City University of Hong Kong

CASE STUDY OF THE GLOBLAL ILLICIT

TRADE IN PANGOLINS
Author: 56650810
Word count: 1478

AIS 3126 International Political Economy

1 Introduction

Pangolins, a gentle and unique mammal with a long tongue and are wholly covered in scales.
They mainly feed on ants and termites, sometimes larvae. Unfortunately, such harmless
creature (since they are not men-eaters) is now believed to be the world’s most trafficked
animal (Aisher, 2016) and there is a strong reason to believe that this results largely from
the impact of globalization. Globalization has, in some way, facilitates the growth of wildlife
trafficking: One benefit of globalization is it offers a broader access to trade flows and trans-
portation but, by the same token, it also provided tools for traffickers to smuggle goods more
easily. Trade in pangolins is not only unethical, it also encourages crimes and corruption.
Funds earned from such illegal trade may be another financial resource for even more illegal
activities, for instance, drugs and cigarettes (Kösekahyaoğlu et al., 2018).
Yet, unfortunately, only few seem to care. Growing up as a kid watching National Ge-
ographic, I can rarely see topics related to pangolins are covered – it is only recently that
pangolins have started to receive more public attention. This paper proceeds as follows:
First, I give a brief background of the pangolin trade. Second, I talk about both the routes
and size of the trade. Third, I discuss the international conventions aimed at preventing
the illegal trade, focusing mainly on the five Southeast Asian countries which are the ma-
jor countries for illegal wildlife trading, and China as it is the main destination country for
pangolin trade.

2 Discussion

2.1 Background of illicit trade in pangolins

Although it is almost impossible to know the precise timeline of the first pangolin trade,
it is, however, believed that the trade can be traced back as far as 19th century England
where King George III was presented with a coat made from pangolin scales (Goode, 2015).
Continuing until today, pangolins are facing a high risk of extinction in the wild. According
to Sutter (2015), they were hunted because of their valuable scale and meat: Their scales
were boiled and sold in traditional medicine shop as a type of medicine whereas their blood
is advertised as a kind of tonic; their meat is believed to have a high nutrition value and is
considered a great delicacy in both China and Vietnam.

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2.2 Routes and size of the illicit pangolin trade

2.2.1 Routes of trade in pangolins

Figure 1. Route of trade in pangolins (2010-2015). Orange routes have been used continuously
five times or more
Source: Heinrich et al. (2017)

Figure 1 shows that traffickers usually use the same routes to export and import pan-
golins. From this figure, it can be observed that both Vietnam and China are the major
consumer markets for pangolins, followed by the United States. Additionally, Southeast
Asia is a primary transit hub for pangolins, fed by the great demand from China for their
scales and meats. We also notice that although pangolins are listed as a protected species,
it seems like it does not hamper the pangolin trade much; on the contrary, people still see
their scales as a medicine – even if there is no evidence to prove this touted medical value.

2.2.2 Size of trade in pangolins

Countries are classified into three different categories in the trade in pangolins: 1) Origin
country (countries that export pangolins), 2) Destination country (countries that import
pangolins) and 3) Transit country (countries that launders pangolins). African countries
such as Nigeria, Cameroon and Guinea are the primary origin countries, followed by China,

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Viet Nam and Indonesia. China, Viet Nam and Thailand are identified as destination coun-
tries whereas Viet Nam, Thailand, Laos and Myanmar served as transit countries (Heinrich
et al., 2017).
Sutter (2015) pointed out that about 10,000 pangolins were trafficked each year. How-
ever, note that determining a figure that is close to the exact size of pangolin trade is tough
because it is mainly based on estimation. Moreover, to our knowledge, it is difficult for us
to obtain an accurate data sources of illegal activities because it is done mostly in a clan-
destine manner and will ultimately affect the reliability of data. Hence, we can go for a
similar approach to that of the Annamimiticus (2013): Imagine that the 10,000 reported
cases were only 10% of the actual data, thus, we can assume that it in fact has a shocking
number of 100,000 pangolins that were trafficked each year. Yet, this figure might have still
been underestimated: The World Wide Fund for Nature (2020) suggested that there is an
estimation of 195,000 pangolins were trafficked in the year 2019 for their scales alone and
over a million of pangolins were poached in the past ten years.

