The Commission has adopted a revised EU Action Plan to put an end to the lucrative global black market in illegal wildlife trade, which contributes to the depletion or extinction of entire species and furthers zoonotic diseases.
date: 24/01/2023
Illegal wildlife trade is a driver of biodiversity loss, can vastly weaken wild populations of flora and fauna, and in some cases drive them to extinction. Wildlife trafficking also has destructive socioeconomic consequences as the destruction of ecosystems which can result from poaching and trafficking often deprives local communities of legal and sustainable forms of income. As the Covid-19 pandemic has recently highlighted, unmanaged wildlife trade can be a source of the spread of zoonotic diseases, with potentially devastating results for public health.
The EU is a hub for global wildlife trafficking and has a key role to play in the fight against it. The reported value of the illegal wildlife trade in the EU was a minimum of €4.7 million in 2019 but is likely to be much larger. EU Member State authorities consistently seize wildlife in various commodity types ranging from medicinal, corals, reptiles, birds, plants, and mammals. Since 2017, there have been on average over 6 000 annual seizures involving CITES-listed wildlife in the EU.
The updated plan announced in the Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 will guide new EU actions against wildlife trafficking until 2027, building on the 2016 Action Plan. The revised plan has four main priorities:
