IATA: Nigeria, others profit from $19bn illegal trade yearly

Illegal Wildlife Trade (IWT) from Nigeria and other African nations, including Kenya, Mozambique, South Africa, Ethiopia and Angola, is worth $19 billion annually, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) has said.

The clearing house for 260 global airlines disclosed this to our correspondent in Dublin, Ireland, at its 72nd Annual General Meeting (AGM), which ended at the weekend.

Consequently, IATA and many of leading aviation organisations are partnering with governments and conservation organisations to raise awareness of the illegal trade with passengers, cargo customers and staff and strengthening communication links with enforcement authorities.

IATA said that the trade is also estimated to be the fourth largest transnational illegal trade, after narcotics, counterfeiting and human trafficking. For example, between January and May 2016, over 600 kg of ivory and rhino horn and over 8000 reptiles were seized at airports around the world, IATA said.

The outgoing Director-General of IATA, Tony Tyler, noted that as the trade association of the global airline industry, representing over 260 airlines, the body has two main goals – improving safety and ensuring sustainable growth of the industry. He noted that last year, 3.5 billion people flew on 37.6 million commercial flights and achieved an annual growth rate of 6.5 per cent.

The IATA boss disclosed that the first incident of wildlife trafficking began on October 31, 2014, when two passengers started a journey from Mozambique to Vietnam via South Africa and Qatar and an airline employee spotted something suspicious, leading to the grounding of the airplane at Johannesburg Airport and their bags inspected.

The search, according to him, resulted in the seizure of 18 Rhino horns (41kg) in their luggage, said to be one of the largest seizures ever reported in South Africa.

The second incident was in June 2014 with 15 passengers flying from Angola to Cambodia via Ethiopia, Hong Kong and South Korea. The aircraft was grounded for technical reasons and the bags off-loaded and were subjected to customs inspection.The result was the seizure of 790kg of ivory in 32 suitcases.

The group got six months prison sentences. The last incident happened last December when a cargo container began a journey from Nigeria to Laos via Singapore and the Island of Koh Samui. Based on tip-off, Thai authorities inspected the container and seized 700kg of elephant tusks and pangolin scales, worth over $1.1 million. The container was labelled as containing wigs.

Tyler noted that in 2015, 51.2 million tonnes of cargo were carried by the civil aviation sector. He, however, noted that this growth in aviation and the increasing mobility of people brings environmental challenges.

He noted that the sector is working hard to reduce its environmental ‘footprint,’ including the development of long term and robust climate action goal. Tyler said: “In the last 12 months, we have seen a new environmental challenge emerge – the role airlines can play in helping to reduce the illegal trafficking of wildlife.”

He stated that for instance, Rhino poaching in South Africa increased from 13 Rhinos in 2007 to 1,175 Rhinos in 2015, hinting that this equates to over three Rhinos a day.

Besides, he said that around 3,000 African elephants are killed by poachers each year. Tyler warned that if left unaddressed, poaching could cause the extinction of many iconic species including Rhinos and elephants in the wild within the next 20 years. With 10 per cent of Global Domestic Product (GDP) related to tourism, the extinction of species and destruction of ecosystems will result in economic impacts on vulnerable communities and nature-based tourism organisations, including their supporting airlines.

His words: “This criminal activity feeds corruption and violence, with estimated 1,000 park rangers killed in the last 10 years and has even been linked to funding tourism. Most people have never heard of the world’s most trafficked mammal. Over one million pangolins were estimated to have been poached in 10 years.