The internet: A dangerous place for wild animals

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The internet: A dangerous place for wild animals

Post by Lisbeth »

2018-05-25 19:22

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An elephant poached in the Kruger National Park. (Picture: Tebogo Letsie)

From ivory baubles and leopard coats to rare turtles and live bears, the online market for protected wildlife is booming, according to an International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) investigation.

Experts from the NGO spent six weeks last year combing the internet in four countries – Russia, France, Germany and Britain – for advertisements hawking endangered animals, whether dead or alive, in pieces or whole.

The haul was impressive: 11 772 individual articles or animals in 5 381 ads spread across 106 websites and social media platforms.

Total asking-price value? Just shy of $4m.

More than four-fifths of the items were live animals, including a large share of marine and fresh-water turtles (45%), birds (24%) and mammals (5%), the report said.

And while it is possible to sell and buy certain endangered species with permits under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites), 80-90% of the transactions proposed were probably illegal, said Celine Sissler-Bienvenu, IFAW's director for France and francophone Africa.

"The internet has transformed the global economy, and illegal wildlife trade has transformed with it," said Rikkert Reijnen, director for wildlife crime at the US-based NGO.

"All those who profit [from] wildlife crime have moved into the online space."

Sought-after

Besides turtles, other sought-after reptiles on the black market include snakes, lizards, and alligators. Owls, birds of prey, toucans, cranes and other protected bird species were also on the virtual bloc.

The market for mammals is more varied, ranging from body parts – rhino horns, cheetah and leopard furs, and a pair of coffee tables made from elephant legs – to a menagerie of protected species, trapped in the wild or raised in captivity under doubtful conditions.

"Of the many threats to our planet's wildlife, the illegal trade of live animals and their body parts is one of the most inhumane," said Reijnen.

Most of the live animals were on sale in Russia, including big cats, monkeys, lemurs and at least one bear.

IFAW praised the "precious work" and commitment shown by major online peer-to-peer platforms such as e-Bay, which has trained its personnel to join in the fight against illegal wildlife trafficking.

But national regulations are lagging behind, especially for commerce on the internet, the reports said.

As a general rule, sellers – often connected to criminal organisations – know they are breaking the law, but buyers may be less aware.

"They just want some exotic animals," Sissler-Bienvenu said.

IFAW has forwarded their findings to national and international authorities. Similar reports from the NGO in the past have resulted in legal proceedings against both sellers and buyers.

Source


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SA’s wildlife cryptotrade

Post by Lisbeth »

29.06.2018

The South African-based marketplace for online wildlife trade is Africa’s largest. Roxanne Joseph investigates where this cryptotrade is taking place

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Here be dragons: We focused on the impact increased access to the Internet has on pangolins, leopards, rhinos and sungazers, a family of lizards endemic to sub-Saharan Africa. Photo: MG Kuijpers/Adobe Stock

A casual search of some of South Africa’s biggest online marketplaces shows just how easily endangered wildlife species are reduced to their parts – and how simple it is to sell them online while retaining anonymity. It will take far more than just a quick search to track down all the cryptotraffickers.

South African wildlife is already facing enormous pressures: habitat destruction, human-wildlife conflict, climate change and global trade. Increased access to the Internet for wildlife trafficking is yet another concern to add to the list.

Over a period of approximately four weeks, from mid-April to mid-May 2018, we conducted a small-scale investigation of three social media networks – Facebook, Instagram and Twitter – and half a dozen online marketplaces – eBay, Gumtree, OLX, Public Ads, Free Classifieds and Bidorbuy.

We focused on the impact that increased access to the Internet has on pangolins, leopards, rhinos and sungazer lizards, a family of lizards endemic to sub-Saharan Africa. Monitoring advertisements using keywords like “scales”, “skin”, “rhino horn” and “dragons”, we found 14 advertisements for animal parts – most for pangolin scales and rhino horns.

Only three of the advertisers responded when asked whether they had the necessary permits, either stopped responding altogether (and subsequently blocked the email address we used), or ignored the question entirely, instead responding with images and questions about where we were located.

It is not possible to be 100% certain if any of the products identified were what they claimed to be, or if they were in breach of the law. Further examination by authorities would be required to assess the legality of the sales, any documentation provided and to obtain information on whether the animal was captive-bred.

This is almost impossible to do if the person assessing the product cannot see it in person, and – as experienced numerous times over this time period – often there is no mention or evidence of the necessary documentation, and the product can easily be disguised as something else to evade detection.

