Sri Lanka & The International Illegal Wildlife Trade

By Vidya Abhayagunawardena –February 5, 2016

Vidya Abhayagunawardena

To Curb International Illegal Wildlife Trade Transiting or Exported from Sri Lanka’s Ports; Sri Lanka Needs to Introduce Legislations Enforcing the CITES Immediately

The Government of Sri Lanka publicly destroyed the forfeited blood Ivory on 26th January at the Galle Face Green, with the participation of the Convention on International Trade on Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) Secretary General John E. Scanlon who was invited by the President. This event received tremendous positive international publicity from both governments and the private sector. There is no doubt that this was one of the largest wildlife-related events held in the South Asian region.

We are all thankful to the Sri Lanka Customs for their excellent detection of the blood ivory container in 2012. However, Sri Lanka Customs were able to detect and forfeit only this one container of blood ivory, mostly due to the unusual circumstances of this instance, as the vessel with the illegal container was forced to make an unscheduled entry to the Colombo Port due to mechanical failure. Since then, although several other blood ivory containers transited under normal circumstances through Sri Lankan ports, they were not apprehended. This is due to lack of local regulations in place to properly enforce the CITES to which Sri Lanka has been a signatory since 1979.

Today the world’s largest illegal international trade contributions are from drugs, arms, human trafficking and wildlife. The report on Global Financial Integrity, “Transnational Crime in the Developing World,” finds that the illicit trade in “goods, guns, people, and natural resources” is a billion dollar enterprise, which most negatively impacts on the developing world. According to the United Nations Environmental Programme Year Book 2014, the annual dollar value of illegal wildlife trade is somewhere between $50-$150 billion dollars per year and INTERPOL estimates it is the third largest illegal trade by dollar value after drugs and guns.But we can argue that nature and wildlife cannot be quantified interms of monetary value as these are essential for the earth’s survival.

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