Illegal ivory trade shrinks while pangolin trafficking booms, U.N. says

VIENNA, July 10 (Reuters) - The illegal global trade in
ivory has shrunk while the trafficking of pangolins has soared,
a U.N. report on wildlife crime based on four years' data said
on Friday.
National bans on selling ivory, particularly China's in
2017, appear to have helped further erode ivory trafficking
after it peaked around 2011-2013, the United Nations Office on
Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said in its World Wildlife Crime Report,
which was last published in 2016.
At the same time, the trafficking of pangolins - a
reclusive, nocturnal mammal covered in scales that are used in
traditional Chinese medicine, has surged, the UNODC said.
"The World Wildlife Crime Report 2020 has some good news and
some bad news," UNODC research chief Angela Me told Reuters.
"We see some shrinking in some markets, particularly the
ivory and the rhino (horn) market, but we actually see huge
increases in other markets, like the market of illicit
trafficking of pangolins, in European eels but also in tiger
parts and also in rosewood," she added.
The causes of these shifts are likely multiple and the UNODC
was guarded in identifying the forces behind illegal trades that
are opaque by definition, often involving poaching in Africa and
smuggling to Asia, where China is the biggest market.
For ivory, a supply glut combined with a shift in attitudes
because of the Chinese and other bans may be among the factors
that contributed to the fall in poaching and prices, the UNODC
said, adding that the price of illegal ivory in China fell by
more than half between 2014 and 2018.
The UNODC estimates the annual income generated by ivory
trafficking between 2016 and 2018 at $400 million.
Seizures of pangolin scales, mainly sourced in Africa,
increased tenfold between 2014 and 2018 as trafficking moved
away from pangolin meat, which was mainly seized in Asia. In
that time 185 tons of scales were seized, for which roughly
370,000 animals would have been killed, the UNODC said.
"They are now arguably the most heavily trafficked wild
mammal in the world," it said of the scaly creatures.