Posted on February, 18 2002

A WWF report, Traded towards extinction?, released today uncovers the flourishing illegal wildlife trade in Britain and reveals that one million illegal wildlife items were seized in the last five years. This alarming disclosure came as WWF and TRAFFIC launched their Wildlife Trade Campaign calling for the Government to introduce stronger penalties to help combat the illegal wildlife trade in the UK.

The report includes the first full analysis of illegal wildlife imports seized by HM Customs and Excise exposing its shocking scale. On average HM Customs seized more than 570 illegal wildlife items4 every day � a staggering figure of over one million items during the five year period studied, from 1996 to 2000. However, over the same period the fines levied equated to just 9 pence per item seized.

Although the UK has some of the best trained Customs officers in the world, there are too few to stop the illegal wildlife trade. Once criminals get past Customs, selling some of the world�s most endangered species is not even an arrestable offence under current UK legislation, Control of Trade in Endangered Species (COTES).

�The report findings show that wildlife crime pays in the UK,� said Stuart Chapman, WWF�s Head of Species Programme. �We believe the seizures we are seeing are just the tip of the iceberg of illegal wildlife trade in the UK. Clearly wildlife criminals see the UK as a soft touch and it�s time the Government acted to change this.�

Traded towards extinction? found that even the most commonly recognised endangered species still make their way into the UK. On average HM Customs seizes items of elephant ivory or skin and tiger products every day. Other confiscated species include orchids, cacti, shells, coral, seahorses, birdwing butterflies, leopard and rhino products. Incredibly, even a live cheetah was discovered.

�Under UK law you can be arrested for poaching a pheasant but not for selling a poached tiger, elephant or rhino,� said Stuart Chapman. �Many people die in the front line for conservation protecting the world�s most endangered species yet in the UK we don�t seem to make the distinction between rare wildlife and a domesticated fowl.�

The report also analyses the enormous legal trade. It reveals that the UK is helping to destroy habitats and forcing new species into a cycle of over exploitation through its major role in Europe�s annual consumption of more than 20 million live plants and animals. An astonishing 96 per cent of these imports are taken from the wild.

In the UK 88 per cent of parrot imports were wild-caught, which dispels the myth that most birds on sale here are captive bred. Over the last decade the history of trade in the African grey parrot, Psittacus erithacus, which is commonly kept as a pet, has been a sorry tale of one form of corruption after another with many African countries exceeding their quotas. These exports equate to more than six percent annually of the total population, an unsustainable proportion of the 600,000 global population. This is only the legal trade and takes no account of smuggling activities, which could lead to a once common species becoming threatened.

Currently in the UK, tree ferns, Dicksonia antarctica, are a trendy garden accessory with over 140,000 legally imported during 1996 to 2000 to satisfy consumer demand. In 1999, the UK was the largest European exploiter of tree ferns taking 91% of all imports into Europe. However, an average of 12 illegally imported tree ferns were seized each day during that period. These prehistoric plants grow slowly taking up to 200 years to reach their full height of six metres and are ripped from old-growth rainforests wrecking wildlife habitats in Australia.

David Cowdrey, WWF Campaign Director, Wildlife Trade said: �We are losing the fight against wildlife crime in the UK. The unfortunate reality is that low penalties and lack of resources for detection mean that most criminals get away scot-free. Prosecutions are infrequent, court fines are low, this has to change.�

TRAFFIC International Executive Director Steven Broad added that he hopes the campaign would also create greater awareness of the UK's wildlife trade �footprint�. �This report shows that it is not just smugglers and criminals that are driving the trade but also ordinary consumers, legally buying products ranging from ornamental plants to caviar. We hope the campaign will help UK consumers think about the wildlife products they buy and what impact this might have on wild populations.�

As part of the campaign WWF and TRAFFIC are encouraging members of the public to write to their MP expressing concern at the UK�s current wildlife trade laws.

Notes to Editors

• The current maximum sentence for illegal wildlife trade within the UK under the Control of Trade in Endangered Species (Enforcement) Regulations 1997 (COTES) is only two years. The campaign is calling for this to be increased to a maximum of five years, thereby making it an arrestable offence. This would provide the police with increased powers to help crack down on illegal wildlife trade. In addition, the campaign is calling for the Home Office to commit to issuing sentencing guidelines to magistrates and judges on the appropriate penalties for wildlife crime to ensure that the penalties act as a deterrent.
  The Campaign also aims to increase awareness of the scale of the UK�s wildlife trade �footprint� � both for the illegal and legal trade.
• The definition of a wildlife item ranges from a tin of caviar to an ivory tusk, a traditional Chinese medicine pill or plaster to a rhino horn or even a live cheetah.
• Today, more than 800 animal and plant species are banned from international trade and 25,000 more require a special CITES permit before they can be brought into the UK. Globally, wildlife traders export 25-30,000 primates, 2-5 million wild birds, 10 million reptile skins, 7-8 million cacti and more than 500 million tropical fish each year to fuel the insatiable demand for wildlife.
• The campaign�s vision is to restore the balance between humans and nature to ensure that people's use of wildlife is managed carefully, so that it doesn't threaten either the wildlife or the people who rely on it. For further information:
  Anthony Field, e: afield@wwf.org.uk
  Maija Sirola, e: maija.sirola@trafficint.org