It doesn't reach the figures seen in Eastern Europe, Russia and China, but in Italy too the exotic animal trafficking trade is worth as much as 2 billion.
The exotic species trafficking trade in Italy is worth around 2 billion a year. This surprising figure was released by Lav on the occasion of World Wildlife Day, the first global day dedicated to wild fauna and flora, established by the UN for 3 March.
New national and international tools are needed to combat crimes against exotic species, which cause serious harm to animals, nature and local communities. Lav is calling for harsher penalties in Italy for importers, and for the introduction of new offences covering the capture and trade of protected or endangered animals, plants and flowers, with sentences of up to seven years.
In the European Union, trade in protected flora and fauna species and their derived products reaches an estimated figure of around 100 billion euros a year. According to the WWF's Traffic organisation, in the early 1990s the international trade in products derived from wild fauna and flora stood at around 160 billion dollars a year, reaching an estimated 323 billion dollars in 2009, second only to arms and drug trafficking.
Animals pay an extremely high price for this squalid business: over the last 10 years the number of African elephants killed illegally has doubled, while the quantity of ivory seized has tripled (one kg of ivory is sold at around 600 euros per kg). In 2013, poachers killed 22,000 elephants. The world's tiger population has fallen from 100,000 a century ago to just 3,500. Poaching is responsible for at least 78 per cent of the decimation of Sumatran tigers (tiger bones are sold at around 900 euros per kg).
To put a stop to all of this, Lav is proposing the introduction into Italian law of two distinct criminal offences covering: the "capture, removal, possession, trafficking and trade of protected flora and fauna species" and the "illicit trade and trafficking of species parts, flora and derived products". Penalties should be increased and brought into line with the instruments in force in other countries, including European ones, which provide for custodial sentences of up to seven years' imprisonment.