African e-commerce platforms must address thriving illegal wildlife trade, urge international non-profits

Illegal sale of wildlife on leading African e-commerce platforms has seen an uptick in recent years, breaking local and international laws, according to leading civil society organisations.

If this situation is not reversed soon, its impact on wildlife populations and biodiversity will be catastrophic, warned the organisations. Three civil society organisations — Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC), TRAFFIC and the World Parrot Trust — have raised concerns about the lack of policies regulating the sale of wildlife. 

There are gaps in the regulatory mechanisms governing African e-commerce platforms compared to physical marketplaces; the sellers exploit this gap, they added.

“There has been very little improvement since 2018 when the platforms were first alerted to the scale of the problem,” Momballa Mbun, senior project officer for TRAFFIC’s Reducing Trade Threats to Africa’s Wild Species and Ecosystems project, said in a press release.

Leading e-commerce and social media platforms were informed of the illegal wildlife trade. Even though they promised to take action to address the problem, advertisements for endangered species were found on almost all these platforms, said Giulia Roncon, GI-TOC analyst on environmental crime.

Also read: Illegal and ignominious world of wildlife trafficking

A few exceptions were the e-commerce sites Jumia, Afribobo and Afribaba, Roncon said. Jumia responded by removing a significant number of advertisements and developing new wildlife policies. 

Afribobo took down all advertisements of illegal species and introduced filters to prevent new advertisements that potentially violate their policy or national legislation in Cameroon. Afribaba has committed to introducing similar filters in 12 other central, eastern and southern African countries.

A 2022 TRAFFIC survey of 72 online platforms found 1,267 Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES)-listed species for sale in central African countries and Nigeria between March 2018 and January 2021.

Threatened African species are facing increasing peril from an unregulated and illegal cyber-enabled wildlife trade in Cameroon, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gabon and Nigeria, according to the survey titled Cyber-enabled wildlife trade in central African countries.

Despite high levels of local and international protection, live sales of these endangered species were being advertised on ‘classifieds platforms’ across the African continent, including in countries outside the species’ natural range, found a 2021 report by Global Initiative.

A total of 782 online advertisements were identified over six months (October 2020-March 2021), almost all being on classified sites. The high number and frequency of advertisements in Kenya (455) and Nigeria (264) were concerning. Noticing advertisements in countries such as Benin, Ghana and Angola, even in low numbers, is an early-warning sign of nascent markets elsewhere, said the report.

Illegal trade in wild species undermines the countries’ efforts to manage their natural resources, threatens species with extinction, affects community livelihoods and can increase the chances of the emergence of new zoonotic diseases, it added.

“Wildlife and forestry crimes go hand in hand with tax evasion, corruption, money laundering and even murder, with organised crime groups using the same routes to smuggle protected wildlife as they do people, weapons, drugs and other illegal products,” said Ilana de Wild, Interpol’s director of Organized and Emerging Crimes.

An eight-week operation against wildlife crime and trafficking had resulted in arrests and seizures across Asia and Africa, noted the agency in a press note released in 2022. The operation codenamed ‘Golden Strike’, which ended in 2021, targeted the criminals and networks smuggling wildlife protected under CITES from Africa to Asia.

Due to the travel restrictions during the COVID-19 lockdowns, wildlife criminals shifted from physical to digital wildlife markets. Investigations saw increased wildlife crime committed over e-commerce sites, social media platforms and WhatsApp groups, Interpol added.

Intelligence gathered during Operation Golden Strike has aided in more investigations in other parts of the world, particularly in relation to cyber-enabled wildlife cases.

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