Tackling Illicit Trafficking in Wildlife

A/RES/75/311View PDF

Who adopted this document and its mandates?

A Resolution of the General Assembly, under agenda item 14 Integrated and coordinated implementation of and follow-up to the outcomes of the major United Nations conferences and summits in the economic, social and related fields, published in 2021.

What other versions does this mandate have?

7 versions · 2015–2025

This is an older version — the most recent is A/RES/79/313

Year	Symbol	Title	Word length	Text similarity
2025	A/RES/79/313	Tackling illicit trafficking in wildlife	5,737	83%Compare
2023	A/RES/77/325	Tackling illicit trafficking in wildlife	5,356	90%Compare
2021	A/RES/75/311	Tackling illicit trafficking in wildlife	5,217	69%Compare
2019	A/RES/73/343	Tackling illicit trafficking in wildlife	3,906	74%Compare
2017	A/RES/71/326	Tackling illicit trafficking in wildlife	3,221	12%Compare

Which reports were submitted under this mandate?

5 reports · 2016–2024

Year	Symbol	Title	Mandate resolution
2024	A/79/699	Tackling illicit trafficking in wildlife report of the Secretary-General	A/RES/77/325
2023	A/77/933	Tackling illicit trafficking in wildlife report of the Secretary-General	A/RES/75/311
2021	A/75/953	Tackling illicit trafficking in wildlife report of the Secretary-General	A/RES/73/343
2019	A/73/947	Tackling illicit trafficking in wildlife report of the Secretary-General	A/RES/71/326
2016	A/70/951	Tackling illicit trafficking in wildlife report of the Secretary-General	A/RES/69/314

What subjects does this mandate have?

5 subjects

Covid-19 Crime Prevention Illicit Traffic International Cooperation Wildlife

What’s in this document?

44 operative paragraphs

Stresses its continued determination to implement fully and without delay the commitments undertaken in its resolutions 69/314, 70/301, 71/326 and 73/343;

Recognizes the economic, social and environmental impacts of illicit trafficking in wildlife, where firm and strengthened action needs to be taken on the supply, transit and demand sides, and re-emphasizes the importance, in this regard, of effective international cooperation among Member States, relevant multilateral environmental agreements and international organizations;

Urges Member States to reinforce their efforts and adopt effective measures to prevent and counter the serious problem of crimes that have an impact on the environment, conservation and biodiversity, such as illicit trafficking in wildlife and wildlife products, which encompasses poaching and illegal harvesting of timber, including fauna and flora as protected by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora;

Invites Member States, relevant United Nations entities and other international organizations to strengthen partnerships and cooperation to promote a holistic approach to address health and environmental aspects of wildlife trade, using holistic, all-hazards and One Health approaches, recognizing the interconnectedness between the health of humans, animals, plants and their shared environment, including through collaboration among the World Health Organization, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the World Organization for Animal Health and the United Nations Environment Programme, and taking note of the Berlin Conference “One Planet, One Health, One Future” of October 2019 and its outcome;

Urges Member States to take decisive steps at the national level to prevent, combat and eradicate the illegal trade in wildlife, on the supply, transit and demand sides, including by strengthening their legislation and regulations necessary for the prevention, investigation, prosecution and appropriate punishment of such illegal trade, as well as by strengthening enforcement and criminal justice responses and to increase the exchange of information and knowledge among national authorities as well as among Member States and international crime authorities, in accordance with national legislation and international law, acknowledging that the International Consortium on Combating Wildlife Crime can provide valuable technical assistance in this regard, including through supporting Member States in the implementation of the Wildlife and Forest Crime Analytic Toolkit, which is aimed at strengthening, where appropriate, the capacity of relevant law enforcement authorities and judiciaries in investigating, prosecuting and adjudicating wildlife-related offences;

Calls upon Member States to make illicit trafficking in protected species of wild fauna and flora a serious crime, in accordance with their national legislation and as defined in article 2 (b) of the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, in order to ensure that, where the offence is transnational in nature and involves an organized criminal group, effective international cooperation can be afforded under the Convention to prevent and combat transnational organized crime;

