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.

This quick guide by Claudia Baez Camargo, Head of Governance Research, draws on Ms Baez Camargo's decades of research on social norms and their implications for anti-corruption practice. She explores:

• What is a social norm?
• How do social norms drive and perpetuate corrupt behaviour?
• The case of health facilities in East Africa
• How to identify social norms that drive corrupt behaviour
• What are the implications for anti-corruption practice?

And finally:

This report provides a first iteration of preliminary insights from the social network analysis of transnational wildlife trafficking networks operating along 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.