2.3 Conventions aimed to prevent trade in pangolins

International conventions are opened for signature from countries all around the world.
They play a critical role in preventing not only pangolin trade but also the entire illegal
wildlife trade. For instance, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species
of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) has 183 parties in total and more than 37,000 species
(including both flora and fauna) are under its protection (CITES, n.d.). Pangolins, in partic-
ular, had the highest levels of protection under CITES. Aside from that, the United Nations
Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime (UNTOC) is also an important legal in-
strument in addressing wildlife issues. These international conventions had given pangolins
extra protection from poaching and illegal trading. However, we note with regret that these
conventions and protocols have not brought a desired result. For instance, as highlighted in
Chanllender et al. (2020)’s study, CITES had failed to secure the sustainability of pangolin
trade.
Notice in figure 1, most trade in pangolins is within Southeast Asia with Vietnam being
a primary consumer. In addition, Laos, Thailand and Myanmar (also known as the Golden
Triangle) are the golden hub for illegal wildlife trade and trafficking whereas Singapore is

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identified as a major transit hub for the illegal trade (WWF, n.d.). Thus, rather than drawing
up more protocols or agreements, focusing more and strengthening legal framework in these
countries may be more important and are urgently needed.
To prevent an upswing in the illegal pangolin trade, several conventions were signed by
all of these five countries (Laos, Thailand, Myanmar, Vietnam and Singapore). This includes
(ASEAN Wildlife Enforcement Network, 2016):

• 1973 Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and

Flora (CITES)

• 2003 The United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime (UN-
TOC)

• 2003 United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC)

• 2004 ASEAN Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty on Criminal Matters (MLAT)

• 2012 International Standards on Combating Money Laundering and the Financing of

Terrorism Proliferation – the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) 40+9 Recommenda-
tions

In addition, China, as the major destination of the pagolin trade had a Wildlife Protection
Law which came into effect in 2018, classifying pangolins as a Grade II protected species.
Yet, as mentioned by Hamley – a senior pangolin campaigner at EIA – there was, indeed,
one possible loophole. He pointed out that in China’s Wildlife Protection Law (Article 7), it
stated that "protected wildlife can be sold, purchase and utilized for scientific research, cap-
tive breeding, public exhibition or performances, heritage conservation, and other special
purposes" (Environmental Investigation Agencies [EIA], n.d.). Hence, the pangolin trade
may still continue by exploiting loopholes in legal mechanisms.

3 Conclusion

The illicit pangolin trade is causing pangolin – this adorable animal – facing extinction. As
is well known, supply is created because they are in demand, similarly, pangolins were traf-
ficked due to the significant amount of demand around the world. Countries such as Viet

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Nam and China plays a crucial role in the trade, whether acting as a primary consumer
market or a transit spot. Thus, these countries should increase enforcement by ways such
as strengthening controls and rising penalties. Sellar (2020) suggested that a fourth UN-
TOC protocol is needed and I agree with that: UNTOC as an international and major legal
instrument against crimes may attract more attention and thus help yielding a desirable
result.
Nonetheless, solely depends on conventions and agreements is definitely not enough as
we also notice that some parties failed to pass these agreements into law. Monitoring trade
flows around the world by recording the data inside a blockchain seems feasible. However,
blockchain is a costly project and it requires a large sum of money – not to mention the
difficulty of finding a creditable authorizer. To stop the trade completely, perhaps the only
way is that if the individual him/herself refuse to do so (including poaching, smuggling
and trading). We should reduce demand for any wildlife product, attend and organize
campaigns, stressing the government to do something – maybe writing a new common law
– we have to make our voices heard. At the same time, every effort must be made to fully
utilize existing conventions and agreements, only in this way can we achieve a much more
desirable result.

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4 References

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