Encourages Member States to further utilize article II, paragraph 3, of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora by listing in its appendix III protected species in their jurisdiction that may become threatened as a result of international trade, and urges Member States to provide assistance in controlling the trade in those species protected under the Convention, including those listed in appendix III;

Also encourages Member States to take appropriate measures to enforce the provisions of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, including measures to penalize trade in, or possession of, such illegally traded specimens, or both and to report all seizures in the CITES annual illegal trade reports;

Calls upon Member States to review and amend national legislation, as necessary and appropriate, so that offences connected to the illegal trade in wildlife are treated as predicate offences, as defined in the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, for the purposes of domestic money-laundering offences and are actionable under domestic proceeds of crime legislation, and so that assets linked to illegal trade in wildlife and wildlife products can be seized, confiscated and disposed of;

Encourages Member States to make use, to the greatest extent possible, of legal instruments available at the national level to protect threatened species of wildlife and tackle illicit trafficking in wildlife, including through legislation related to money-laundering, corruption, fraud, racketeering and financial crime;

Calls upon Member States to integrate as appropriate, the investigation of financial crimes linked to wildlife trafficking into wildlife crime investigations and increase the use of financial investigation techniques and public-private collaboration to identify criminals and their networks, and to enhance, where appropriate and in accordance with domestic law, the capacity of relevant agencies, including law enforcement and financial intelligence units, to carry out and support financial investigations into wildlife trafficking, including the possible laundering of the proceeds of such crimes, and requests the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime to continue to provide technical assistance, as appropriate, to Member States in that regard;

Encourages Member States to harmonize their judicial, legal and administrative regulations to support the exchange of evidence regarding and criminal prosecution of illicit trafficking in wildlife, as well as to establish national-level inter-agency wildlife crime task forces and facilitate the exchange of evidence between the different government agencies to the extent consistent with national legislation;

Also encourages Member States to enhance their enforcement efforts, including through recording and monitoring both seizures and successful prosecutions, in order to more effectively counter and deter the illegal trade in wildlife;

Calls upon Member States to increase attention and intergovernmental cooperation, as well as to strengthen appropriate capacity for law enforcement agencies to monitor and investigate illegal online wildlife trade, collect and analyse relevant evidence, including by using digital forensics, and develop enforcement countermeasures, including, when relevant, by engaging in public-private collaboration and supply and demand reduction to establish strategies to prevent illegal trade;

Invites Member States to work in cooperation with relevant organizations to identify and promote the use of solutions that utilize technology, in particular in regard to species identification, traceability and authentication for forensic science applications to support criminal prosecutions, as well as the analysis and visualization of data to monitor evolving crime trends and patterns;

Urges Member States to increase efforts and resources to raise awareness about and address the problems and risks associated with the supply and transit of and demand for illegal wildlife products, including by improving cooperation with all relevant stakeholders, engaging consumer groups and tackling the drivers of demand, and to more effectively reduce the demand, including by using targeted and evidence-based strategies in order to influence consumer behaviour, by leading behaviour change campaigns, and create greater awareness of laws prohibiting illegal trade in wildlife and associated penalties;

Calls upon Member States to recognize the crucial role played by rangers and guards in the fight against illicit wildlife trafficking, in often very challenging conditions, to bolster and monitor ranger safety and activity in protected areas, to improve rangers’ working conditions and welfare and to provide them with decent wages, necessary training, equipment and institutional support;

Encourages Member States to increase the capacity of local communities to pursue alternative livelihoods in order to reduce the risk of illicit wildlife trafficking, and in this context enhance support for sustainable livelihoods in origin countries;

Calls upon Member States to recognize the importance of research to understand the root causes of poaching and illegal harvesting of timber, as well as market drivers, including the risks of increased poaching due to financial losses, especially declines in tourism and associated revenues, faced by origin countries in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the need to tailor research to the specific drivers of the illegal use of a species or product and to invest in tools, data analysis and funding to tackle demand for illegal wildlife products based on evidence and built on best practice;

