COMBATTING WASTE CRIME

Wildlife trafficking has become one of the most lucrative criminal activities and constitutes one of the most immediate threats to biodiversity in many parts of the world. Around the globe, wildlife is being bought and sold on an increasingly massive scale as pets, meat, and food, as medicine, furs, feathers, skins, and trophies. In addition to harming wildlife species, wildlife trafficking undermines local livelihoods and weakens impoverished rural economies further. The 2020 UN Office on Drugs and Crime World Wildlife Crime Report concludes that every country in the world is affected by wildlife trafficking, with a wide variety of species involved, from eels to pangolins to rosewood. In addition to the environmental issues that animal trafficking causes, the industry has been heavily linked to the mass spread of infectious diseases.

According to the recent European Commission study, wildlife trafficking weakens the rule of law, exacerbates corruption, triggers conflicts, funds organised crime syndicates, and in some cases contributes to migration flows. With the emergence and spread of zoonotic diseases, such as COVID-19, the world is also becoming acutely aware of the threat that wildlife poaching, trafficking, and trade can pose to global health and global economic security.

The core legal mechanisms in the trade of endangered species stem from the CITES – the widely accepted Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) adopted in 1972. The EU has an important role to play in addressing wildlife trafficking within the global regulatory, as it constitutes a destination market, a hub for trafficking in transit to other parts of the world, as well as the source region for illegal trade in some species. As a hub for global wildlife trafficking, the EU has a key role to play in the fight against it. The reported value of illegal wildlife trade in the EU was at least €4.7 million in 2019, but this number is likely to be much higher in coming years. EU Member State authorities consistently seize wildlife in various commodity types ranging from medicinal, corals, reptiles, birds, plants, to mammals. Since 2017, there have been on average over 6 000 annual seizures involving CITES-listed wildlife per year in the EU.

In 2016, the EU introduced its first Action Plan to tackle illegal trafficking. In November 2022, the European Commission issued a revised EU Action Plan to tackle wildlife trafficking within the EU and to strengthen the EU's role in the global fight against these illegal activities until 2027. The revised plan has four main priorities:

• Preventing wildlife trafficking and addressing its root causes, by reducing consumer demand for illegally traded wildlife, supporting sustainable livelihoods in source countries, and tackling corruption at all levels;
• Strengthening the legal and policy framework against wildlife trafficking by aligning EU and national policies with international commitments and latest evidence, and engaging with business sectors involved in the wildlife trade;
• Enforcing regulations and policies to fight wildlife trafficking effectively, by improving the rate of detection of illegal activities within the EU, focusing on capacity-building along the entire enforcement chain, encouraging coordination and cooperation within and among Member States, and increasing efforts in tackling the online aspects of wildlife trafficking;
• Strengthening the global partnership of source, consumer and transit countries against wildlife trafficking, by enhancing their capacity and improving cooperation among the Member States, EU enforcement actors and key non-EU countries.

The Action Plan is not the only EU tool to focus on the wildlife trade. The EU also has important legislation on these issues (see the next chapter).