Today, there is global recognition that poaching wildlife has a devastating impact on ecosystems and contributes to increasing corruption and financing other illegal activities. Driven by demand around the world, and using complex and sophisticated transport systems, the illegal wildlife trade touches nearly every country in the world. While its impacts are felt most acutely at local level, the stakes are global and the solutions require international co-operation.

Illicit trade generates billions of dollars annually for transnational criminal networks. Among the most sinister and most profitable forms of illicit trade is the illegal wildlife trade. The illegal wildlife trade is more than just an ecological issue; it can have significant economic impacts by creating disruptive imbalances in ecosystems for sustainable growth, and more directly on eco-tourism markets. Wildlife crime is such an ominous challenge that its reduction is designated as a target in the Sustainable Development Goals.

The chapter introduces the topic of illegal wildlife trade in the Southeast Asia, providing the purpose and methodology of this report.

This chapter provides summary of the key findings from the chapters in this report, and offers a series of detailed recommendations for government policymakers, international organisations and non-governmental actors.

This chapter explores the concept of co-operation and co-ordination among relevant institutional actors both within a country and in the international setting. Firstly, it examines multi-agency co-operation among relevant domestic agencies, secondly, it studies co-operation among relevant international stakeholders as a response to the transnational organized crimes related to the illegal wildlife trade. Throughout, this chapter also considers the role of non-governmental actors, including international organisations and non-governmental organisations, and their impact in countering illegal wildlife trade.

This chapter discusses domestic and international legal frameworks in place across the four focus countries and within the region. The chapter highlights some of the major gaps in implementation and effectiveness of a number of relevant laws and international conventions necessary to deter criminal syndicates and ensure the adequate protection against illegal wildlife trade and related offenses.

This chapter discusses the corruption risks that facilitate the illegal wildlife and institutional responses. The chapter outlines some of the national approaches to corruption and illegal wildlife trade in the focus countries, and offers several specific examples of corruption risks and vulnerabilities. The chapter concludes that there is a need to strengthen anti-corruption efforts to address the illegal wildlife trade in the focus countries, drawing upon examples of corruption cases for environmental crimes (such as corruption related to forestry crimes).

This chapter examines responses of national enforcement agencies and the international community to tackle illicit financial flows associated with the illegal wildlife trade. The findings indicate that most of the focus countries have not reportedly used anti-money laundering provisions or “follow the money” approaches to tackle the illegal wildlife trade. Financial investigations are an exceptional occurrence. Greater strategic planning and engagement with anti-money laundering authorities is necessary to determine if money laundering investigations are useful and what further planning, programming, resourcing and co-ordination is needed to ensure successful investigations and prosecutions of money laundering for wildlife crime.