- Wealthier countries are the biggest importers of wildlife, which, more often than not, originates from poorer countries, a new analysis of legal trade data from a global wildlife treaty found.
- The U.S., France, and Italy are the largest importers, while Indonesia, Jamaica and Honduras are the biggest wildlife exporters.
- More than 4 million wild-caught individuals from 12 animal groups were legally traded across international borders between 1998 and 2018.
- The current system places greater responsibility on exporting nations to ensure the legal trade is sustainable, the study authors say, arguing that importing countries should share this burden and also contribute more toward reducing the trade.
Most live corals sold in the international market end up in the U.S. The country is, in fact, the largest importer of wildlife by far, a paper published in Science Advances found. France comes in a distant second, followed by Italy.
Indonesia, Jamaica and Honduras are the biggest exporters of wildlife.
The possible link between COVID-19 and the wildlife trade has focused attention on both illegal and legal markets for wild animals. One of the most comprehensive data sets on the legal trade comes from CITES, the global convention governing the wildlife trade.
What was clear from the 21-year data set: richer countries are the biggest destinations for wildlife, which, more often than not, originates from poorer countries. “We expected wealthier countries to be central to CITES regulated trade, what caught us off guard was how much more important they were,” said Jia Huan Liew, first author of the study and researcher at the University of Hong Kong.
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