The Illegal Wildlife Trade is is a multi-million dollar business run by dangerous criminal syndicates that deal in the harvesting and trading of wild species and their body parts. With high demand from a growing Asian middle class stoking the fire, this trade is the biggest threat facing wildlife today.

Myanmar is a global hub for illegal wildlife trade. Because of our remaining wilderness and abundant wildlife our forests are a prime source for some of the most poached species such as tigers, Asian elephants and pangolins. To make matters worse, Myanmar is situated next to the notorious lawless Golden Triangle region, the global illegal wildlife hypermarket.

We are working with government and partners to end the open sale of illegal wildlife products within the next two years, and then to close the Golden Triangle markets. In Yangon, markets have already agreed to end sales of ivory and other wildlife products and across the country we are training law enforcement to identify, seize and deal with wildlife products. At a policy level we have helped to close the loopholes in existing laws, making Myanmar’s one of the strongest illegal wildlife trade laws in the region, and have been asked to draft a national Illegal Wildlife Trade action plan.

Tackling the illegal wildlife trade in Myanmar is a huge challenge, but this challenge also presents significant opportunity for conservation gains - allowing us to tackle the problem right at its very source.