Sec. 3. Findings
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Congress makes the following findings: With a value that may be as high as $10,000,000,000 per year, the illegal trade in wildlife and wildlife products is one of the most lucrative criminal activities globally, dominated by sophisticated transnational criminal networks that connect poachers to high-end markets for illegal wildlife products and that are linked to other transnational organized criminal activities, including trafficking in narcotics, weapons, and humans. The poaching of and illegal trade in wildlife, including elephants and rhinoceroses, is rapidly escalating in scale, sophistication, and violence, and there is evidence that illegal trade in high-value wildlife parts, including elephant ivory, is being used as a source of financing for criminal organizations and armed groups that pose a threat to United States economic and security interests in Africa and elsewhere, including terrorist organizations and militias.
Increasing consumer demand for rhinoceros horn and elephant ivory, in Asia and elsewhere, has caused the prices of both to escalate, with the price of rhinoceros horn rivaling that of gold or heroin by weight, further driving the poaching and trafficking of rhinoceroses and elephants. In 2014, 1,215 rhinoceroses were illegally killed in South Africa, which represents an increase of more than 9,000 percent since 2007. Two subspecies of African rhinoceroses and 1 subspecies of Asian rhinoceros have gone extinct since 2005, and 2 of 3 Asian rhinoceros species have fallen to critically low population numbers.
Data from the Monitoring the Illegal Killing of Elephants program established under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, done at Washington March 3, 1973 (27 UST 1087; TIAS 8249) (commonly referred to as CITES ) and academic studies indicated that 100,000 elephants were killed illegally across the whole of Africa between 2010 and 2012. From 2000 to 2011, 54 large-scale ivory seizures world-wide captured more than 110,000 kilograms of ivory.
More than half of those large-scale seizures occurred between 2008 and 2011, indicating an increasing demand for ivory and expanding participation by organized crime in the illegal trade in ivory. Wildlife crime threatens elephants, rhinoceros, and tigers greatly, but also has a devastating impact on a number of other species, including sharks, pangolins, great apes, and turtles. In addition to threatening the survival of imperiled species, wildlife poachers and traffickers frequently kill park rangers devoted to protecting their countries’ wildlife, destabilize communities through violence and corruption of local law enforcement officials and others, and threaten wildlife tourism industries, which contribute significantly to the local and national economies of many countries.
Where wildlife is well-managed by communities or in partnership with others, it can provide a significant and sustainable source of economic activity, particularly in impoverished rural areas, and when communities share in the revenues generated by wildlife-based economic development, it can greatly reduce incentives to engage in poaching activities while greatly increasing incentives to protect wildlife. At the 16th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to CITES, held in Bangkok, Thailand, in March 2013, all parties to CITES agreed to work to help eradicate poaching of rhinoceroses, elephants, sharks, and other species, and the illegal trade in their parts.
The United States can play a pivotal role in ensuring that countries meet their international obligations under CITES and take additional positive steps to address the wildlife trafficking crisis and the global illegal trade in elephants, rhinoceroses, and other species, including through sustained diplomatic engagement.