)
The World Bank
World Customs Organization

These organizations have extensive experience in providing technical assistance, operational support, as well as comprehensive capacity-building and training to law enforcement, prosecutorial, and judicial authorities.To cater for the needs of States requiring assistance with counter-IWT measures, the ICCWC developed tools assisting national governments to assess and analyze their laws and legislation on wildlife and forest crimes, and to identify potential gaps. Equally assessed are the role of enforcement agencies, judicial and prosecutorial capacities, and responses to IWT at the national level.

Two of the most prominent tools are the Wildlife and Forest Crime Analytic Toolkit and the Indicator Framework, with the first one being an extensive long-term assessment conducted by UNODC and international experts advising the government, and the latter being a rather rapid self-assessment by the government itself, based on 50 performance measures grouped into eight enforcement outcomes. The Philippines conducted the Indicator Framework Assessment in 2019.

Learn more about ICCWC by clicking here.

Reducing Opportunities for Unlawful Transport of Endangered Species (ROUTES) Partnership

The USAID Reducing Opportunities for Unlawful Transport of Endangered Species (ROUTES) Partnership is composed of Core and Partner organizations that are brought together to disrupt wildlife trafficking by reducing the use of legal transportation supply chains. It forms a key element of the concerted international response to addressing wildlife poaching and associated criminal activities worldwide.

The five key objectives of the Partnership are as follows:

Improving the data and analytics on wildlife trafficking for evidence-based action
Engaging corporate leadership to collaborate to combat wildlife trafficking
Improving the ability of transport personnel to assist enforcement in combating wildlife trafficking
Integrating wildlife trafficking policies and protocols into industry standards
Increasing collaboration with enforcement

The ROUTES Partnership has also developed a range of training tools for roles across the air transport sector, which help teach employees how to detect, safely respond to, and report incidents of wildlife trafficking, like role-specific 30-minute e-learning courses, half-day workshop presentations, and airport staff training.

Learn more about ROUTES by clicking this link.

Species Victim Impact Statement (SVIS) Initiative

Often, judges and prosecutors dealing with wildlife crimes lack access to robust and reliable scientific information, making it difficult for them to accurately assess the harms done to threatened species and the ecosystems they were taken from. Lack of appropriate knowledge results in lenient sentences that fail to act as deterrents to crime.

The Species Victim Impact Statement (SVIS) Initiative addresses this knowledge gap. The academics behind it have prepared SVIS for more than 120 species of mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, invertebrates and plants, including commonly trafficked species such as pangolin and rosewood. The SVIS are based on up to date and verifiable scientific data and have been drafted to allow for easy reference in court.

SVIS equip investigators and prosecutors to prepare their cases better and provide judges with critical information they need to pass sentences that reflect the true impacts of wildlife crime. In Hong Kong, China, SVIS have been used by the Agriculture Fisheries and Conservation Department, Customs and Excise Department, and the Department of Justice to more effectively present wildlife cases in court. The use of SVIS in the Hong Kong courts has resulted in penalty increases of over 2,000% since the initiative began in 2016. Access to SVIS is available to legal professionals and NGOs assisting them to combat wildlife crime worldwide.

For more information and to see examples of SVIS, please refer to the Initiative’s website.

United for Wildlife

United for Wildlife (UfW) was created in June 2014 and the collaboration brought together many of the world’s leading conservation organizations, among others, Conservation International, Fauna & Flora International, IUCN, The Nature Conservancy, Wildlife Conservation Society, WWF – UK, and ZSL. You may find a full list of partners here. UfW is led by The Duke of Cambridge and The Royal Foundation, with the goal to end IWT and save threatened species like elephants, rhinos, tigers, and pangolins from extinction.

UfW has two task forces: The Financial Task Force, with currently 44 members, and the Transport Task Force, with currently 121 members.

In March 2016, the members of the Transport Taskforce signed the Buckingham Palace Declaration as an action plan to strengthen defenses against trafficking. The Declaration is a landmark agreement committing to take steps to shut down the transport routes exploited by IWT traffickers and to remove the vulnerabilities in transportation and customs, tackling the criminals currently exploiting them. The Declaration contains the agreements of its members to 11 commitments.

Learn more about UfW by clicking here.