Anthropomorphic Strategies Promote Wildlife Conservation through Empathy: The Moderation Role of the Public Epidemic Situation.

Wildlife is a crucial part of natural ecosystems, and is directly related to global ecological security, cultural inheritance and sustainable development. Indeed, wildlife conservation is an important symbol of the development of human civilization. Yet, the global illegal wildlife trade is still rampant, and the international community must work together to cope with it. For years, the Chinese government has given high attention to wildlife conservation and made consistent efforts to address the illegal trade. In the first place, it has been constantly improving the laws and regulations and setting severe punishments for illegal hunting, trading, smuggling and using wildlife and its products. A new amendment of the Law of the People’s Republic of China on Wildlife Protection has increased punishment for illegal consumption and online wildlife trade. Secondly, we have well established enforcement and coordination mechanisms. Our Inter-agency Joint Mechanism for Addressing Illegal Wildlife Trade, consisting of over 20 departments, has been set up to carry out comprehensive regulation.

To help improve the situation at this stage of the illegal wildlife trade, this article takes a comprehensive look at global data on Illegal Wildlife Trade (IWT) based on the background that illegal wildlife trade is still rampant at this stage. Through data-driven as well as mathematical modeling, feasible and effective measures are proposed. Firstly, we analyze the massive data through deep learning techniques, and neural networks are used to predict the subsequent trend of illegal wildlife trade. Immediately after that, we give two scenarios. The first is to stimulate people's awareness of protection through global advocacy, we establish a mathematical model of travelers, and the simulated annealing algorithm is used to solve the optimal routes, which gives the specific routes of global advocacy. Secondly, we analyze the important nodes of the global illegal wildlife trade, model the planning problem based on the greedy strategy, establish the global monitoring measures, and give the location of the corresponding monitoring points. Overall, we provide a general assessment of the global illegal wildlife trade and provide specific and feasible means to suppress it.

In the face of the enormous threat that illegal wildlife trade poses to global ecology and biodiversity. In this paper, two prediction models, ARIMA and LSTM, are used for comparative experiments. By analyzing the data of global illegal wildlife trade from 1995 to 2021, two prediction models, ARIMA and LSTM, are established to obtain the prediction results of global illegal wildlife trade from 2022 to 2029 respectively. The experimental results show that both the ARIMA prediction model and the LSTM prediction model show an upward trend in the prediction of the amount of illegal wildlife trade. Especially noteworthy is that the prediction results of the LSTM model show a more obvious upward trend and larger prediction values compared with the ARIMA model. The projections tell us the grim story of the illegal wildlife trade. If we do not take urgent and effective interventions, the scale of the illegal wildlife trade will continue to show a worrying trend and could rise further. This not only poses a serious threat to global biodiversity, but also has potential negative impacts on ecological balance, economic and social stability. These projections can effectively guide efforts to reduce the amount of illegal wildlife trade.

Over hunting and over trade in wildlife and its products are big challenges to biodiversity conservation throughout the world. Globally, the trade in tiger bone and rhinoceros horn, illegal trade in live wildlife in Southeast Asia, trade in wildlife products in Russian Far East and across Sino Russia border, tropical bush meat hunting and trade, and illegal trade in wildlife products in Himalayan region, are increasingly threatening wildlife resources in the world. Advocating hunting sustainability is one of the approaches to resolving the problems of over hunting and over trade. In models for hunting sustainability, “the model of game refugia” and “the spatial control approach” which suggest to set aside reserves in hunted areas, will have good prospects in conservation practice. The future directions in conservation related to game hunting and wildlife trade include: to understand poaching dynamics and characteristic and its effects on populations of endangered animals, to harmonize relationship between traditional medicine and wildlife conservation, to control illegal hunting and illegal trade in wildlife and its products across border between countries and to apply hunting sustainability models in conservation practice. The over hunting and over trade in wildlife and its products have seriously threatened China′s biodiversity and its sustainable use, but little information related is available. It is needed for establishing the working agency for monitoring wildlife hunting and wildlife trade, and improving legislation and its enforcement for conservation related and management of nature reserves, and strengthening research on wildlife hunting and wildlife trade in China.

