This review comes from a themed issue on Environmental change issues

Recent reports of jaguar trade have emerged throughout Latin America, but, although trade is now considered a high-priority threat to jaguars, its characteristics remain largely unknown. We aimed to gain a deeper understanding of the status of jaguar trade in Mesoamerica, focusing on Belize and Guatemala. We used key-informant interviews to explore the pathways behind the jaguar trade chain, identify the characteristics and motivations of the actors involved, and investigate the drivers and enabling factors behind jaguar trade. We distinguished between concrete evidence and strong beliefs or assumptions, thereby highlighting key areas for conservation action and of uncertainty. Our results suggest that jaguar trade is present in Belize and Guatemala, although current examples suggest it is a domestically-focused and opportunistic activity, rather than an organized international trade. Key drivers included human-wildlife conflict, opportunistic hunting, Chinese demand, drug trafficking, migration, and tourism. The areas of higher uncertainty are the role of external actors and drivers, and of commercial motivations. The main legal and institutional challenges to address this threat include the lack of resources, ineffectiveness of law enforcement, animosities between communities and the government, corruption, outdated legal systems, missing evidence, the lack of mandate of wildlife authorities and safety concerns. Key priorities for conservation interventions and research to prevent jaguar trade from escalating in these countries are to invest in local communities living in proximity to jaguars, while also investigating the role of external actors in jaguar trade, which remained largely uncertain throughout this study.

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused huge loss of life, and immense social and economic harm. Wildlife trade has become central to discourse on COVID-19, zoonotic pandemics, and related policy responses, which must focus on “saving lives, protecting livelihoods, and safeguarding nature.” Proposed policy responses have included extreme measures such as banning all use and trade of wildlife, or blanket measures for entire Classes. However, different trades pose varying degrees of risk for zoonotic pandemics, while some trades also play critical roles in delivering other key aspects of sustainable development, particularly related to poverty and hunger alleviation, decent work, responsible consumption and production, and life on land and below water. Here we describe how wildlife trade contributes to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in diverse ways, with synergies and trade-offs within and between the SDGs. In doing so, we show that prohibitions could result in severe trade-offs against some SDGs, with limited benefits for public health via pandemic prevention. This complexity necessitates context-specific policies, with multi-sector decision-making that goes beyond simple top-down solutions. We encourage decision-makers to adopt a risk-based approach to wildlife trade policy post-COVID-19, with policies formulated via participatory, evidence-based approaches, which explicitly acknowledge uncertainty, complexity, and conflicting values across different components of the SDGs. This should help to ensure that future use and trade of wildlife is safe, environmentally sustainable and socially just.

Recent seizures of jaguar body parts in Bolivia have prompted concern about illegal trade to China, but a detailed understanding of this emerging trade continues to be lacking. We interviewed 1,107 people in a rural area implicated in the trade, using direct and indirect questions through the Ballot Box Method (BBM) to explore the prevalence and characteristics of the illegal jaguar trade and its links to foreign demand. Jaguar trade is a common, and mostly non‐sensitive practice; 46% of respondents reported some involvement over the past 5 years. The most common behavior was owning jaguar body parts, such as skins, fat and teeth for decorative, medicinal, and cultural purposes. The most mentioned traders were Bolivian, followed by traders of Asian descent. However, regression analysis shows that the presence of traders of European descent was more significantly and positively associated with jaguar trade related behaviors, ahead of Asian descent and regional traders. Overall, jaguar trade in Bolivia has more diverse actors and drivers than seizures may suggest. Therefore, conservation interventions, in addition to targeting demand from Chinese wildlife markets, should address other foreign and domestic markets and trade chains.

The COVID‐19 pandemic has caused huge loss of life, and immense social and economic costs throughout the world. Policy responses must minimise the risk of future zoonotic pandemics while simultaneously securing livelihoods and protecting nature, all of which are fundamental to delivering the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Wildlife trade has become the epicentre of debates on COVID-19 and potential policy responses, with calls from some conservation and animal welfare organisations for blanket bans on wildlife trade. Here we describe how wildlife trade influences people and nature in diverse ways (both positive and negative), with synergies and trade-offs within and between the SDGs. We also discuss why there is a need for a more holistic and evidence-based approach, which goes beyond the narrow focus of current discourse. We offer a simple integrated framework for assessing the public health risks of different forms of wildlife trade, and for evaluating them against other dimensions of the SDGs. We illustrate the flexibility of the framework by applying it to worked examples for different species and contexts. Our results demonstrate how the framework can guide evidence-based, participatory decision-making on wildlife trade, which minimises public health risks and secures other benefits to people and nature. We encourage decision-makers to adopt a holistic approach to inform national and local policy responses to pandemic risks posed by wildlife trade. Finally, we recommend that broader issues, such as land-use and climate change (and how wildlife trade regulations may alleviate or exacerbate these issues) are also considered as part of efforts to reduce future zoonosis emergence.

Illegal trade and human-wildlife conflict are two key drivers of biodiversity loss and are recognized as leading threats to large carnivores. Although human-wildlife conflict involving jaguars (Panthera onca) has received significant attention in the past, less is known about traditional use or commercial trade in jaguar body parts, including their potential links with retaliatory killing. Understanding the drivers of jaguar killing, trade and consumption is necessary to develop appropriate jaguar conservation strategies, particularly as demand for jaguar products appears to be rising due to Chinese demand. We interviewed 1107 rural households in northwestern Bolivia, an area with an active history of human-jaguar conflict, which has also been at the epicentre of recent jaguar trade cases. We collected information on participants' experiences with jaguars, their jaguar killing, trading and consuming behaviours and potential drivers of these behaviours. We found that the relationships between local people and jaguars are complex and are driven largely by traditional practices, opportunism, human-jaguar conflict and market incentives from foreign and domestic demand, in the absence of law awareness and enforcement. Addressing jaguar trade and building human-jaguar coexistence will require a multifaceted approach that considers the multiple drivers of jaguar killing, trade and consumption, from foreign and local demand to human-jaguar conflict.

No abstract

Recent seizures of jaguar body parts in Bolivia have prompted concern about illegal trade to China, but concrete evidence is lacking. We interviewed 1107 people in a rural area implicated in the trade, using direct and indirect questions to explore the prevalence and characteristics of jaguar trade and its links to foreign demand. Jaguar trade is a common, non-sensitive practice; 46% of respondents reported some involvement over the past 5 years. Up to 31% of respondents owned jaguar body parts, most commonly skins, fat and teeth for decorative, medicinal, and cultural purposes. Contrary to expectations, Bolivians were the most reported traders, and presence of Caucasian traders was significantly and positively associated with jaguar trade, ahead of Asian and regional traders. Overall, jaguar trade in Bolivia has more diverse drivers than seizures may suggest. Therefore, conservation interventions, in addition to targeting Chinese demand, should address foreign and domestic trade chains.