Towards a new international consensus on wildlife

After a year of the coronavirus pandemic, the links between the global health crisis and the exploitation of wildlife remain at the center of scientific debate.

The first official report from the World Health Organization (WHO) supports that Sars-Cov-2, such as severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) or Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), originates from the * direct or intermediary contact* of an animal.

Multiple specialists such as Dr. Jonathan Kolby, former wildlife law enforcement officer of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) and specialist in CITES policies, assure that wildlife trafficking has led, in Indeed, the increase in clashes in the animalia-sapiens1 dynamic.

The consequence is logical: more zoonotic diseases join the list of health problems year after year and their treatment, medical and legal, becomes increasingly complex.

![The severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) or the Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) are some precedents for the global risk of predation on wildlife.]

Theoretical chains of the emergence of human coronaviruses. Source: José Eduardo Oliva Marín/Alert Magazine.

Indeed, the global demand for food, the lack of national regulations, and the almost exponential growth of international trade exceed any regulatory framework: Illegal wildlife trafficking ranks as the fourth largest illegal trade in the world with the somme of 26 million dollars annuels (2019, WWF).

For this reason, creating a new consensus that regulates the wildlife trade is imperative to prevent future pandemics and preserve the local balance of ecosystems. Closing the wet markets, penalizing grave déprédation internationally of flora and fauna, and reforming the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) are some key steps.

A high risk for global health

The growth of transnational interconnection channels, in addition to offering advantages and opportunities, entail high global risks and levels of uncertainty. The coronavirus pandemic impacted the world transversally. With more than 156,272,647 cases reported globally; unemployment, public debt, as well as economic inequality have increased dramatically, exacerbating local crises and social unrest in the hardest hit countries by the virus .

In fact, although the positions representing the United States or the United Kingdom express their skepticism regarding the spontaneous origin of the virus**, approximately sixty percent of all known human diseases to date find their origin in animals** 2, being, in large part, due to the alteration of the natural order of wildlife.

In this sense, the first step for a new international consensus on wildlife involves closing the spaces that make it possible for microorganisms to jump from animals to humans: wet markets._

A wet market is a space where wildlife is traded and consumed without sanitary controls3. These markets do not only exist in Asia; also in Africa and Latin America, and depending on how they are defined, they can be identified in practically any part of the world.

![Wet markets have a negative impact on public health.]

Wet markets have a profound negative impact on institutions and local economies. Source: Toronto Star Journal.

Ironically, although many discuss the cruelty and risk that these spaces contemplate, few or no notions have been promoted to close them in the different micro-regions: no country, including the Latin American ones, has discussed the closure or reform to date.

At the multilateral level, performance has been just as disappointing. The exchange of opinions on a new, more open and transparent legal framework is practically nil in intergovernmental spaces, with the civil and scientific lobby being the main actors in the discussion. Interestingly, the State Department during the Trump era came to include fleetingly in its foreign policy. In the context of geopolitical and technological tensions with China, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo argued:

"Closing these markets (in China and abroad) would reduce risks to human health (...) and discourage the consumption of trafficked wildlife and wildlife products".

Mike Pompeo, former US Secretary of State (April 19, 2020)

While the Trump administration stopped short of taking any substantive action; The quote from the former US secretary allows us to analyze a fundamental dynamic: the profitability of these markets is intimately linked to the health of wildlife trafficking and consumption at the level world.

No national measure can therefore be fully effective without additional restrictions on international trade in wildlife. This would lead to an eventual clandestinity, where the wet markets that we see today would be less regulated, generating greater risks.

Trade regulation reforms: the elephant in the room

Since 1975, international trade in wildlife has been regulated by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). With more than 183 signatory countries, CITES can be considered the most important agreement in terms of species conversation: any import, export, re-export or introduction of species from Appendices I and II of the Convention is legally protected by a permit or license to prevent its overexploitation4.

The problem with CITES, however, is the exclusion of criteria relating to public health in the selection of these species. The agreement takes into account as a general criterion the state of conversation of the organisms, ** but not the consequent risks to the health of other species whose conservation is not at risk **.

For example: The export of the Gambian rat (Cricetomys emini), a Least Concern rodent, and therefore off the CITES species list, led to the emergence of the first case of monkeypox in the Western Hemisphere in 2003, made possible by the contact and overcrowding of these rodents with others before being shipped to their destinations inside and outside the USA.

Researchers, activists and former customs officials around the world agree that this lack of modernization has allowed illegal trade to proliferate to the tune of [$26 billion a year](https://news.mongabay.com/2019/08 /campaigners-push-for-reform-of-outdated-cites-wildlife-trade-system/), so there are at least three things to consider when reforming the wildlife trade:

1. Reverse the order of the list. That is, include only those species in which trade is allowed and not those that are endangered. This would open space to require those who want to trade to do so in a sustainable manner.
2. Greater controls in domestic markets. These spaces are outside the jurisdiction of international regulatory frameworks when the animals traded internally have crossed borders6.
3. Harmonization of customs protocols. The convention is still based on a paper permit system whose integration often does not match international customs protocols, creating a lack of transparency and traceability in the industry.

Likewise, leaders and lawyers such as John E. Scanlon, interim CEO of the Elephant Protection Initiative Foundation, propose recognizing crime against wildlife as a serious crime and integrating it into the framework of international criminal law. Currently there is no global legal agreement on wildlife crime.

Number of whole pangolin equivalents seized and number of annual seizures, 2007-2018.

![According to the United Nations wildlife report (2020) arrests of pangolins (small mammals) have skyrocketed since 2014.]

The illegal trade in pangolins has skyrocketed since 2014 due to the popularization of their curative purposes. Source: UN Wildlife Report 2020

Furthermore, illegal wildlife trafficking has proven to be neither spontaneous nor isolated. It is a transnationally organized business, sustained by institutional corruption; and with devastating effects on local communities, security, public health and entire ecosystems5.

The pangolin, for example, despite being the mammal most protected by CITES is, at the same time, the most trafficked in the world. Predation networks extract the pangolin from sub-Saharan Africa to Southeast Asia through smuggling and customs corruption. Currently all three species of pangolins are in danger of extinction.

Towards a new consensus

The 2022 Conference of the Parties is the next great opportunity for wildlife. The Latin American and Caribbean countries will have the space to express their concerns in an autonomous and self-sufficient way. CITES reform proposals must be presented by at least one of the signatory countries at the conference7, preferably a range country and/ or without weighty ideological or commercial interests to facilitate its probability of success.

In addition, combating serious environmental crimes would also be possible by including them in the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (Palermo Convention). However, no effort can be effective without local measures. Campaigns to reduce consumption are essential as a complementary means at the national level to create more restrictive policies than any international order can carry out.

It is imperative to discuss the need for a more inclusive project; establish measures to stop predation; and make the trade sustainable and moderate the illegal consumption of wildlife in order to maintain the biological relationship in the ecosystems (water quality, temperature, soil).