Use of the internet as a trade platform has resulted in a shift in the illegal wildlife trade. Increased scrutiny of illegal wildlife trade has led to concerns that online trade of wildlife will move onto the dark web. To provide a baseline of illegal wildlife trade on the dark web, we downloaded and archived 9852 items (individual posts) from the dark web, then searched these based on a list of 121 keywords associated with illegal online wildlife trade, including 30 keywords associated with illegally traded elephant ivory on the surface web. Results were compared with items known to be illegally traded on the dark web, specifically cannabis, cocaine, and heroin, to compare the extent of the trade. Of these 121 keywords, 4 resulted in hits, of which only one was potentially linked to illegal wildlife trade. This sole case was the sale and discussion of Echinopsis pachanoi (San Pedro cactus), which has hallucinogenic properties. This negligible level of activity related to the illegal trade of wildlife on the dark web relative to the open and increasing trade on the surface web may indicate a lack of successful enforcement against illegal wildlife trade on the surface web.

Illegal wildlife trade is an important branch of global environmental crime. It relies heavily on transit countries to promote the cross-border movement of illegal wildlife products by boosting markets, laundering services, processing and packaging products, and concealing routes. However, transit countries' strategic role is not well understood. We constructed a dataset of 15years of illegal wildlife seizure cases from the Center for Advanced Defense Studies (C4ADS) air seizure database and Wildlife Trade Portal database. From the dataset, we determined transnational illegal wildlife trade routes with complete supply chain information. There were 84 transit countries, and the organisms involved in trade included mammals, birds, reptiles, marine species, amphibians, and arthropods. We identified that about 40% of illegal wildlife trade routes crossed one or multiple countries. Species being moved along these routes originated mainly from Africa and were transported through African, European, or Asian countries to East Asia or Southeast Asia. Transit countries for illegal wildlife products tended to be geographically close to and have a high trade volume of legal biological products with both the origin and destination countries and had advanced airport infrastructure. Transit countries were associated with 39.7% more individual animal products being illegally traded, particularly ivory, pangolin products, and rhinoceros horn, and served as key bridges among economically underdeveloped and geographically distant countries with weak trade links in legal biological products. These findings highlight the importance of monitoring and enforcement in transit countries and suggest that transit hubs be targeted based on location, trade in legal biological products, and transport infrastructure.

The global illegal wildlife trade has been anecdotally linked to other serious crimes, such as fraud, corruption, and money laundering, as well as the cross-border trafficking of drugs, arms, counterfeit goods, and persons. As research on this topic is scarce and sporadic, we conducted a scoping literature review to gather information across multiple disciplines and evidence types on crime convergences in the illegal wildlife trade. We reviewed 150 papers published between 2000 and 2020. We found that the illegal trade in many of the most frequently trafficked species have reportedly converged with numerous other serious and organised crimes, most commonly drug trafficking. Convergences can occur in a variety of ways, although the diversification of organised crime groups, parallel trafficking of contraband, and use of enabling crimes (such as corruption and violence) were the most frequently described. Possible explanations for our results and future research directions are discussed.

Illegal wildlife trade has become one of the primary threats to global biodiversity conservation, as the exploitation of natural resources not only disrupts ecological balance but also profoundly impacts the economic and social structures of multiple countries. To effectively curb this cross-border issue, countries have intensified international collaboration and protective measures. In this context, this study combines the TOPSIS evaluation model and spatial statistical analysis to scientifically assess the collaboration potential of international organizations and examine the spatial patterns of global illegal wildlife trade. Using the TOPSIS model, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) emerged as the ideal partner, with its expertise and resource support significantly enhancing project efficacy. Additionally, Moran's I algorithm was applied to analyze trade activities across 20 countries, revealing geographical clustering and interdependence between neighboring countries in illegal trade. This research offers a data-driven framework for collaboration and precise spatial intervention strategies to address the global wildlife trade crisis.

