WASHINGTON – U.S. Senators Chris Coons (D-Del.), chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on African Affairs, and Ben Cardin (D-Md.), chair of the Subcommittee on East Asian and Pacific Affairs, led a joint Africa-East Asia Subcommittee hearing on Wednesday to examine the far-reaching ecological, economic, and national security threats tied to intensified illegal global trafficking of elephant ivory, rhino horn, and other wildlife products.

Wednesday's hearing examined major factors contributing to the crisis – including the involvement of illicit transnational criminal networks and armed terrorist groups, increased demand for illegal wildlife products in Asia, and weak enforcement capacity in source and demand countries – as well as agency plans to implement the Administration’s National Strategy for Combating Wildlife Trafficking.

Wildlife trafficking is “a multi-billion dollar industry, driven by dangerous and sophisticated transnational criminal syndicates and used by some terrorist groups to fund their operations,” Senator Coons said. “The scale at which these poachers are operating is threatening the very survival of some of the world’s most iconic wildlife. The loss of these wildlife populations, coupled with the security and stability threats of poachers and traffickers, is also having a serious impact on the economic development of many African communities that rely on tourism for revenue.” 

“Dealing with this issue over the long run will require robust partnerships at every level between governments, NGOs, the private sector, and communities throughout Africa, Asia, and around the world,” Senator Coons said.

Worth an estimated $8–10 billion annually, the illegal wildlife trade is among the world's most lucrative criminal activities, and increased demand in Asia for elephant ivory and rhino horn has driven poaching of these species to crisis levels in source countries across Africa. In July 2013, President Obama established a Presidential Taskforce on Wildlife Trafficking, composed of the State, Interior, and Justice departments, to develop a comprehensive strategy to address the issue. The Taskforce released its national strategy in February 2014.

Officials from two co-chair agencies of the Presidential Taskforce – the State Department Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service – testified along with witnesses from USAID and the State Department Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) about steps the U.S. can take to combat poaching and decrease demand for illicit wildlife products at home and abroad.

Noting that the U.S. is the world’s second largest market, behind China, for illegal wildlife products, the officials emphasized the importance of increasing domestic awareness around the issue, strengthening law enforcement capacity, and intensifying penalties for those engaging in illegal trafficking.

“While we are very engaged right now, and we want this to remain a priority for the years to come, addressing this in a comprehensive way is going to be a generational challenge, and we need to make sure it stays on the radar,” INL Deputy Assistant Secretary Brooke Darby said.

Fish and Wildlife Service Director Daniel Ashe discussed the Service’s efforts to create the first program for stationing special agents at U.S. embassies in Bangkok and Dar es Salaam in order to coordinate investigations and support wildlife enforcement capacity building. More support is needed, Ashe said, to further expand the program and grow the Service’s law enforcement ranks, which have remained roughly the same size since 1978.

“We simply need additional resources,” Ashe said. “I think liaison positions in U.S. embassies will be a quantum leap forward, as we have people in country that are developing direct relationships. As I think has been noted here, trust is a key element as we do law enforcement on the international scale – people share information with people they trust.”

Senator Coons was among a group of bipartisan leaders from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and House Foreign Affairs Committee who sent a letter to the chairs of the Presidential Task Force on Wildlife Trafficking in December urging the development of a strong national strategy and the full use of available government resources to combat poaching. A member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, he also supported the inclusion of the first-ever dedicated funding to combat wildlife trafficking in the omnibus appropriations bill approved by Congress in January.