Year: 2026
Type: book-chapter
Abstract: Poaching, trafficking and illegal wildlife trade have today become a complex, internationalized systems of operation that have resulted in a significant risk to biodiversity, ecosystem disruption as well as causing structural social and economic devastations.The chapter will discuss the forces driving these activities i.e., luxury markets, need of traditional medicine, socioeconomic inequality, inefficiency of governance and organized crimes.The distribution systems that manage the relocation of wildlife and wildlife products, i.e., between the source landscapes and the consumer markets do work on covert logistics, intermediaries, online marketplaces, and on corrupt processes; the end results are massive loss of population, ecological destruction, loss of genetic diversity, disruption of ecosystem functions, and culture destruction.Moralism kicks into the limelight: the agony of sentient wildlife, the disintegration of social solidarity, and the disappearance of species goes beyond the statistical undercutting.Other forms of emerging technology that the chapter evaluates include DNA forensics, real-time sharing of data, unmanned aerial vehicles, and participatory monitoring in the battle against the illicit trade in wildlife.The solution to this urgent threat is by combining the enforcement, innovation, demand reduction and the grounded stewardship of the place to reverse the increasing rate of illegal exploitation.
Language: English
Subfield: Nature and Landscape Conservation
Field: Environmental Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: gold
OpenAlex ID: W7171767811