The global trade in illegal wildlife has seen an unprecedented spike in the past two decades, and the figures are frightening: According to some estimates, 100 elephants are slaughtered each day for their tusks. In an average year, more than 100 million sharks are killed for their fins. Rhino poaching increased by 5,000 percent between 2007 and 2012.
Another sobering statistic tells us that today there are more Bengalese tigers in Texas than in the Bay of Bengal.
Since the 1990s, the illegal trade in animals and animal parts has doubled to a $10 billion-a-year industry. The World Wildlife Fund calls it the “largest direct threat to the future of many of the world’s most threatened species.”
Statistics like these drove the U.K. government to host the London Conference on the Illegal Wildlife Trade. Among the high-profile guests were Britain's Prince Charles and Prince William, who urge world leaders to mobilize against this illicit trade. By the end of the conference forty-six countries agreed to tackle the problem. Environmentalist hailed it as a landmark achievement.
Patrick Brown is a documentary photographer, based in Thailand, who has spent a decade investigating the shady underworld of this illicit industry. His project, "Trading to Extinction," was published to coincide with the London conference. While some of his pictures are hard to stomach, they illuminate dark, hidden aspects of the illegal animal trade.
“I’ve seen all kinds of things,” said Brown, “from the shops to the traders to the poachers to the aftermath of the poaching … pretty much all the aspects of the animal trade. It goes deep into the society.”
Brown encourages people to think carefully about the animals and products they buy. What may seem innocent, like a pretty bird to keep as a pet, or an exotic meal at a fish restaurant, could contribute to the illegal animal trade.
“It’s an enormous global operation that pretty much everyone in society around the world are connected to in some way or other,” said Brown.
The illegal wildlife trade was not a known entity when Brown started documenting it. He notes that U.S. government agents accidentally stumbled upon a huge illicit trade network while investigating Asian smuggling rings after September 11, 2001.
“Nobody really knows the true size of it. I’ve seen figures from $6 billion to $25 billion, but that doesn’t include timber and fish,” said Brown. “Amazingly enough, the most poached creatures on earth are fish.”
As they start to grasp the grave implications of these rising numbers, governments and NGOs are grappling with how to address the problem effectively. After 10 years documenting the industry, Brown has some of his own ideas, and suggests a two-tiered approach.
First, he believes that NGOs and non-profits play a vital role in changing perceptions around the illicit animal trade. However, he sees a contradiction between the breathtakingly beautiful animal pictures NGOs display on their websites and stark realities, such as the fact that this year alone 22,000 elephants have been killed for their tusks.
“I’ve documented this trade for 10 years -- a decade -- and I’ve tried my dearest, my hardest, to photograph a wild tiger, and I’ve not seen a tiger,” said Brown. “However, I’ve seen literally hundreds and hundreds of tigers in cages across Asia.”
Brown insists that his images are not intended to highlight NGO and government failures, but rather to serve as a call to action. For people to understand that this is a very dire situation, NGOs should not be afraid of scaring people, he said. “It really needs to be talked about in a very honest way.”
The second tier Brown envisions is education. While he believes that most people in the Western world have some knowledge of the illegal animal trade, the people closest to the animals don’t have access to the information and education that would help them understand the repercussions of abetting poachers and smugglers.
He calls for a focused global education campaign to share with local people the science and help them understand that the animals are an indelible part of the entire ecosystem.
“What is happening to the animals is what will happen to (their communities),” said Brown. “They need to know that.”