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Illegal wildlife trade

Interpol defines wildlife crime as taking, trading, exploiting or possessing the world’s wild flora and fauna in contravention of national and international laws. Most wide-reaching of these laws is the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) which is an international agreement between governments aimed at ensuring that international trade in specimens of wild animals and plants does not threaten their survival. The AIC website provides wide-ranging links to international and Australian sites involved in combatting the illegal wildlife trade.

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Reports and papers

• Fight in illegal trade in wildlife : publications
  International Fund for Animal Welfare
• Interpol Wildlife Working Group Strategic Plan
  Interpol
• Species poaching cases
  Trade and Environment Database (TED) transnational crime case studies
• Traffic resources and publications
  Traffic : the wildlife trade monitoring network
• Caught in the web : wildlife trade on the internet (PDF 2.27MB)
  International Fund for Animal Welfare, 2005
• Illegal trade in wildlife : a North American perspective
  Commission for Environmental Cooperation of North America, 2005
• Environmental crime : wildlife crime (PDF 1.3MB)
  UK House of Commons, Environment Audit Committee, Sub-committee on environmental crime, 2004
• The trade in smuggled wildlife
  Australian Radio National Law Report, 2003
• Crime and punishment in the wildlife trade (PDF 380kB)
  Jason Lowther, Dee Cook and Martin Roberts. University of Wolverhampton, 2002
• International environmental crime : the nature and control of environmental black markets (PDF 850kB)
  Gavin Hayman and Duncan Brack. Workshop report, Royal Institute of International Affairs, 2002
• The international wildlife trade and organised crime : a review of the evidence and the role of the UK (PDF 179kB)
  Dee Cook, Martin Roberts and Jason Lowther, 2002
• Animal underworld
  BBC Panorama program, 2001

Links

• Secretariat for the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of wild fauna and flora (CITES)
• Australian Government Department of Environment and Heritage : Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES)
• Journal of International Wildlife Law and Policy
• Partnership for Action Against Wildlife Crime (UK)
• Traffic : the wildlife trade monitoring network
• National Wildlife Crime Intelligence Unit, National Criminal Intelligence Service (UK)
• World Wide Fund For Nature : Unsustainable and illegal wildlife trade
• Lusaka Agreement on Cooperative Enforcement Operations directed at Illegal Trade in Wild Fauna and Flora (PDF 30kB)

Recent publications

Recent events