New tool to battle illegal trade in animals
Though the illegal trade in rare or endangered plants and animals is estimated to be worth billions of dollar, efforts to combat such wildlife crime are spotty at best. In many nations where the trade is most lucrative, there is little money to devote to enforcement, and punishments border on nonexistent. Those working to combat the illegal wildlife trade, however, could soon have a powerful new tool at their disposal, courtesy of Harvard University. Work is under way to integrate WorldMap, an open-source online application developed by Harvard’s Center for Geographic Analysis (CGA), with the Wildlife Enforcement Monitoring System (WEMS) of the United Nations University Institute of Advanced Studies (UNU-IAS). Once complete, the system will allow anyone — from curious members of the public to national policymakers — to map and track wildlife crime, and to understand how it is related to a host of socioeconomic data — such as ethnicity, income, and...