Concomitant with an increase in the global illegal wildlife trade has been a substantial increase in research within traditional conservation-based sciences and conservation and green criminology. While the integration of criminological theories and methods into the wildlife conservation context has advanced our understanding of and practical responses to illegal wildlife trade, there remain discrepancies between the number of empirical vs. conceptual studies and a disproportionate focus on a few select theories, geographical contexts, and taxonomic groups. We present three understudied or novel applications of criminology and criminal justice research within the fields of fisheries, forestry, and wildlife conservation. First, we highlight criminological research on the application of corruption prevention in combating the illegal wildlife trade. Corruption has increasingly been getting attention from the non-governmental sector; however, there has been limited research aimed at understanding institutional opportunity structures, local conceptualizations of corruption, and the corresponding prevention strategies within conservation contexts. Second, we discuss the pre-emptive application of compliance theories when designing and monitoring Community-Based Conservation (CBC) programs such as community forestry, non-timber forest products, and community patrol programs. Applying opportunity theory and social development strategies are two suggestions to improve the effectiveness of CBCs in forestry and beyond. Finally, we present a discussion on recidivism (i.e., repeat offending) and non-instrumental or novel responses, utilizing illegal fishing as a case study. We present two alternative methods to traditional forms of punishment: restorative justice and community-based approaches. Lastly, we will present a diversity of priority research agendas within each of these topics.

In view of the continuous growth of the global illegal wildlife trade, this paper proposes a series of methods and strategies to combat the illegal wildlife trade and explores the feasibility and effectiveness of the implementation of the strategy by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) based on logistic regression and ARIMA prediction model. The results of this paper show that the success rate of the strategy implemented by the UNEP is 71.429%, and it will achieve the effect of reducing the global illegal wildlife trade by nearly 5% per year after the implementation of the strategy. The data show that the strategy proposed in this paper can help the UNEP and other environmental regulators to combat illegal wildlife trade and provide evidence for the promotion of the strategy in the future.

In Indonesia, the value of the illegal trade in wildlife reaches more than US one million per year. Apart from being a source country, Indonesia also has a significantly growing home market for illegally traded wildlife as pets, skins, and medicines.The illegal wildlife trade uses various modus operandi, directed by organized criminal groups and carried out by a variety of perpetrators on the ground, often very poor locals from rural communities. Whilst this trading activity is a transnational crime, that is, across national and continental borders, and may use the same supply routes usually associated with other crimes such as weapons, drugs and people trafficking, it is usually only the poachers on the ground who are caught and prosecuted. In summary, universities and their researchers have a significant role in the fight against the illegal and unsustainable wildlife trade, in monitoring wildlife populations and poaching activity, and in changing people's behavior, so that the activities of hunting, trading, or owning protected wildlife become unattractive and unacceptable to all communities. This role draws on disciplines across the sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities, encouraging those interdisciplinary behaviours so important for effective environmental management that delivers for the long-term health and well-being of people.

The archipelago is vast, even become the largest archipelagic country in the world. Having many islands makes Indonesia rich in diversity of flora and fauna, one of which is the orangutan wildlife that lives in the forests of Indonesia. Illegal trade in protected wildlife is still rampant due to the lack of public awareness about the importance of preserving nature so that the population of protected wildlife does not experience extinction. The trade-in wildlife does not only cover the national level, it has even penetrated at the international level. One of the regulations regarding the protection of the international wildlife trade is the Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). Legislation regarding the trade-in protected wildlife in Indonesia has been regulated in Law Number 5 of 1990 concerning the Conservation of Biological Resources and Their Ecosystems. The writing of this paper uses data collection methods from various sources such as articles, journals, and some websites on the internet. The novelty of this research is to discuss the legal protection of the orangutan wildlife trade in Indonesia. Ineffective government regulations make there still a lot of illegal wildlife trade.

