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IUCN recognises the commercial wildlife pet trade as a major threat driving species decline and extinction.
Calls for shift from a “negative list” to a “positive list” approach to regulate the live pet trade.
Notes links between wildlife trade, organised crime, corruption and invasive species risks.
Adopts a resolution on Crimes that Affect the Environment (CAE) to strengthen cross-border law enforcement.
Warns that environmental crimes — from illegal mining to pollution — threaten biodiversity, climate goals and human rights.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Congress has adopted key resolutions recognising the commercial trade in wildlife as pets, and environmental crimes such as illegal logging and mining, as grave threats to biodiversity, public health, and sustainable development.
IUCN World Conservation Congress 2025 was held from October 9 to October 15, 2025 in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
The IUCN’s newly adopted resolution acknowledges that the commercial trade in wild animals as pets is a major threat to the survival of many species in the wild, often driving local and global extinctions. The trade, both legal and illegal, is expanding rapidly across wider geographical areas, fuelled by easier access to remote habitats and a growing demand for exotic pets.
The trade in live wild animals caters to large markets for household pets, often prized for their songs or striking characteristics, as well as elite collectors seeking rare and unusual species. The organisation observed that such trade — whether regulated or unregulated — inflicts severe animal suffering through poor capture, transport and housing conditions, leading to high rates of injury, disease and mortality.
It also poses serious public health risks through pathogen spillovers, with animals carrying viral loads across multiple trade routes from the wild to urban markets.
Some traded species, the motion warned, also risk becoming invasive, threatening native wildlife, agriculture, and livestock. “Such trade is often linked to organised crime and fuelled by corruption,” the resolution stated.
Criticising existing frameworks that rely on a “negative list”, allowing trade by default unless proven harmful, the IUCN called for a shift towards a “positive list” approach. This system would only permit trade in species explicitly assessed as safe and sustainable, offering what the motion described as a “precautionary and proactive” model for regulating the live pet trade. This would acknowledge the role of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) in regulating international trade of species.
In another major move, the IUCN adopted a resolution on Crimes that Affect the Environment (CAE), aiming to strengthen international cooperation and cross-border law enforcement.
The motion identified wildlife trafficking, illegal deforestation and logging, mining, fishing, and pollution — including air, soil, and water contamination — as forms of organised environmental crime that operate at an industrial scale. It noted that these transnational, organised crimes are being committed at an industrial scale, with multiple reports by the United Nations and other organisations warning of their severe global repercussions.
These activities, it noted, worsen biodiversity loss, climate change impacts, and environmental degradation, while undermining efforts to achieve the Paris Agreement, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGBF).
It expressed grave concern that such crimes are intertwined with corruption, financial offences, drug and human trafficking, and labour and human rights violations. These, the IUCN noted, can disproportionately impact Indigenous Peoples and local communities, women, and other vulnerable groups. Many of these crimes are deeply embedded in global supply chains, driven by consumer and industrial demand for timber, seafood, agricultural commodities, minerals, and wildlife products.
The text also recognised the essential role of civil society, Indigenous peoples and local communities, academia, scientific community, the private sector, whistleblowers, and the media in detecting, reporting, and raising awareness of such crimes.
Highlighting the need for stronger accountability, the IUCN urged governments to integrate crime prevention and behaviour-change strategies into national law enforcement and international treaties. It also called on the private sector — particularly in finance and transport — to take an active role in combating environmental crimes, given the increasing risks faced by environmental defenders.
“IUCN can play in supporting efforts to prevent and combat certain CAE, aligning directly with its Mission and Programme, and leveraging its diverse membership of international and national non-governmental organisations, Indigenous peoples organisations, and national and subnational governments and its networks, as well as its specialised expert Commissions, to facilitate essential multi-stakeholder collaboration,” it said.
The Congress directed the IUCN Director General and Council to convene a Task Force to develop an IUCN Strategy on CAE, noting that while several global agreements exist, no dedicated international legal framework currently addresses such crimes comprehensively.