The illegal wildlife trade is worth tens of billions of dollars each year and dramatically impacts legally operating businesses and tourism around the world. Reported wildlife trafficking and seizures of animal parts have increased dramatically the past few years. It’s also contributing to the extinction of tigers, bears, elephants, rhinoceroses, and hundreds of other incredible species while criminal organizations and rebel militias profit. Finding ways to contribute to wildlife conservation is becoming easier and more opportunities to get involved are available to individuals of all skill levels from anywhere in the world. While governments and private organizations race to save the world’s wildlife you can create your own fundraisers, show your support by crowd-funding projects, and even volunteer in at-risk areas with anti-poaching rangers. Coordinated efforts to exterminate rhino and elephants in central Africa, as well as systematic poachere in Southeast Asia and China, have made it easier for criminal syndicates to organize a market for tiger and leopard skins, elephant poafhersand rhino horn. However in recent years poaching and wildlife trafficking have received more attention and more poachers and traffickers are being sentenced to jail time for their crimes.