Illegal trade

The International Fund for Animal Welfare (Ifaw) has been researching the threat that global online wildlife trade poses to endangered species since 2004. In its most recent investigation, covering a period of six weeks across seven African countries in 2017, it found 33,006 endangered animals and wildlife products worth approximately $10.7-million (R136-million) being advertised.

The study identified the South African-based marketplace for online wildlife trade as the largest in Africa; Nigeria is not far behind. There are a variety of reasons for this problem in South Africa. These include availability of specimens and lax legislation, and indicate a need for greater enforcement capacity. Internet users must also be better equipped with knowledge and understanding about the problem.

In South Africa, more than 8,000 specimens were found to be for sale. About 400 of these were live animals, and 322 of them are threatened with extinction under CITES Appendix I. The remainder are not immediately threatened with extinction but may become so, under CITES Appendix I or II.

The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (CITES) governs commercial trade in endangered and threatened wildlife, through the use of permits and certificates for species listed on its appendices. Trade without the proper documentation is illegal.

In the past two decades, it has become more challenging than before to distinguish legal from illegal trade on the Internet. This is one of the reasons why it has quickly become such a popular marketplace: anonymity coupled with simple evasion tactics make tracking the path a specimen takes from start to finish a difficult task.

There appears to have been a shift in recent years from online marketplaces to more private online forums – in spaces like WhatsApp chat threads and closed Facebook groups – and social media platforms.

Although sales don’t always take place online, at least one step in the process usually does. In Wanted – Dead or Alive, Ifaw found that a good proportion of sellers used social media as the main method of contact between sellers and buyers.

No matter how much research has been done, however, it is nearly impossible to measure accurately the scale and nature of trade across online marketplaces and social media platforms. This would require “scraping” – the process of extracting data from a website – the entire Internet, which is not yet possible.

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African greys: South Africa is the largest exporter of live birds, plants and mammals. Photo: Diana Neille

Access to data

One of the major issues faced when trying to track the value chain for commodities such as pangolin scales, rhino horns, leopard skins and sungazer lizards is the lack of access to data, which leads to an absence of interpretation and makes it difficult to determine how big the problem is.

Analysis of CITES data on exports of fauna and flora from Africa to Asia between 2006 and 2015 indicates the scale of the legal global trade: 1.4-million live individuals and 51 different commodities were exported. The analysis, conducted by wildlife trade monitoring network TRAFFIC, shows South Africa was the largest exporter of live birds, plants and mammals.

When it comes to legally traded wildlife, legislation allows a certain number of a particular species to leave the country, taking into account factors such as the species’ conservation status, trade and harvest levels. The problem emerges when more than the allowed amount is exported and when trade that could have remained legal instead becomes illegal.

Alongside the stepping up of law enforcement efforts, through knowledge-sharing and training, and the strengthening of national legislation, conservation NGOs are encouraging the online sector to force illegal transactions off their platforms.

In recent months Facebook, Google and Instagram have implemented warnings, stricter seller-buyer policies and links to organisations involved with wildlife conservation.

With the rise in online marketplace and social media platform policies, combined with increased data collection, it will be vital to monitor these implementations continuously and for companies and Internet users alike to report any suspicious activity – no matter how insignificant they may think it seems.

https://oxpeckers.org/2018/06/wildlife-cryptotrade/


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Re: The internet: A dangerous place for wild animals

Post by Lisbeth »

Scales, horns and skins: available online, all day, everyday

Increased access to the Internet is facilitating rampant online wildlife trade in South Africa. Roxanne Joseph investigates why it is such an attractive marketplace to sellers and buyers

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Cryptotrafficking: One of the ways to collect data on illicit trade is to use the search function on commercial websites and social media platforms, using specific keywords. Photo: everythingpossible/Adobe Stock

The Internet has revolutionised the way the world exchanges and consumes ideas, information and merchandise. However, it also has its drawbacks: the Internet has facilitated illegal trade in wildlife, with a devastating impact on animals, ecosystems and the communities who rely on them.

Online platforms provide easy opportunities for all kinds of criminal activity, including wildlife trafficking. One of the biggest challenges is distinguishing legal from illegal trade, mainly because items for sale cannot be examined in person.

Traders sometimes use code words to disguise illicit activity. And there is usually little, if any, supporting documentation to confirm that the trade is legitimate.

