Wildlife trade, biodiversity, and wider environmental concerns

© TRAFFIC Southeast Asia The commercial use by people of wild animal and plant resources, more simply “wildlife trade”, is an issue at the very heart of the relationship between biodiversity conservation and sustainable development.

Directly and indirectly, increasing demand, trade and consumption is depleting the Earth’s living natural resources at an alarming rate, even while these same resources offer the biological foundation upon which human society depends. Over-exploitation of biodiversity was cited as one of the main anthropogenic drivers of biodiversity loss by the 2005 Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA).

Although only one of a range of forces driving this depletion, wildlife trade is central to some of the most important underlying causes of biodiversity loss. Widespread poverty and insecurity drive people to adopt ways of life that degrade the environment upon which they depend, so that sustainable livelihoods cannot be maintained. At the same time, wealth often fuels consumption patterns that undervalue and drive the depletion of natural resources. Linking the worlds of poverty and wealth is an increasingly liberalized global economic system based on development and resource use models that many believe to be flawed. This relationship between social and environmental factors has been recognized as a key element of the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and featured as a key theme in the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development.

Looking forward, the impacts and opportunities arising from trade in wildlife resources will be shaped by the impacts of climate change on human development and biodiversity. Resource exploitation patterns will shift in response to biological and economic factors and adaptation policies. Wildlife trade values may prove significant components of incentives to reduce deforestation and conserve other important ecosystems as part of wider mitigation measures.

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