The Seven Forms of Challenges in the Wildlife Trade

David L. Roberts,Amy Hinsley

doi:10.1177/1940082920947023

Abstract

Initiatives that aim to regulate the international wildlife trade must take into account its multiple and often complex dimensions in order to be effective. To do this, it is essential to understand the interactions between three of the key dimensions of the wildlife trade: (1) taxonomic unit, (2) geographic origin, and (3) product form and transformation. We propose a framework to provide a structured approach to defining the complexities of the wildlife trade, based on Rabinowitz’s seven forms of rarity. We demonstrate the complexities and how they apply to our framework using two contrasting examples: the trade in elephant ivory, and the horticultural orchid trade. Further we use the framework to map different traceability solutions. To be as efficient as possible, efforts to tackle the illegal and unsustainable utilisation of wildlife should take a more structured approach. This framework identifies challenges that current initiatives may face, how they may interact and provides a structure for designing future interventions.

Highlights

The wildlife trade is multidimensional due to the diversity of the species involved, their geographic origins, and the forms in which products are traded
Illegal and unsustainable trade has been recognised as a conservation issue for many years, prompting various initiatives at the local (e.g. U.S state-level bans on ivory; Atkins, 2015), national (e.g. UK government’s commitment on ivory; Nature Check, 2013) and international level (e.g. London Conference on the Illegal Wildlife Trade, 2014)
While the wildlife trade is complex, in part due to the very different modus operandi of the different types of trade and productivity levels, three factors are reoccurring; What it is? Where is it from? And in what form is it being traded? Here we examine the impact of these three key dimensions related to the product being traded on our ability to understand and regulate the trade in wildlife

Summary

Introduction

The wildlife trade is multidimensional due to the diversity of the species involved, their geographic origins, and the forms in which products are traded. More likely they will arise when the product has the potential to use a range of unrelated species such as the examples given here framework; population size (large vs small), geographic range (large vs small) and habitat breadth (wide vs narrow). In the seven forms of wildlife trade complexity, the three dimensions interact to form the seven wildlife trade challenges; taxonomic diversity (taxon poor vs taxon rich), geographic distribution (wide vs narrow) and product transformation (little vs lot).

Results

Conclusion