Quantifying the global patterns and trends of the illegal wildlife trade: from artificial intelligence to financial market analysis
Illegal wildlife trade is one of the major threats driving the global extinction crisis. Despite political will to halt the problem, the magnitude and scale of illegal wildlife trade have been relatively poorly studied compared to other threats affecting biodiversity conservation. Lack of data and complexities in determining illegal trade volumes and the availability of illegal wildlife products in the marketplace have thus far limited progress in research. The socio-ecological and economic drivers underlying the illegal wildlife trade remain unclear. The goal of this project is, for the first time with this extent and detail, to quantify global patterns and trends of the illegal wildlife trade and how market forces shape them.
The deluge of information from digital technologies in the ‘Information Age’ combined with the development of new artificial intelligence techniques will allow me to quantify the global patterns and trends of the illegal wildlife trade at an unprecedented spatio-temporal detail. Illegal wildlife trade is booming online and I hypothesize that Big Data mined from social media platforms can help identify which wildlife products are traded and to assess motivations behind the trade. I plan to combine such novel, geotagged and temporally accurate, information with other spatio-temporal datasets on law enforcement and human pressure, to identify the global hotspots under pressure from illegal wildlife trade and quantify the flow of wildlife products between these hotspots and the marketplaces in demand countries. I also plan to investigate how pervasive market forces underline the global patterns and trends of the illegal wildlife trade.
The proposed research will provide (i) novel concepts and methods for conservation science and identify (ii) species and areas most under pressure from illegal wildlife trade globally, (iii) the trade routes and flow of wildlife products; and (iv) the drivers underlying the illegal wildlife trade.