A big chunk of research into online illegal wildlife trade has been aimed at trying to determine if the Internet really is a conduit for illegal wildlife trade by looking at the scale of impact increased access has had on animal trafficking. Gathering this data is a challenge, but it is not impossible.

One of the ways to collect this data is to use the search function on commercial websites and social media platforms, using specific keywords. When it comes to the four commodities chosen as the focus for this series – pangolins, leopards, rhinos and sungazer lizards – relevant keywords include “trophy”, “skin”, “fur”, “dragon”, “pelt”, “tusk”, “ivory”, “scales”, “taxidermy”, “rug”, “hide”, “bone”, “meat”, “delicacy”, “medicine” and “live”.

It is more complicated than simply punching in a word and pressing “search”. Often traders will alter the description of what they are selling to evade easy detection. It helps to pay attention to alternative spelling, slang words and entirely misleading product descriptions.

The beauty, and the horror, of online trade is that it distances the consumer from the trail of bloodshed that results in that “miracle cure”, a new fur coat, ivory-coated trinkets for the mantelpiece, the “authentic” African bracelet picked up on safari, or that designer snakeskin handbag or pair of shoes.

Million rand marketplace

Most animals, their products and parts land up via online trade in Asia, Europe and the United States.

“The species offered for sale in each region or country varies greatly depending on the preferences of consumers,” according to a paper on wildlife cybercrime by Tania McCrea-Steele of the International Fund for Animal Welfare (Ifaw).

For example, sungazer lizards are popular in the Middle East, where they are considered status symbols. In Asia, pangolin meat is considered a delicacy and their scales are widely used in Chinese medicine.

South African-based traders posted the most advertisements during Ifaw’s research for Wanted – Dead or Alive: 718 in total, offering nearly 8,500 wildlife specimens for sale. Most of these were parts and products, not live animals.

The most popular online marketplaces included eBay (45%), Gumtree (13%), Classifieds (12%), BidorBuy (8%) and OLX (5%). The most popular social media platforms were Facebook (33 posts), Instagram (17 posts) and Twitter (two posts).

Crocodile and alligator parts, often in the form of clothing and fashion accessories, were the most traded specimens online, totalling almost 7,000 adverts. Ivory was next, with nearly 900 pieces advertised; there were also 161 live parrots, snakes (122 live specimens and 10 parts and products) and big cats, including leopards (56 live specimens and 39 parts and products).

The total value of the South African-based online wildlife market during the six-week Ifaw investigation was $3.9-million, or R54-million.

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‘Medicine’ from Malaysia: Pangolin scales are marketed as having medicinal properties by traditional Chinese practitioners. Photo: WWF/TRAFFIC/IUCN

Proof in the pangolin

What is it that makes the Internet so attractive to sellers and buyers? Answering this question is difficult because, as described in SA’s wildlife cryptotrade (part one of this series), data collection is a significant challenge. This is especially so because it is easy to stay off-the-grid and remain anonymous.

Illegal traders don’t need to be hackers or to turn to the Dark Web – content that exists on “darknets”, which use the Internet but require specific software, configurations and authorisations to gain access – to sell and buy live animals, their parts and products.

Hard data collection aside, it is best to turn to the animals themselves to understand the issue.

In just a decade more than 7,300 rhinos have fallen victim to poaching (see PoachTracker). With more people being able to go online from anywhere in the world (as of January 2018, approximately four billion people have access to the Internet worldwide), there is no doubt that at least part of the trade process happens online. At the very least, products are advertised online, even if the actual exchange of money and/or the product takes place in person.

Most incidents of rhino poaching were by poachers looking to claim the horn and, according to conservation experts, the majority of these horns are sold on black markets in China and Vietnam. While many of these interactions are likely to take place in the back alleys and dark corners of the world, the process has to start somewhere: a buyer does not merely show up at the right place, at the right time without first knowing how, when and where a sale will take place.

Pangolins are the most trafficked mammal in the world, and in 2017 approximately 15 tons of pangolin scales were recorded to have been placed on the market. In both Africa and parts of Asia, their scales are said to cure a multitude of ailments, as part of traditional medicine.

Although a ban on global trade of all pangolin species was introduced in 2016, the demand for these mammals has not declined significantly enough for them no longer to be considered endangered. These animals are sometimes advertised under “anteater scales” across social media.

