Documenting Biogeographical and Socio-Economic Patterns of Illegal Wildlife Trade worldwide

Currently, illegal wildlife trade is one of the greatest threats to biodiversity conservation. Understanding the causes that make some countries participate as wildlife suppliers or consumers is crucial to fight this criminal business in a more effective way. Using data provided by TRAFFIC, the wildlife monitoring network, the World Bank, the Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the Migration Policy Institute, we identified 34 supplier countries (exporters) and 44 consumer countries (importers). Our objective was to determine which socio-economic factors could explain the geographical patterns of 42 vertebrate taxonomic groups that are involved in illegal wildlife trade. We us…