Battling the Illegal Wildlife Trade Through Regulatory Finance: The Southeast Asian Context

Abstract

The illegal wildlife trade (IWT) is a US$20 billion global industry, with significant environmental, economic, and sociopolitical harms. Fueled by a complex interplay of drivers and enabling factors, IWT poses concrete stumbling blocks for several UN Sustainable Development Goals. There is an urgent need for comprehensive reforms to address its multifaceted consequences around the world. In Southeast Asia, IWT is rampant as the region serves as a global hub for this black market. However, because of its characterization as an invisible threat, many aspects of IWT in the region remains understudied, particularly its relationship with illicit financial flows. In this paper, I look at the different economic and legal interventions to address IWT, focusing on regulatory finance. Adapting legal mechanisms from comparative jurisdictions, I propose three measures to be spearheaded by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Economic Community: first, to strengthen the implementation of existing financial crime instruments through specialized training and the utilization of emerging technology such as AI and blockchain; second, to append wildlife crimes as predicate offences to financial felonies, and; third, to utilize financial regulation instruments to fight poverty and support inclusive community development, encouraging communities to be proactive partners in long-term wildlife conservation.