By Jon Godson, Assistant Director, Sustainability at IATA
Southern Africa is one of the world’s greatest refuges for rhinos, elephants, lions, pangolins, and other incredible species. Despite vigorous conservation efforts, their numbers are dwindling and wildlife continues to be poached and traded both live and for their parts. What’s more the trafficking of wildlife is often linked to transnational criminal syndicates, threatening national security and feeding corruption.
In 2022 alone, another 124 rhinos were killed in Kruger National Park, South Africa and rhino poaching increased by 93% in Namibia, the majority of which occurred in Etosha National Park.
In 2021 alone, at least 23.5 tonnes of pangolin, the world’s most trafficked mammal, and pangolin parts, were seized. Adding to this challenge, wildlife rangers are also targeted - 565 African park rangers have died in the line of duty since 2011, 52% due to homicides. Last July, Anton Mzimba, the Head Ranger at the Timbavati Reserve, South Africa was murdered at home in front of his children; watch out for the release of the inspirational movie Rhino Man about him coming out soon (preview here).
The ivory, horn, skin, and other products of poached animals are often trafficked through air transport. From February to May 2022, 66 rhino horns were seized, concealed in baggage departing Johannesburg’s OR Tambo International Airport (ORTIA).
Recent seizures have also shown that, while elephant ivory is primarily trafficked by sea, it is increasingly being trafficked via air.
In recent years, traffickers have developed more sophisticated routes and concealment methods to exploit air transport and move their products to the Middle East, Asia and beyond. Although baggage from international flights is screened for explosive threats using automated systems only a proportion of the scanned images are visually examined, so the scale of exploitation maybe significantly higher.
The illegal trade in wildlife can involve complex combinations of illegal practices, including trafficking, forgery, bribery, violence, the use of shell companies, and other elements that encompass organized crime. Owing to the complexity of the illegal wildlife trade, a diverse response is required in the short, medium and long-term, and at a local, regional and international level.
In March, frontline conservation organizations joined the private sector and law enforcement in South Africa in a conference to tackle illegal wildlife trade across the region. Attended by leaders from government, business, law enforcement and NGOs, the two-day event came hot on the heels of recent commitments from the US Treasury to form a US – South Africa taskforce to ‘follow the money’ and halt the illegal trade in wildlife.
Hosted by United for Wildlife at Timbavati Private Nature Reserve, on the western edge of Kruger National park, in partnership with the Global Conservation Corps (GCC) and the Greater Kruger Environmental Protection Foundation, Combatting the Illegal Wildlife Trade in Southern Africa promoted greater engagement and collaboration between non-profit, public and private sectors, highlighting the crucial role they could play in supporting wildlife rangers – Africa’s first line of defense against poachers.
The attendees explored the challenges facing conservation efforts in the region and developed new strategies to address these issues. In addition to live discussions with subject-matter experts across all facets of wildlife crime, delegates took time to swap their city offices for the bush, gaining first-hand experience of a ranger’s life on the front line of conservation.
Rangers led a number of scenario-led demonstrations, including an interactive demonstration showing how rangers, canine units and the aerial wing work together to apprehend suspects on a reserve. A group of delegates also joined rangers to learn the key tracking skills required to monitor and protect elusive and vulnerable local rhino populations.
Airlines can provide an additional source of both human and digital intelligence for enforcement. To date 79 airlines including 71 IATA members, have signed the Buckingham Palace Declaration on wildlife trafficking and IATA is supporting airlines with awareness raising, training, e-modules and videos. We have developed a wildlife reporting app with Crimestoppers International to facilitate anonymous reporting by staff with 287 tips being submitted to Interpol by airline staff so far.
We have also developed a wildlife certification module integrated into the IEnvA Program. I have recently been appointed as Vice-Chair of the United for Wildlife (UfW) Transport Taskforce, which brings together global transport and freight industry experts including airports, shipping companies, and airlines with law enforcement and other agencies to identify and facilitate action led by the private sector.
IATA is supporting global efforts to deploy the autodetection of illegal wildlife products being smuggled through airports. Up to four billion bags are scanned for aviation security threats each year, and innovative programs globally such as Project Vikela, Project Seeker, and the Australia-based Wildlife Autodetection project are exploring the use of these images in machine learning algorithms and training them to detect trafficked wildlife products.
The global R&D and deployment of wildlife autodetection takes a multistakeholder effort, and coordination across government agencies, wildlife authorities, law enforcement, NGOs, airlines, airports, intergovernmental bodies, original equipment manufacturers, service providers, software developers, and many others.
The power and potential of this technology has been demonstrated at recent workshops and working groups, and IATA are helping ensure that priority airports and airlines are providing feedback and closely engaging.
In addition, IATA are co-hosting, with the UN Office for Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and TRAFFIC, an Autodetection Working Group which aims to bring key stakeholders and projects together to coordinate global R&D and lessons learned.
Reusing AVSEC scanning data in multi-threat algorithms (going beyond wildlife to look for drugs, cash, tobacco, precious metals, smuggled meat, etc.) could be a crucial step in halting the criminal exploitation of air transport it may give us and our children a fighting chance of seeing currently endangered species in the wild, long into the future.
