More Internet companies join the fight against illegal wildlife trade

Eight new members are to join the Coalition to End Wildlife Trafficking Online, a year after it was founded by the World Wildlife Fund, the International Fund for Animal Welfare, and the Wildlife Trade Monitoring Network in collaboration with 21 global Internet service companies.

These e-commerce, technology, and social media companies have pledged to work together to reduce wildlife trafficking, which in recent years has shifted onto online platforms, especially social media.

New technologies such as Artificial Intelligence and big data are expected to help companies to identify and eliminate online content that supports the illegal trade in wildlife.

“The coalition has set an ambitious, yet bold goal of working to reduce wildlife trafficking online by 80 percent by 2020. Every effort should be made to support this goal and we need more industry players to join the coalition and thus the fight against wildlife trafficking online,” said Jason Bell, the vice president for Conservation and Animal Welfare at the International Fund for Animal Welfare.

China’s Internet giants Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent were among the founding members of the coalition, along with American Internet giants eBay, Google, and Facebook. The new members include Sina Weibo, a popular social media app in China, along with Kupatana from Tanzania and Sapo from Vietnam.