Deregulation on social media has become a breeding ground for wildlife traffickers, as experts revealed in the Guardian.
The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime flagged 477 adverts for 18 protected species across Brazil and South Africa in just a three-month period in 2024. About 78% were found to come from social media.
What's happening?
"There is a cornucopia of endangered species available to buy online, and it simply shouldn't be that easy," said Crawford Allan, the vice president of nature crimes and policy advocacy at the World Wildlife Fund, to the Guardian.
According to Allan, the pandemic saw an uptick in wildlife crime.
"People couldn't move around and so a lot of stuff ended up online, and it's become a norm," he explained.
Wildlife traffickers frequently use social media such as Facebook to advertise animals or their offspring for sale. Once they attract interest, they switch to messaging apps like WhatsApp to complete the sale.
Why is it necessary to restrict trade?
An article in Forensic Science International estimated in 2023 that approximately 5,209 animal species are threatened or near-threatened due to illegal wildlife trade.
Advertisements for baby parrots, macaws, snakes, and toucans are just some of the many illegal adverts highlighted by the Guardian.
A 2021 report found that international wildlife trade is causing declines of over 60% in the abundance of species. The lucrative industry has become a "significant driver" of biodiversity decline, weakening "the chance for species and ecosystems to cope effectively with climate change."
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Definitely 👍 As the illegal industry surges, so too do the detriments to wildlife populations, which are already highly vulnerable to the growing impacts of the changing climate.
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What's being done by tech companies?
It's challenging for social media companies to determine the legality of all adverts "as laws on the sale of wild animals differ by jurisdiction and species."
Still, experts are urging social media companies to do more than they have been.
"Companies need to allocate far more resources toward regulating how users trade illegally in wildlife parts and derivatives on their platforms," Richard Scobey, the executive director of Traffic, an organization focused on wildlife trafficking, told the Guardian.
Allan and Scobey, among other experts, feel more needs to be done.
Allan explained, "We feel some companies have found the balance. There's also companies that haven't. They're not doing enough, or they're on hiatus for some reason, and they need to step up and do more."
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