Endangered species

Sungazer lizards are endemic to Highveld grasslands in South Africa, and are classified as “vulnerable” on the IUCN Red List of endangered species. Adverts on social media indicate part of their popularity is due to their dragon-like appearance – their biological name, Smaug giganteus, comes from the dragon in JRR Tolkien’s book The Hobbit.

Leopards are listed under Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species because they are vulnerable to extinction, and trade in their parts and products is only permitted under “exceptional” circumstances. However, a quick search reveals dozens of advertisements for “real” leopard skin products.

It is unclear how many of these are legitimate; in many instances, sellers are simply referring to the pattern of a product, as opposed to the actual material. That said, at least some of the products advertised are real, as indicated by the rate at which this species leopards are being wiped out across the country.

As with the other commodities, it is likely that at least part of the sales interaction takes place online.

This is the second of a six-part series, in partnership with Oxpeckers, on online illegal wildlife trade within and linked to South Africa. Research was funded by the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime, and support was provided by the Endangered Wildlife Trust, TRAFFIC and the International Fund for Animal Welfare

• SA’s wildlife cryptotrade


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Re: The internet: A dangerous place for wild animals

Post by Lisbeth »

Online trade: the devil’s in the data

16 August, 2018

Law enforcement agencies are creating new ways to combat online illegal wildlife trade. A centralised data repository is crucial to their success, writes Roxanne Joseph

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Behind bars: There are multiple sources of wildlife-related trade data available, with the IUCN Red List and CITES being two of the most comprehensive. Photo: bedya/Adobe

As of this year, more than half the world’s population is online and actively using the Internet. Although the reasons for web use differ, a significant portion relates to browsing, and buying and selling from online marketplaces.

Advertising illegal products itself is not against the law, which makes questioning and researching a particular advertisement important, especially when it comes to animals or their parts and products.

Given the difficulty in identifying and monitoring criminal activity online, law enforcement has had to adapt and create new ways of working to combat online illegal wildlife trade. This means a great deal of research, data collection, analysis and training in how to spot criminal activity is needed.

Also, because illicit wildlife trade often takes place between provinces and even different countries, anyone working to combat it needs a deep understanding of existing legislation, and what needs to be done – legally – about it.

‘Security threat’

Online illegal wildlife trade has quickly graduated from being isolated incidents to a “national security threat”, according to a national strategy handed to the police earlier this year. In response there has been a change in direction to mitigate the threat, alongside a more collaborative effort between government agencies and civil society.

Organisations like the Endangered Wildlife Trust (EWT), TRAFFIC and the International Fund for Animal Welfare are working with law enforcement authorities to provide a better understanding of what can be done to combat one of the most undetectable forms of criminal behaviour.

According to Ashleigh Dore of the EWT, collaborative initiatives have seen several successful attempts at decreasing instances of online illegal wildlife trade. In one case, collaboration with a group of law enforcement agents who attended an EWT training course led to the removal of 350 cycads from the illegal trade circuit.

The overall programme, said Dore, is aimed at reducing “trade-related threats that impact on the survival of wild animals and plants”. Her team focuses on five thematic areas: prevention, detection, justice, governance and use. The first three involve working directly with government law enforcement agencies, such as the South African Police Service and the National Prosecuting Authority.

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Global problem: Rhino horn for sale on Baidu Tieba, a Chinese social network. Photo sourced

Using the law

One of the major pieces of legislation that has had a positive effect in South Africa is the National Integrated Strategy to Combat Wildlife Trafficking. Approved in May 2017, it recognises the need for a whole government approach, assisted by the efforts of civil society.

Its three main objectives are to strengthen enforcement by actively improving efforts to stop illegal wildlife trade; reducing demand by raising public awareness of the harm and destruction caused by trafficking; and building global cooperation, commitment and public-private relationships.

Guided by this strategy, there has been an increase in investigative efforts by law enforcement agencies. This is primarily because wildlife trafficking has, in many instances, become a serious organised crime and tracking down syndicates is a priority.

Silo effect

Another challenge to the fight against online illegal wildlife trade is the “silo effect”, the name given to a lack of collaboration and information-sharing between police stations, police units, national parks, government departments, security agencies, the defence force and security companies. In short, these entities focus only on the areas directly around them and ignore what happens beyond that.

