Given the vast dimensions of the multibillion-dollar illegal wildlife trade (IWT), it may be surprising that until recently, global efforts to tackle IWT came mainly from the conservation sector. This has typically consisted of numerous donor-funded efforts to catch poachers and raise public awareness of the plight of endangered species.

Valuable as those efforts are, they do little to impact the organised crime networks, corruption and illicit financial flows that allow the lucrative illegal trade in wildlife products to continue.

High-profile law enforcement operations against illegal wildlife trade (IWT), such as Interpol’s Operation Thunderball in July and the arrest of notorious trafficker Moazu Kromah in Uganda in June 2019, have drawn welcome attention to IWT as a financial and organised crime and not only a conservation issue.

Yet in working to strengthen legal frameworks and law enforcement capacity in countries that suffer from high levels of IWT, we must not forget the social drivers and facilitators behind wildlife trafficking – factors that laws alone are powerless to change.

Manuel Medina, specialised Intelligence Analyst for our Illegal Wildlife Trade programme, sets out the basics of intelligence analysis and why we do it. Key questions are:

This working paper explores efforts by and with private-sector organisations to combat the multibillion-dollar illegal wildlife trade (IWT) and/or strengthen their resistance to IWT risks, with a focus on the East Africa – Southeast Asia trading chain.

As part of a multi-disciplinary programme of work focused on intelligence-led action against financial crime in illegal wildlife trade (IWT), the Public Governance division of the Basel Institute on Governance is leading research and community engagement activities in East Africa.

One of the most serious security threats posed by poaching and wildlife trafficking may also be one of the least well documented: their relationship with organised crime.

To shed light on the subject, this chapter analyses the most common narratives on the link between poaching, wildlife trafficking and organised crime – and the security threat this link poses in African source and transit countries.

The relationship between conflict and terrorism and ivory trafficking is often poorly understood.

This article examines some of the realties underpinning this relationship, and calls for greater cross-sector cooperation in responses to ivory trafficking.

This policy brief summarises the main findings from extensive field research on the drivers, facilitators and strategies of wildlife trafficking in Uganda. It translates the insights described in Working Paper 33: A worm’s-eye view of wildlife trafficking in Uganda into recommendations for practitioners and policymakers.