London Conference on Illegal Wildlife Trade Concluded with Resolution to End Wildlife Crime

A gathering of world leaders and delegates Thursday at the London Conference on Illegal Wildlife Trade concluded with resolution by world governments to take practical steps to end the wildlife crime.

Wildlife crime is estimated to be a $19-billion-per-year industry behind only drug trafficking, the illegal arms trade and human trafficking. Endangered elephants, rhinos, tigers in Africa and elsewhere are being killed at unprecedented rates to fuel a burning market for goods derived from the animals in Asia.

Between 2007 and 2012, rhino poaching in Africa increased by 5,000 percent, with one rhino being killed by poachers every 10 hours, according to the UK's foreign and commonwealth office.

"Since 2004 the Central Africa region has lost two-thirds of its elephant population, and last year saw the Western Black Rhino declared extinct," the office said in a statement following Thursday's conference.

The UK-sponsored conference brought representative of 46 nations, including Botswana, Chad, China, Gabon, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Tanzania, and Vietnam, alongside the United States and Russia to stop the illegal trade in rhino horn, tiger parts and elephant tusks.

Conference delegates signed a resolution to take action to "help eradicate the demand for wildlife products, strengthen law enforcement, and support the development of sustainable livelihoods for communities affected by wildlife crime," the statement read.

Among the resolutions agreed upon are:

• Support for continuing the existing international ban on commercial trade in elephant ivory;
• Renouncing the use of products within governments from species threatened with extinction;
• Amending legislation to make poaching and wildlife trafficking "serious crimes" under the terms of the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime;
• Strengthening cross-border co-ordination and support for regional wildlife law enforcement networks;
• Further analysis to better understand the links between wildlife crime and other organized crime and corruption, and to explore links to terrorism.

In a statement emailed to reporters, Mary Rice, executive director of the UK-based Environmental Investigation Agency, hailed the conference as a meaningful step in upending what she called the "low-risk/high-profit nature of wildlife crime."

"This has been an unprecedented gathering, the first indication that many of the world's governments are really serious about combating organized wildlife crime," she said.

"Delegates should now go home and convene meetings with chiefs of police and Customs, immediately mobilizing the law enforcement community to gather and analyze intelligence and so work towards dismantling the criminal networks behind the multi-billion dollar illicit wildlife trade."

Click through to read the London Declaration signed by conference delegation.