This is where the importance of data collection, analysis and sharing comes in. Considering the impact that a consolidated database related to online illegal wildlife trade could have, the concept makes a lot of sense. Collectively, law enforcement – with the support of civil society – can achieve more than interventions on a smaller, or more localised, scale.

If officials are able to share successful instances of identification, monitoring and prosecution, others elsewhere can emulate their processes. A consolidated, shared database will also help in cases of organised crime, especially when it occurs online. By encouraging transparency, successful replication can follow.

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Under threat: The species focused on in this series of articles – pangolins, sungazer lizards, leopards and rhinos – are listed on Appendices I and II of CITES. Infographic: Roxanne Joseph

Shared database

A shared database has three other major benefits. First, it produces better-quality data as a result of having to be rigorous and sufficiently documenting processes. It teaches users, such as law enforcement, best practices for working with data, including organisation, documentation, and storage and security.

Second, it creates open access, as it raises public awareness and, in aiding law enforcement and civil society, invites the average online user to gain better understanding of what it is they’re buying, selling or seeing on-screen. Finally, through each of these, it instills greater faith in law enforcement among the public.

Data sourcing, analysis and reporting are used by governments, civil society and the media to track and expose all kinds of wrongdoings, including online illegal wildlife trade. These are and should continue to be shared with Internet users – everywhere in the world – to promote transparency and wildlife sustainability.

So what’s already out there?

• The Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES): Nearly 6,000 species of animals (including the four we have highlighted throughout this series of articles – pangolins, sungazer lizards, rhinos and leopards) and 30,000 species of plants are protected by CITES against over-exploitation through trade. They are grouped according to how endangered they are.

• The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species: This is regarded as the most comprehensive, objective global approach for evaluating the conservation status of plants and animals. Nearly 100,000 species have been assessed to date.

• Wildlife Cybercrime report by the International Fund for Animal Welfare: The results of a six-week investigation into online wildlife trade in Africa, which found nearly 1,000 endangered and threatened wildlife species advertised across over 30 online marketplaces and three social media platforms.

• TRAFFIC: An in-depth overview of legal trade of CITES-listed species from Africa to East and Southeast Asia, over a period of nine years (2006 to 2015).

5. Oxpeckers Poachtracker and Rhino Poachers Court Cases data platforms: The former is used to find statistics on rhino deaths and poaching incidents in southern Africa, and its usefulness can be seen in numerous related data-driven investigations. The latter is a dataset, collected over years that lists information about rhino-poaching cases that have gone to court. Over a period of four years, nearly 1,200 arrests have been documented in South Africa in connection with rhino poaching.

These five sources have made data readily accessible to anyone who wants to see and use it, and there are several others out there. What the network of organisations working to combat online illegal wildlife trade lack is a centralised data repository; one that demonstrates transparency, learning and sharing.


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Re: The internet: A dangerous place for wild animals

Post by Lisbeth »

How to spot illegal wildlife trade on social media

Telling the difference between legal and illegal advertising on social media is difficult, especially when it comes to animal parts and products. Roxanne Joseph asks some of the questions you can use to ensure that you shop responsibly

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Buying made easy: Increased Internet access has made online shopping easy, but spotting fake and illegal products can be tricky. Photo: ipopba/Adobe Stock

Social media has fundamentally changed how we spend not only our time, but also our money. There are of course hundreds of thousands of places to buy things online, from the more traditional websites like eBay and Amazon to – more recently – social media platforms like Instagram and Snapchat.

The way we learn about, evaluate and buy a product, and interact with the seller, is now being mediated by social media, and companies and individuals advertising products are quickly having to catch up.

With increased access to the Internet, illegal wildlife trade is becoming rampant. At least part of the selling-buying process takes place online in many instances. It is often difficult to differentiate between legal and illegal advertising on social media, especially when it comes to animal parts such as rhino horns, pangolin scales, leopard skins and “exotic” reptiles.

The act of advertising is not illegal, but with the ultimate goal being to sell it can certainly lead to criminal activity. Law enforcement needs as much assistance as possible in identifying the people behind these advertisements.

According to a World Wildlife Fund study in 2014, 52% of wildlife populations around the world had disappeared since 1970; overhunting was identified as being a major driver behind this decline. For many species, such as pangolins, leopards, rhinos and sungazer lizards (the ones endemic and/or hailing from Africa), the study found that the illegal wildlife trade has quickly become the biggest threat because of an increase in demand across the globe.

