Trading Giants:

A Rapid Assessment Of Giant Clam Tridacninae Seizures Implicating Southeast Asia 2003-2022

Kalakalan ng taklobo: isang malaking problema na nangangailangan ng higit na pagsisiyasat

The assessment recorded 170 giant clam seizures involving Southeast Asia between January 2003 and December 2022. This resulted in the confiscation of 121,391 tonnes of giant clams and a further 7,682 shells destined for illegal trade. More than half the seizures (56%) occurred since 2017.

And it is the more recent seizures, which included the world’s biggest bust of an extraordinary 120,000 tonnes of giant clams in the Philippines in 2019, that has triggered the need to take notice of this trade and get a better grasp of its nature and dynamics.

These figures are worrying given that scientific findings from over a decade ago already pointed to declining giant clam populations and some species becoming functionally extinct in some range countries.”

Rama Wong, Senior Wildlife Crime Analyst and co-author of the assessment

Little is known about the global trafficking of giant clams, the world’s largest bivalve molluscs. They have long been harvested both legally and illegally for food, as decorative items, and for the aquarium trade.

In an attempt to address these knowledge gaps, the Trading Giants rapid assessment looked at the level of involvement countries had in both legal and illegal trade.  

It found that the Philippines made the greatest number of confiscations (71 seizures), with most of these (62%) occurring in Palawan province. Owing to the mega seizure in 2019, the Philippines seized most (121,071 tonnes) of the volume reported by weight over the 20-year period.

In the 29 cases where species information was available, it was also revealed that 70.5% of the number of shells seized were China Clams Hippopus porcellanus, deemed one of the rarest giant clam species in the world.

Authors found less clarity when analysing the legal international trade of giant clams. The legal trade in 10 of the existing 12 giant clam species is regulated through its listing on Appendix II of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) and requires that countries report import and export figures.

There were significant discrepancies in trade figures reported by importing and exporting countries to CITES¹. From 2003 to 2021, importers reported trade in more than four million giant clam shells, while exporters only reported three million shells traded.

“The combination of huge seizures, discrepancies in trade data, and a poor understanding of the current dynamics all spell trouble for giant clams,” said Wong, who urged more detailed analysis that would fill knowledge gaps and better inform responses in terms of enforcement, policy, and demand.

Director for TRAFFIC in Southeast Asia, Kanitha Krishnasamy, said an examination into harvest, demand centres and markets in key source and consumer countries was crucial to improving regulation of legal trade and preventing trafficking.

Greater enforcement effort is good news, but given the size of legal trade reported, it must be coupled with more scrutiny of regulations and legal trade measures for giant clams to ensure the unscrupulous traders aren’t exploiting the system.”

Kanitha Krishnasamy, Director for TRAFFIC in Southeast AsiaAuthors said identifying and prosecuting the perpetrators behind the illegal catch and trafficking of giant clams was another crucial step towards safeguarding giant clams.

They argued that the large volumes seized suggested the involvement of organised criminality, and without closer monitoring, giant clams could be depleted before the world even recognised the problem existed.

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Kalakalan ng taklobo: isang malaking problema na nangangailangan ng higit na pagsisiyasat