Wildlife Trade Symposium: Evolving Perspectives on the demand for illegal wildlife products

Oxford University
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The Oxford Martin Programme on the Illegal Wildlife Trade aims to provide an international hub for interdisciplinary research on the illegal wildlife trade, and foster strong partnerships across sectors, particularly through its Wildlife Trade Symposia. Evolving Perspectives on the Demand for Illegal Wildlife Products is our first symposium to be held in Oxford, on the 25th-27th September 2017. The illegal and unsustainable wildlife trade is a major and growing threat to biodiversity, contributing to severe population declines. Annually, hundreds of millions of plants and animals are traded and derived into numerous products, consumed for different motivations and values, such as medicinal, food, gifting and cultural. The symposium will share approaches to better understand and address this challenge, present case studies to highlight the complexities of this work and how the consumer demand side of the trade links to the supply side of the trade, and offer opportunities to discuss practical and pragmatic possibilities to move forward. This three-day event will be an opportunity for people with a common interest, but from different disciplines, backgrounds and institutions to connect with one another, facilitating knowledge exchange, raising awareness of potential synergies and collaborations, and catalyse new initiatives and partnerships. Our symposium is aimed at providing a much-needed opportunity for people to work together more effectively within the wildlife trade field, helping to build a cohesive network of individuals and organisations and to bridge the gap between academia and practice.

  1. 11/28/2017 · VIDEO

    Evolving perspectives on the demand for illegal wildlife products

    Discussion and conclusions from the symposium, with, Ming Lee, Principal Investigator, Sun Yat-sen University, Wildlife trade issues in China and Southeast Asia, Bob Smith,Director, Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology (DICE), Naomi Doak, Head of Conservation Programmes, The Royal Foundation, E.J. Milner-Gulland, Tasso Leventis Professor of Biodiversity, Oxford University, and Rosaleen Duffy, Professor, University of Sheffield

    1h 2m

  2. 11/28/2017 · VIDEO

    Theme 3 panel Q and A: Changing wildlife consumption onto a legal, sustainable path

    Panel discussion on theme 3 of the symposium. With Deborah Hembury, Rachel Ash, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Lixin Huang, American College of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Anastasiya Timoshyna, Programme Leader, Medicinal Plants, TRAFFIC.

    35 min

  3. 11/28/2017 · VIDEO

    Traditional Chinese medicine and illegal wildlife trade

    Lixin Huang, American College of Traditional Chinese Medicine, givesa talk for the symposium on traditional Chinese medicine and common misconceptions about it. Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) is an ancient and profound healing art that originated more than 3,000 years ago. It comprises a number of therapeutic practices, among them Chinese acupuncture, herbology, nutrition, Taiji Quan and Qigong. All have long proven efficacy in treating a wide range of disease conditions. At the core of TCM is an understanding that the body, mind and human spirit are integrally connected, and that restoring and maintaining energetic balance are essential to health and well-being. What the Chinese people discovered through practical experience over many centuries is increasing being validated by modern science and medicine. Acupuncture and TCM has been practiced side-by-side with western medicine in China since 1960s. In US, many large hospitals have Chinese acupuncture to treat pain and various medical conditions. According to the World Federation of Chinese Medicine Societies (WFCMS), TCM doctors and practitioners provide medical services to their people in over eighty countries. China’s relationship with medicinal animals and plants spans at least 2,000 years. In ancient times, TCM healers lived in local villages and treated local people with medicinal animals and plants with little to no challenges. However, today, our world has an ever-growing human population with the biggest demand for natural resources yet. Among users of Chinese herbal medicine (the largest component of TCM), there are two major groups of users. The first being patients receiving prescriptions from TCM doctors with medical diagnosis; and the other being consumers purchasing products for traditional food therapies as 'nutrition' and/or as gifts from legal and illegal markets without medical advise from TCM doctors. To address the illegal wildlife trade, we need to understand the differences between the two consumer groups and to work together with the TCM medical profession in developing effective strategies to intervene and change consumers’ behaviour.

    23 min

  4. 11/28/2017 · VIDEO

    Human and conservation benefits through sustainable trade in wild plants

    Anastasiya Timoshyna, Programme Leader, Medicinal Plants, TRAFFIC, gives a talk for the symposium on her research on sustainable wildlife trade. Wild plants are used in products consumed daily around the world, including food, medicines and cosmetics, often as ‘hidden ingredients’ that consumers and companies are unaware of due to the complexity of trade chains. This trade contributes to the livelihoods of millions of people, but many of the plant species used are under pressure from unsustainable harvesting and all too often the economic benefits are inequitably shared. Best practices for verifying wild collection sustainability are available, for example the FairWild Standard. Its implementation as a certification scheme (in India, Zimbabwe, Kazakhstan, Poland among others), as well as the best practice by industry (for example with the traditional Chinese medicine manufacturers and traders), and for policy frameworks by governments provide lessons learnt around the impacts of this work on trade chains. Looking into the future, a number of interventions are required to create a significant change in this business and to have an impact on the number of species and volume of wild-collected material in trade. These include a combination of increased incentives and pathways for businesses, communities and consumers to engage in responsible trade practices.