Much of this trade does not immediately present itself as obvious, so it’s impossible to know how much of it is facilitated by the Internet and, more specifically, social media platforms. It is safe to say, though, that the majority of trade has at least one online component, whether this is through networking, research or logistical assistance.

Checklist

Before handing over your credit card or bank details, ask yourself the following questions when buying an animal, or its parts and products online:

• Is it legal to sell the product you’re looking to buy?

Are you, as the buyer, going to participate in animal trafficking if you purchase this product? Check first to see if the species you are interested in buying is listed as endangered, anywhere in the world.

A good place to start is with the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) checklist. All the species listed as endangered in some shape or form, and which fall under the protection of CITES, can be found as a PDF, CSV or JSON. The list can be searched by using the species, higher taxon, synonym or common name to which the animal you are researching is referred.

You can also look at the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. This provides taxonomic, conservation status and distribution information on plants, fungi and animals that have been globally evaluated using the IUCN Red List Categories and Criteria.

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To skin a cat: Leopard skins are a popular part of Zulu and Shembe traditional dress, although these are by no means the only groups who covet them. Leopards are listed as ‘vulnerable’ on the IUCN Red List. Image: Roxanne Joseph

• Has the product been listed on more than one site, and which sites has it been posted on?

Is the product you are looking at for sale on a website like Amazon, eBay or Aliexpress, or have you found it advertised on a website that has a misspelled name, a homepage that looks like it hasn’t been updated since the 1990s and a seller listed as, for example, PlanetJim88?

A legitimate platform will have specific policies and guidelines that sellers have to follow; one of these will include the prohibition of illegal products, services or activities (eg illegal wildlife trade).

Many of these platforms have taken significant steps forward in introducing and implementing clearly communicated and easy-to-find policies that explicitly ban illegal online wildlife trade. Some have implemented education-based programmes and partnerships, as they try to prevent the abuse and illegal sale of endangered animals.

Is the product you are interested in listed in more than one place? Often this is out of convenience and allows for more prospective buyers, but this can also indicate desperation and possibly illicit activity.

If the seller is struggling to sell the product, sometimes because it is obviously not legal, they may post on multiple platforms. Cross-posting also makes tracking down the seller much more difficult and if a post is removed from one platform, they can easily turn to dozens of others to get the results they want.

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Miracle cure? Pangolin scales are used widely in Chinese traditional medicine and are said to treat an array of ailments. These animals are the most trafficked mammal in the world and are listed under Appendix I of CITES, making them vulnerable to extinction. Image: Roxanne Joseph

• Has the seller committed self-certification?

Does the seller merely claim to have the correct permits and licences to sell the product, and have they done this to try to convince you, the buyer, that this interaction is legal and legitimate? It is not enough just to say that you have the proper documentation.

Many social platforms require the seller to submit a copy of the documentation in the process of posting their advertisement. If an online platform does not require this, it is safe to assume that either the sale is not legitimate, or the seller is not aware of the legal requirements.

• Is the relevant documentation listed and is it readily available?

This is important, but not always as simple as it might seem. If you are not law enforcement and especially if you cannot review the document in person, then you could easily be fooled into believing that a falsified permit is real.

This is why it is essential to go through a platform that follows the law; they can perform these types of checks for you, with the assistance of law enforcement and experts.

In South Africa, there are three main laws that impose criminal liability for wildlife offences. Anyone illegally selling products online (which includes failure to present the proper documentation) is at risk of violating these: the National Environmental Management: Biodiversity Act 10 of 2004 (NEMBA), GNR.152 of 23 February 2007; Threatened or Protected Species Regulations (TOPS) and GNR.173 of 5 March 2010; Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) Regulations (Government Gazette No. 33002).

To avoid breaking the law as a buyer, read through these first and make sure you understand what you can and cannot do, legally.

• How are you expected to make payment?

Is the seller expecting payment to be made through any method other than a credit card or legitimate online form of payment? Only companies and individuals who meet the proper, legal requirements will qualify for these methods.

Scammers and people who are selling something illegally might ask for cash, an EFT or for you, as the buyer, to complete the transaction through a third party, allowing their identity to remain anonymous.

Remember that if you choose not to buy through a trusted platform, then you should always make payment only after you have seen, assessed and received the product. This will make you less vulnerable to scams.

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Killing for profit: The illegal rhino horn trade has doubled since 2013 and is at its highest level in 20 years. Image: Roxanne Joseph

• Did the seller use any code words or misleading descriptions?

Often this is just someone trying to scam a buyer, but sometimes it can be an intentional evasion tactic. In some cases, the seller uses phrases that might be slightly misleading, or only partially true: for example, an ivory ornament without the proper permit might be referred to as a “rare trinket, made of animal substance”.

The term “ox-bone” has been a popular name for ivory products in the past, with sellers simply avoiding using the word “ivory” altogether. When it comes to pangolin scales, they might be called “animal-based medicinal treatment”, which is, in a traditional medicine context, true.

Make sure that what you are looking to buy is what you actually believe it to be before parting with any money.

• Is the seller insisting on remaining anonymous, and have they insisted on proper identification from you as the buyer?

This also speaks to the types of platforms you are shopping on, but it is important that a seller provides you and/or the platform with proper identification. The same goes for you as a buyer.

Legitimate sales on legitimate platforms will ask for this in most cases, but if they don’t you should reconsider the transaction altogether.

If someone is selling something legally, then they have no reason to hide their real identity from the person who wishes to buy it from them. The opposite can be said for someone who is breaking the law.

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Picture perfect: Sungazer lizards are highly prized, especially in the Middle East, due to their dragon-like appearance. They are currently protected under Appendix II of CITES, although the species is likely to be at a greater risk of extinction according to current population estimates. Image: Roxanne Joseph

• Tech coalition to end online animal trafficking

In recent years, companies like Facebook, Google, eBay and Instagram have implemented policies to prevent the scale and frequency of animal trafficking in the online space.

Twenty-one tech companies have come together to form the Global Coalition to End Wildlife Trafficking Online; their aim is to reduce it by 80% in the next two years, by implementing policies and processes that discourage and attempt to stop wildlife trafficking altogether, as well as educating people about this scourge.

NEXT: The role corruption plays in online illegal wildlife trade

This is the fourth of a six-part series, in partnership with Oxpeckers, on online illegal wildlife trade within and linked to South Africa. Research was funded by the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime, and support was provided by the Endangered Wildlife Trust, TRAFFIC and the International Fund for Animal Welfare


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Re: The internet: A dangerous place for wild animals

Post by Dindingwe »

Thanks Lisbeth, very useful and interesting.
Lisbeth wrote: Tue Aug 21, 2018 1:11 pm Roxanne Joseph asks some of the questions you can use to ensure that you shop responsibly
The best way to shop responsibly is not to buy any wildlife products, whether they are legal or not. I am against the trade in exotic birds, fish or reptiles, even if it is legal and if they are not endangered...


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Re: The internet: A dangerous place for wild animals

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Agree \O


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Re: The internet: A dangerous place for wild animals

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Dynamic data discovery: The future of detecting wildlife cybercrime

04.02.2019 - Cryptotrafficking, feature1, we-feature1 by Oxpeckers Reporters

Being able to identify transactions involving restricted species, and conversations happening about them, will assist law enforcement in the fight against wildlife trafficking. Roxanne Joseph reports

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Technical process: The Dynamic Data Discovery Engine is designed to build as comprehensive a picture as possible of how, where and when vulnerable plants and animals are transacted over the internet. Photo: Provided

The internet is used to trade endangered animals, plants and their parts, and more broadly hosts communities and subcultures where this trade is normalised, routine and unchallenged.

There are numerous law enforcement agencies and organisations working to ensure that wildlife trafficking is identified, prevented and prosecuted at every opportunity, but with almost complete anonymity, easy access and seemingly endless variety, the internet makes this even more difficult to do.

Detecting Online Environmental Crime Markets, a report released in January by the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime (GI), introduced an innovative tool called the Dynamic Data Discovery Engine (DDDE). It is designed to build as comprehensive a picture as possible of how, where and when vulnerable plants and animals are transacted over the internet.

If you were to type “claws”, “skins” or “horns” into a search engine, you would be met with too many results to sort through. The DDDE attempts to solve this by giving you results that contain only illegal transactions, or discussions related to restricted commodities.

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For sale: When we searched for ‘ivory for sale’ (based in South Africa), Google pulled up a whopping 1.2-million results. These results do not necessarily indicate illegal activity, and would need to be manually collected and narrowed down to begin to get a picture of ivory for sale online. Photo: Provided

To see what the DDDE was capable of, researchers Carl Miller, Jack Pay and Josh Smith trialled the tool across three case studies: orchids, pangolins and ivory. The intention was to identify as many URLs (the address or link to a page available online) as possible, and as precisely as possible, that were engaged in either the transaction of the commodity, or conversations about them**.

