Belt and Road Initiative may create new supplies for illegal wildlife trade in large carnivores

Farhadinia, Mohammad S.; Maheshwari, Aishwarya; Nawaz, Muhammad Ali; Ambarlı, Hüseyin; Gritsina, Mariya A.; Koshkin, Maxim A.; Rosen, Tatjana; Hinsley, Amy; Macdonald, David W.

doi:10.1038/s41559-019-0963-6

Cited by 28 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…That would set the stage for the BRI to plan and implement a network of protected areas and wildlife corridors that help meet, or exceed, the Convention on Biological Diversity's targets for protection and safeguard tigers from the impacts of roads (13). The creation of bilateral agreements that include provisions for reducing wildlife poaching and trafficking between China and countries that are part of the BRI would also lessen the impacts of that infrastructure initiative on tigers and other species of conservation concern (8). Another policy to minimize road impacts on tigers and other wildlife would be to require Chinesefunded BRI efforts overseas to ascribe to the same strict environmental regulations on road development that now exist within Chinese borders (14).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Road development in Asia: Assessing the range-wide risks to tigers

et al. 2020

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Roads are proliferating worldwide at an unprecedented rate, with potentially severe impacts on wildlife. We calculated the extent and potential impacts of road networks across the 1,160,000-km2, 13-country range of the globally endangered tiger (Panthera tigris)—a conservation umbrella species. We found that roads were pervasive, totaling 134,000 km across tiger conservation landscapes (TCLs), even in tiger priority sites and protected areas. Approximately 43% of the area where tiger breeding occurs and 57% of the area in TCLs fell within the road-effect zone. Consequently, current road networks may be decreasing tiger and prey abundances by more than 20%. Nearly 24,000 km of new roads will be built in TCLs by 2050, stimulated through major investment projects such as China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Given that roads will be a pervasive challenge to tiger recovery in the future, we urge decision-makers to make sustainable road development a top priority.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Road development in Asia: Assessing the range-wide risks to tigers

et al. 2020

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“…Bolivia as a substitute for tiger paste in traditional Asian medicines, as has been documented for the case of Surinam (Verheij 2019;Lemieux & Bruschi 2019). As China's international cultural influence and investments expand across the world through the Belt and Road Initiative, there are increasing concerns about its potential risks to wildlife overseas, and particularly to species that are used in Traditional Chinese Medicine, such as big cats (Farhadinia et al 2019;Hinsley et al 2019). Although the connection between Chinese foreign investments and wildlife trade still lacks supporting evidence, there are some examples of in-country Chinese demand for bushmeat and high value items like elephant ivory and rhino horn in several African countries (Cao & Cao 2015;Mambeya et al 2018).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Prevalence and characteristics of jaguar trade in north-western Bolivia

Arias¹,

Hinsley²,

Nogales-Ascarrunz³

et al. 2020

Preprint

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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.

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“…In Myanmar, a major source of illegal wildlife, road networks have facilitated illegal trade of mammals to border markets (Oswell, 2010). Proposed major infrastructure projects are expected to cause fragmentation of key landscapes, such as the Dawei Special Economic Zone road in the Northern Tenassarim Forest Complex (Helsingen et al, 2015), one of the last strongholds for the Indochinese leopard (Rostro-García et al, 2016) as well as Kopet Dag ecoregion along the Iran–Turkmenistan border for the Persian leopard (Farhadinia et al, 2019). Because development projects are increasing throughout many areas of Asia, it is imperative that measures are taken to minimize the impact that such projects have on leopards and other wildlife.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Big cats in borderlands: challenges and implications for transboundary conservation of Asian leopards

Farhadinia

Rostro‐García

Feng

et al. 2020

Oryx

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Large carnivores have extensive spatial requirements, with ranges that often span geopolitical borders. Consequently, management of transboundary populations is subject to several political jurisdictions, often with heterogeneity in conservation challenges. In continental Asia there are four threatened leopard subspecies with transboundary populations spanning 23 countries: the Persian Panthera pardus saxicolor, Indochinese P. pardus delacouri, Arabian P. pardus nimr and Amur P. pardus orientalis leopards. We reviewed the status of these subspecies and examined the challenges to, and opportunities for, their conservation. The Amur and Indochinese leopards have the majority (58–100%) of their remaining range in borderlands, and the Persian and Arabian leopards have 23–26% of their remaining ranges in borderlands. Overall, in 18 of 23 countries the majority of the remaining leopard range is in borderlands, and thus in most countries conservation of these subspecies is dependent on transboundary collaboration. However, we found only two transboundary initiatives for Asian leopards. Overall, we highlighted three key transboundary landscapes in regions that are of high importance for the survival of these subspecies. Recent listing of the leopard in the Bonn Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals is important, but more international collaboration is needed to conserve these subspecies. We provide a spatial framework with which range countries and international agencies could establish transboundary cooperation for conserving threatened leopards in Asia.

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Belt and Road Initiative may create new supplies for illegal wildlife trade in large carnivores

Cited by 28 publications

References 11 publications

Road development in Asia: Assessing the range-wide risks to tigers

Road development in Asia: Assessing the range-wide risks to tigers

Prevalence and characteristics of jaguar trade in north-western Bolivia

Big cats in borderlands: challenges and implications for transboundary conservation of Asian leopards

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