Internet companies take on wildlife trafficking

Over the past year, internet giants, including Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent and 21 other internet companies worldwide, have been committed to ending online wildlife trafficking in China and their efforts are showing success.

Information on about 1 million illegal products online was deleted, with over 10 million online illegal advertisements blocked, and 350,000 online illegal accounts removed, according to a report released at a ceremony marking the first anniversary of an internet coalition on Wednesday.

The Coalition to End Wildlife Trafficking Online was established originally by 21 internet companies from North America, Asia, and Africa on March 7 last year. The coalition is the first of its kind. Three more companies joined the coalition in the past year.

In addition, 129 people suspected of being involved in the illegal wildlife trade were arrested and over 18 million yuan ($2.7 million) in illicit money was confiscated, the report said.

Wu Zhimin, director of the Wildlife Conservation Department of National Forestry and Grassland Administration, said that illegally trading endangered wildlife online is a new global challenge that requires collaborations from governments, related business and all aspects of society.

“With the development of e-commerce and social media platforms, China’s internet industry has become an important force in combating cyber crime and conserving endangered wildlife at home and abroad,” he said.

“The coalition has set an ambitious, yet bold goal of working to reduce wildlife trafficking online by 80 percent by 2020. We need more industry players to join the coalition to fight against wildlife trafficking online," said Jason Bell, the International Fund for Animal Welfare's vice-president for Conservation and Animal Welfare.

“Detecting the sale of illegal wildlife products on social media platforms is now extremely difficult because traders started moving to the social media platforms that can reach millions of people, for example, like WeChat. So Tencent is an important part of this coalition that they have to really try hard to detect and recognize,” he added.

The anniversary was jointly held by the World Wildlife Fund, International Fund for Animal Welfare, China Wildlife Conservation Association and 32 global internet companies.

Eight new members joined the coalition on Wednesday, including Sina Weibo, Sogou Search, Han Tang Collection, artron.net, gucn.com, Gui You Tian Xia from China, Kupatana from Tanzania and Sapo from Vietnam.