Invites Member States to support the efforts of developing countries and countries with economies in transition to tackle illicit trafficking in wildlife, and in particular to adopt effective integrated policies against such trafficking, and to implement the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora by, inter alia, providing financial or technical assistance, supporting efforts to access funding through the Global Environment Facility and providing financial and in-kind resources for capacity-building activities required in this regard, including in the implementation of the resolutions and decisions adopted at the eighteenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention;

Encourages Member States and relevant United Nations entities as well as other international organizations to increase support to countries for tackling poaching, illegal harvesting of timber and illegal trade in wildlife, especially where the socioeconomic or fiscal impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic threaten the continuation of existing relevant domestic projects and programmes;

Encourages Member States to promote sustainable development in its three dimensions – economic, social and environmental – in a balanced, integrated manner, which requires a comprehensive, innovative, coordinated, inclusive and environmentally sustainable approach, especially to protect wild fauna and flora and to combat, with determination, the illegal trade in wildlife and wildlife products;

Calls upon Member States to ensure the full and effective participation and equal opportunities for leadership of women in the development and implementation of relevant policies and programmes addressing illicit wildlife trafficking, and further calls upon United Nations agencies to continue ensuring systematic gender mainstreaming into all policies and programmes of the United Nations system;

Encourages Member States to increase the capacity of local communities to pursue sustainable livelihood opportunities, including from their local wildlife resources, and eradicate poverty, by promoting, inter alia, innovative partnerships for conserving wildlife through shared management responsibilities, including community conservancies, public-private partnerships, sustainable tourism, revenue-sharing agreements and other income sources, such as sustainable agriculture;

Also encourages Member States to integrate measures to address illegal trade in wildlife into development policy and planning and the programming of development cooperation activities, and to further raise public awareness among individuals and communities to live sustainably in a world in which wildlife and other living species are protected;

Calls upon Member States to initiate or strengthen collaborative partnerships among local, regional, national and international development and conservation agencies so as to enhance support for community-led wildlife conservation and to promote the retention of benefits by local communities for the conservation and sustainable management of wildlife;

Strongly encourages Member States to enhance their support, including through transnational and regional cooperation, for the development of sustainable and, as appropriate, alternative livelihoods for communities affected by illicit trafficking in wildlife and its adverse impacts, with the full engagement of the communities in and adjacent to wildlife habitats as active partners in conservation and sustainable use, enhancing the rights and capacity of the members of such communities to manage and benefit from wildlife and wilderness;

Also strongly encourages Member States to participate in global, regional and national donor coordination to enhance communication and to avoid duplication of efforts as well as to increase knowledge-sharing efforts to enhance understanding and mobilization of bilateral, multilateral and private investments to prevent and combat illegal trade in wildlife in order to collectively maximize investment effectiveness and engage new partners to maximize the effectiveness of future interventions;

Urges Member States that have not yet done so to consider taking measures to ratify or accede to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and the United Nations Convention against Corruption, and calls upon parties to take appropriate measures to ensure the effective implementation of their obligations under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora and other relevant multilateral agreements, including by applying the international guidelines adopted by the Conference of the Parties to the latter Convention for the storage, stockpiling and disposal of illicit wildlife products and contraband, as well as to consider ways to share information with one another on best practices to tackle illicit trafficking in wildlife in line with those instruments;

Calls upon Member States to prohibit, prevent and counter any form of corruption that facilitates illicit trafficking in wildlife and wildlife products, including by assessing and mitigating corruption risks in their technical assistance and capacity-building programmes related to wildlife, by strengthening their capacity to investigate and by prosecuting such corruption, calls upon parties to implement all relevant resolutions and decisions adopted at the eighteenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, and requests the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime to continue to support Member States in this regard, upon their request;

