International Wildlife Trade - Science & Training
Every year, millions of plants and animals are traded internationally. To protect species from over exploitation and extinction, we must closely monitor and regulate this trade.
If you’re interested in joining my Wildlife Trade Data & Interpretation Workshops, click here and I’ll send you more information.
UPDATE: I recently produced this Identification Guide to Tortoises & Freshwater Turtles for the CITES Secretariat.
The purpose of this guidebook is to support the work of customs and wildlife trade enforcement officers anywhere in the world. Many wildlife parts and products are difficult to recognize and I hope this improves regulation and monitoring to ensure trade is legal & sustainable.
To protect species from over exploitation and extinction, we need to closely monitor and regulate this trade. But first, you must understand the the trade regulation processes, the laws and policies that are enforced, and the language of wildlife trade data. I enjoy providing training to diverse audiences in all of these topics.
This is my area of expertise, which I developed over the course of 10 years as a Wildlife Inspector and CITES Specialist for the US Fish and Wildlife Service. Part of my role was to create and curate these data, and help translate them into outreach materials.
I now work as a consultant to help governments, academic researchers, NGO’s, and stakeholders understand international wildlife trade processes and analyze these data to improve compliance and sustainability. Most of these data originate in either the USFWS LEMIS database or the CITES wildlife trade database and can answer questions such as:
What data elements are recorded as wildlife is imported & exported?
What are the most common wildlife species & products illegally traded by the USA?
How many animals are imported into the USA without disease screening?
Is the level of trade in certain species increasing or decreasing?
Which kinds of wildlife trade violations occur most frequently?
Do certain species warrant changes in trade or conservation policies?
Some of these fundamental questions are much more complex to accurately answer than they first appear. I’m interested in providing consultancies in this dynamic field of research at the intersection of conservation science, sustainability, and policy. The personal experience I gained by physically handling these shipments as a law enforcement officer allows me to provide you with deeper insight about these activities than just looking at data number and codes in a spreadsheet. Instead, I can also tell you the stories they represent and recreate the chain of events that occurred.
Recent clients include:
The United Nations Environment Programme
The U.S. Department of the Interior
Harvard Law School
TRAFFIC
CITES
The Art Institute of Chicago
Defenders of Wildlife
Humane Society International
Various academic researchers