This study addresses the long-standing and increasingly complex issue of global illegal wildlife trade, proposing a system solution aimed at monitoring and combating this trade, with a special emphasis on the protection of green sea turtles. The ARIMA Predict Model was utilized to demonstrate that increased enforcement efforts and higher operational expenses are significantly associated with reduced volumes of illegal wildlife trade. An illegal trade risk model was developed, employing SLSQP to enhance accuracy, constrained by budget allocation, maximum RFID reader capacity, and device failure rates. Furthermore, the Sea Turtle Movement Model was crafted by examining seasonal behaviors, agent-based movement patterns, temperature preferences, stochastic elements, and simulation time steps, enabling the delineation of migratory paths of sea turtles across different seasons. Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) was applied to optimize patrol routes. The findings underscored the necessity for additional governmental support, encompassing legal authorization, environmental access, international collaboration, and financial backing. The project’s effectiveness was assessed using the Risk Reduction Coefficient Model and Monte Carlo simulations, which significantly reduced illegal trade by 34.43%, with projections indicating continued declines over the subsequent five years.

Simple SummaryIn response to the illegal wildlife trade, successful enforcement often involves the seizure, confiscation, and subsequent management of illegally traded wildlife. Unfortunately, confiscated live animals often experience substandard care. In this study, we investigate the barriers to the ‘disposal’ of confiscated live animals in Southeast Asia. ‘Disposal’ is the term used for what happens to illegally traded wildlife after confiscation. Guidelines for the ‘disposal’ of live specimens are provided by the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), although individual nations must enforce this within their own legislation. We interviewed 18 experts from seven countries in Southeast Asia revealing eight categories of barriers to the disposal of confiscated live animals. We then propose seven recommendations to help reform the disposal of confiscated live animals, which would support the efficient and humane management of illegally traded wildlife in Southeast Asia and globally.Increased focus on the illegal global wildlife trade has resulted in greater numbers of live animals confiscated by authorities, increasing the need to manage these animals responsibly. Most wildlife seizures take place in Southeast Asia, with global demand for live animals fuelling much of the trafficking. Guidelines for the ‘disposal’ of live specimens are provided by the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), although individual Parties must implement provisions through national laws and regulations. ‘Disposal’ is the term used for the management of illegally traded wildlife upon confiscation. Confiscated live animals can be euthanised (i.e., killed), repatriated to their native country and released, or kept in captivity. This study investigates barriers to proper care and disposal of confiscated live animals in Southeast Asia, where roughly one quarter of the global multibillion dollar illegal wildlife trade takes place. Interviews were conducted with 18 professionals working within conservation, wildlife crime, and confiscated live animal management. Eight limitations to the proper care and disposal of confiscated wildlife were identified: (1) political will, (2) policy, (3) funding, (4) capacity, (5) expertise (6) attitudes and behaviours, (7) exploitation, and (8) corruption. Based on interviews, we propose seven key reforms to support the efficient and humane management of illegally traded wildlife for national authorities and CITES parties. These are wildlife seizure management, legislative support, enhanced political will, demand reduction, global participation, registry of rescue centres, and terminology change. This research highlights major barriers to the proper care and disposal of live confiscated animals and proposes key reforms to improve the conservation of threatened species and the welfare of millions of illegally traded animals.

China is one of the largest consumer markets in the international legal and illegal wildlife trade. An increasing demand for wildlife and wildlife products is threatening biodiversity, both within China and in other countries where wildlife destined for the Chinese market is being sourced. We analysed official data on legal imports of CITES-listed species in five vertebrate classes (mammals, reptiles, amphibians, birds and fish), and on enforcement seizures of illegally traded wildlife, during 1997–2016. This is the first study that collates and analyses publicly available data on China's legal and illegal wildlife trade and considers a broad range of species. Specifically, we estimated the scale and scope of the legal and illegal wildlife trade, quantified the diversity of species involved, and identified the major trading partners, hotspots and routes associated with illegal trade. Our findings show that substantial quantities of wildlife have been extracted globally for the Chinese market: during 1997–2016 over 11.5 million whole-organism equivalents and 5 million kg of derivatives of legally traded wildlife, plus over 130,000 illegally traded animals (alive and dead) and a substantial amount of animal body parts and products, were imported into China. Although measures to reduce demand and alleviate poverty are crucial to curb unsustainable and illegal wildlife trade in the longer term, China's wildlife regulators and enforcers must take urgent measures to disrupt the supply chains from source to market.