Also calls upon Member States to ensure that legal domestic markets for wildlife products are not used to mask the trade in illegal wildlife products, and in this regard urges parties to implement and systematically monitor nationally the implementation of the resolutions adopted at the seventeenth and eighteenth meetings of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora recommending that all Governments close legal domestic ivory markets, as a matter of urgency, and close domestic markets for commercial trade in tiger and other Asian big cat specimens, if these markets contribute to poaching or illegal trade;

Strongly encourages Member States, through their national competent authorities, to enforce all necessary sanitary monitoring, measures and controls to protect human or animal health, in accordance with their national context and priorities, international law, where applicable, and best practices, with regard to segments of markets selling dead and live wild animals and wildlife products, as well as to detect and combat illicit wildlife trafficking;

Encourages Member States to facilitate professional standards and mutual monitoring programmes on supply chain security for processing or otherwise using wildlife products, to prevent the introduction of illegally sourced wildlife into legal trade chains;

Also encourages Member States to take measures making permit systems more resilient to corruption and to take advantage of modern information and communications technologies for improved control and traceability of international trade in protected species of wild fauna and flora in order to prevent the use of fraudulent documents in the international trade in protected species;

Recognizes the efforts of the Group of 20 in countering corruption at both the global and the national levels, takes note with appreciation of the work at its summits held in Hangzhou, China, in 2016, in Hamburg, Germany, in 2017, in Osaka, Japan, in 2019, and in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in 2020, as well as its development of High-level Principles on Combating Corruption related to Illegal Trade in Wildlife and Wildlife Products and of the survey in 2018 on their implementation, led by the Group of 20 with the help of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, and urges the Group to continue to engage other States Members of the United Nations and the Office in its work in an inclusive and transparent manner;

Also recognizes the efforts of the African Union and of the expert group for the implementation of the African Strategy on Combating Illegal Exploitation and Illegal Trade in Wild Fauna and Flora in Africa to prevent and reduce, with a view to eliminating, the illegal exploitation of and illegal trade in wild fauna and flora in Africa in a common coordinated response;

Strongly encourages Member States, in line with Economic and Social Council resolution 2013/40, to cooperate at the bilateral, regional and international levels to prevent, combat and eradicate international illicit trafficking in wildlife and wildlife products through, inter alia, the use of international legal instruments such as the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and the United Nations Convention against Corruption;

Invites parties to the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime to more effectively use the Convention to address illicit trafficking in wildlife, and to continue discussions on other possible international tools to combat wildlife trafficking;

Encourages Member States, where relevant and appropriate, to enhance cooperation for the timely and cost-efficient repatriation of live illegally traded wildlife, including eggs, consistent with the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, and also, where relevant and appropriate, to enhance information-sharing among national and international authorities on the seizure of illegally traded wildlife and wildlife products in order to facilitate follow-up investigation and prosecution;

Calls upon United Nations organizations, within their respective mandates and in line with Economic and Social Council resolution 2013/40, to continue to support efforts by Member States to fight illicit trafficking in wildlife, such as through capacity-building, and to improve cooperation with all relevant stakeholders in order to facilitate a holistic and comprehensive approach by the international community;

Requests, in this regard, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, within its mandate and resources, in line with Economic and Social Council resolution 2013/40 and in close cooperation and collaboration with Member States, to continue and to strengthen the collection of information on patterns and flows of illicit trafficking in wildlife and to report thereon biennially;

Requests the Secretary-General to further improve the coordination of activities undertaken by the specialized agencies, funds and programmes of the United Nations system relating to the scope of the present resolution, within their respective mandates and in line with Economic and Social Council resolution 2013/40;

Also requests the Secretary-General, taking into account Economic and Social Council resolution 2013/40, to report to the General Assembly at its seventy-seventh session on the global status of illicit trafficking in wildlife, including poaching and illegal trade, taking into account the trends regarding illicit wildlife trafficking as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, and on the implementation of the present resolution, and to make proposals for possible future action;

Decides to revisit the issue and the implementation of the present resolution on a biennial basis, next at its seventy-seventh session.

Who adopted this document and its mandates?

What other versions does this mandate have?

Which reports were submitted under this mandate?

What subjects does this mandate have?

What’s in this document?

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