How the war against the illegal wildlife trade is Becoming Militarised as a result of money and Technology

Each year, thousands of animals and plants are purchased and sold all over the world for use as food, medicine, clothes, furniture, and even musical instruments. It appears that wildlife is huge business.

Some of the most well-known species on Earth are being driven towards extinction by the illegal wildlife trade, which is valued at least at US$7 billion (£5.9 billion) and may reach US$23 billion. In particular, rhinos, elephants, tigers, lions, and, more lately, pangolins are being targeted.

In order to combat the illegal wildlife trafficking, law enforcement has assumed a significantly greater role since 2008, with the help of governments, private donors, conservation groups, and companies. As a result, counterinsurgency strategies including creating informant networks and hiring private security companies to educate rangers in anti-poachingp rivate security firms to train rangers in anti-poaching operations with military-grade weapons, have proliferated.

To monitor species and enact protective measures, several conservationists are using drones and other technologies. This in turn generates new business for tech businesses eager to establish a reputation for sustainability.

Nations must come up with a strategy to stop the illegal wildlife trade. But as a scholar of the global politics of conservation, I don't think the solution lies in the increased use of technologies and methods by security and law enforcement agencies.

The issue with funding

The US Fish and Wildlife Service donated US$301 million to 4,142 conservation initiatives in 106 countries between 2002 and 2018. As a result of a change away from stringent species preservation and efforts to enhance livelihoods, an increasing amount of funding was given over the course of those 16 years to combating the illegal wildlife trade.

Amounts increased from US$45 million in 2014 to US$55 million in 2015, US$80 million in 2016, and almost US$91 million in 2017, 2018, and 2019 as part of the US Congress's foreign assistance biodiversity budget. Similar to this, between 2013 and 2019, the UK government's illegal wildlife trade challenge fund gave over £23 million to 75 initiatives.

The fund's three main goals were to reduce the demand for wildlife products, increase law enforcement and the involvement of the criminal justice system (62 supported projects), and promote sustainable livelihoods to replace poaching (6 funded projects) (seven funded projects).

Philanthropists are playing a bigger part in sponsoring conservation efforts. As an illustration, consider Howard Graham Buffet's 2014 gift of US$23 million to the Kruger National Park in South Africa to combat rhino poaching. In 2021, Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, founded his US$10 billion Earth fund to give donations to environmental projects including conservation.

With this money, conservationists will be better equipped to handle urgent problems. Philanthropists typically come from a business culture where setting targets and expecting quick, obvious, and trackable results is normal donations, which can be beneficial for planning effective action.

However, some conservationists I spoke with for my book, Security and Conservation, claimed that it may put unwanted strain on rangers and other conservation workers. They discussed plans to make more arrests, seize more smuggled products, and generally pursue more aggressive anti-poaching activities in order to see quick results.

Technology and security

A variety of technologies have been proposed by conservation organisations and IT firms as affordable means to combat animal trafficking. These frequently utilise surveillance techniques taken from the security industry, such as the use of drones and satellites to monitor animals, as well as artificial intelligence to improve the ability of camera traps to detect possible poachers. Even apps have been created for the general public to report alleged criminal conduct.

In order to assist "non-profit tech pioneers" (as Google described them) in creating technical solutions for a variety of global concerns, including conservation, Google's global impact awards had a fund of US$23 million. The wildlife crime technology project, which pioneered the airborne detection of poaching in Kenya and DNA sequencing to ascertain the origin of illegal wildlife items, received more than $5 million from it in 2012.

These methods are not always detrimental. However, the allure of technology may obscure the crucial task of addressing the fundamental causes of poaching and trafficking, including as injustice and poverty.

Even though the business is unlawful by definition, treating poaching as a solely criminal issue misses the fact that people become involved in the practise for a variety of reasons. There is a lasting impact from the expulsion of residents from areas that are now national parks during the colonial era. Poaching is one of the few sustainable sources of revenue in such places due to the lack of economic options.

Global inequality is another important element. Wildlife is frequently (though not always) taken from less wealthy locations to satisfy demand in wealthier ones. For example, rosewood is smuggled from Madagascar to China and illegally obtained caviar is used to supply luxury markets in London and Paris.

Government and philanthropic foundation funding has been a crucial component of conservation, notably in the last 20 years. But faith in finding technological solutions to a problem that’s treated as a security issue makes it harder to develop and support the alternatives that could be more effective, including sustainable livelihoods for would-be poachers and reducing demand in wealthier countries.