Case study #1: Orchids

Orchids were chosen as the first case study to test the initial data collection and analysis strategies of the tool. Researchers chose to focus on 14 websites (spanning more than two dozen languages) that are known to sell restricted species of orchids, and they identified words and phrases related to their sale.

They then conducted a process of elimination, trying to narrow down the results to contain as many relevant URLs as possible. Finally, they divided this into categories to determine which references were sales and which were simply mentions containing the word “orchid” and related keywords.

The orchid case study collected nearly 122,000 web pages from approximately 3,300 sites:

- Just over 1,000 were pages on eBay that mentioned a restricted species of orchid;
- These orchids were being sold by 10 separate vendors in the United Kingdom, United States, Germany, China, Malaysia and Thailand; and
- further nine different websites selling restricted orchids were also discovered.

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Test case: Some orchids can fetch tens of thousands of dollars. Once, in an offline auction, a rare orchid sold for $150,000. TRAFFIC, a wildlife trade monitoring network, found that tens of thousands of flowers are traded illegally across international borders every year. Photo: Pixabay

Case study #2: Pangolins

The second case study looked at the illegal sale of pangolins, and allowed for a smaller, more precise dataset. This is because pangolins make up approximately 20% of all wildlife trafficking.

Researchers started by creating an initial dataset, which they then narrowed down to results that only contained keywords pertaining to the illegal sale of pangolins and their scales, which are a popular ingredient in traditional Chinese medicine.

The pangolin case study gathered nearly 40,000 URLs:

- 5, 000 of them were found to be relevant to the transaction of pangolins; and
- Over half of these sites recommended or discussed the use of commodities containing pangolin parts in the context of traditional Chinese medicine.

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Scales for sale: Pangolins are the world’s most trafficked mammal, with an estimated 10,000 to 100,000 poached each year. It is impossible to say how much of this takes place online, but with increased internet access this is likely growing. Photo: Provided

Case Study #3: Ivory

The main focus of the ivory case study was to improve the ability of the DDDE to discover larger quantities of data more automatically. A series of web searches were made using the keywords and each of these pages was then put through a process called “crawling”. This is the use of computer programming to browse the internet in a methodical, automated manner.

Within this case study, the data was put through a rigorous set of processes, with the aim of creating a more precise dataset. Distinguishing between legal and illegal ivory, and between ivory and other forms of horn, bone and teeth was a significant challenge when performing this analysis.

The ivory case study found more than 45,000 URLs:

- Nearly 8,000 of these were related to the online sale of ivory;
- 40% contained more general commentary about commodities containing ivory;
- Almost 30% contained descriptions of ivory-related products; and
- Just over another 30% were related to the sale of ivory.

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Legal vs illegal: Ivory is one of the most sought-after commodities, but it is often difficult to distinguish the illegal sale of ivory from the legal. Photo: Conservation Trust

A limited, but powerful tool

Throughout these case studies, it began to emerge that the DDDE process was identifying not just individual websites, but in fact communities of websites that shared common vernaculars and interests, and that may be explicitly linked to one another too.

Researchers took the data that the tool produced and attempted to map different communities. In doing so, they hoped to provide a different way of differentiating between relevant and irrelevant activities and secondly, to distinguish between the different kinds of relevant activity that the DDDE found.

The data that is emerging from this tool is ground-breaking, and while there are limitations initially, the Global Initiative and its researchers have created something that will learn from its own processes, and become more accurate over time.

Being able not only to identify transactions involving restricted species, but also conversations happening about them, will inevitably assist law enforcement in the fight against wildlife trafficking. However, until the process has been more refined – and the data becomes more reliable and effective – researchers need to interrogate and conduct their own analyses on the information made available by the DDDE process.

** While the DDDE was able to collect more results than could be done manually, wildlife trafficking is an extremely complex issue, consisting of many legal, cultural and moral nuances. The results from the tool did not include only illegal examples; given the large number of results returned, it is likely that some of these were legal.


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Re: The internet: A dangerous place for wild animals

Post by Lisbeth »

Even if some of the transactions are legal, the numbers are impressive and very scary :shock: O-/


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Re: The internet: A dangerous place for wild animals

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:shock: \O


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