    24 min

  5. 11/28/2017 · VIDEO

    Theme 2 panel Q and A: Linking supply and demand for wildlife products

    Panel discussion looking at theme 2 of the symposium. With Professor David Macdonald, founding Director of the Wildlife Conservation Research Unit (WildCRU), Hollie Booth, Sharks and Rays Advisor, SE Asia Archipelago, WCS Indonesia, Michael ‘t Sas-Rolfes, fellow of the Oxford Martin Programme on Illegal Wildlife Trade, and P Siriwat, Oxford Brookes University

    27 min

  6. 11/28/2017 · VIDEO

    Theme 1 panel Q and A: Diverse approaches to illegal wildlife trade research

    Panel discussion looking at the first theme's panel. With Kelly Malsch, Head of Species Programme, UNEP WCMC, Steven Broad, Executive Director, TRAFFIC, Elizabeth Davis and Joss Wright, Senior Research Fellow, Oxford Internet Institute, Oxford University.

    24 min

  7. 11/28/2017 · VIDEO

    Down to the bone: South Africa’s lion trade conundrum

    Michael 't Sas-Rolfes, fellow of the Oxford Martin Programme on Illegal Wildlife Trade, gives a talk for the symposium on his research on South Africa's lion trade. Worldwide, wild populations of large felids are threatened by various factors, including harvesting for illegal wildlife trade. For certain species, such as the African lion, some legal harvesting and trade also takes place. Several African countries allow regulated commercial trophy hunting and South Africa allows the sale and export of lion body parts, notably lion bones, from captive-bred lions. Some believe that these continued commercial activities threaten wild lions, and even other felids, and must be banned altogether. Others disagree, warning that poorly conceived regulatory interventions can lead to accelerated uncontrollable illegal activity, as appears to have happened in cases involving other taxa. At last year’s CITES Conference of Parties, South Africa agreed to establish a variable annual quota of lion skeleton exports, subject to ongoing monitoring of potential impacts on wild lion populations. Given that it provides a potential window into illegal markets, monitoring of this legal trade presents a unique opportunity for novel wildlife trade research. However, it also presents South Africa with a conundrum, following the confounding effects of a 2016 US ban on lion trophy imports that originate from captive-bred animals. This presentation will discuss these opportunities and challenges associated with this controversial wildlife trade issue.

    17 min

  8. 11/28/2017 · VIDEO

    Not by legality alone: Addressing shark overexploitation in Indonesia

    Hollie Booth, Sharks and Rays Advisor, SE Asia Archipelago, WCS Indonesia, gives a talk for the symposium on her research in Indonesia and the overexploitation of sharks. With rapid global expansion of fishing and trade in recent decades, coupled with conservative life history strategies making them particularly vulnerable to overfishing, sharks and rays are now one of the most threatened species groups in the world. Indonesia is at the heart of the coral triangle: the global centre of marine biodiversity. It is also the world’s largest shark fishery. For these reasons, Indonesia has been identified as a global geographic priority for conserving sharks and rays, including several species recently listed on CITES Appendix II. There is considerable momentum within Indonesia to improve conservation and management of sharks and rays, and The Wildlife Conservation Society is currently developing a cross-cutting program of work, which seeks to address the overexploitation of sharks and rays with multi-faceted interventions from point of supply to point of demand. However, implementing practical conservation measures in a country as large, diverse and under-resourced as Indonesia is incredibly challenging. This presentation explores findings from WCS Indonesia’s applied research and practical experiences to illustrate the complexity of shark conservation and the need for multi-faceted approaches that go beyond CITES listings and legality.

    20 min
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About

The Oxford Martin Programme on the Illegal Wildlife Trade aims to provide an international hub for interdisciplinary research on the illegal wildlife trade, and foster strong partnerships across sectors, particularly through its Wildlife Trade Symposia. Evolving Perspectives on the Demand for Illegal Wildlife Products is our first symposium to be held in Oxford, on the 25th-27th September 2017. The illegal and unsustainable wildlife trade is a major and growing threat to biodiversity, contributing to severe population declines. Annually, hundreds of millions of plants and animals are traded and derived into numerous products, consumed for different motivations and values, such as medicinal, food, gifting and cultural. The symposium will share approaches to better understand and address this challenge, present case studies to highlight the complexities of this work and how the consumer demand side of the trade links to the supply side of the trade, and offer opportunities to discuss practical and pragmatic possibilities to move forward. This three-day event will be an opportunity for people with a common interest, but from different disciplines, backgrounds and institutions to connect with one another, facilitating knowledge exchange, raising awareness of potential synergies and collaborations, and catalyse new initiatives and partnerships. Our symposium is aimed at providing a much-needed opportunity for people to work together more effectively within the wildlife trade field, helping to build a cohesive network of individuals and organisations and to bridge the gap between academia and practice.

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