Western exceptionalism in the trade of gods
People have long revered falcons but there is much work to be done to protect these gods of the sky from pressing threats, including exploitation.
Correction: This post originally stated that Saudi Arabia and the UAE appeared to be the two countries in the MENA region to have implemented an electronic permitting system for CITES. It was updated at 21.35 on 16/12 to reflect the fact that Bahrain has also implemented an electronic system.
People have long revered falcons, as the birds’ association with ancient gods and folklore shows. In Norse mythology, Vedfolnir (characterised as either a falcon or hawk) sits on the beak of an eagle on the uppermost branch of the tree of life. The bird serves as a messenger, reporting on what is happening all around them.
A cross-discipline storytelling project provides some insight into what Vedfolnir would be sharing with the eagle now about life on Earth for their kind. Through Daan Veerman’s and Jan Johan Draaistra’s creative design, and investigative journalism by Ahmed Ashour and Maher Al-Sha’eri, the project stunningly conceptualises and intimately documents the negative impact that human actions are having on falcons, particularly in terms of illegal exploitation for trade.
The falcon project is part of the “Rewriting Climate Headlines” Program, a joint initiative between Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism and The Royal Academy of Art in the Hague.
Joining forces with the climate movement organisation We Don’t Have Time, Ashour and Veerman recorded a videocast about their work. They asked me to join to discuss some of the policy implications of the project.
Here is a written account of what I see as the policy implications, which includes a spotlight on Western exceptionalism in the trade of these winged gods.
Strong and enforced protections
Exploitation of falcons and other raptors is a pressing threat, as illustrated by a 2022 report by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). It assessed threats to 53 breeding raptor species across 25 countries in the Mediterranean region, finding that hunting and trapping – a definition that includes persecution like poisoning – was the most dominant danger for the birds, impacting over 80% of assessed species.
Considering this, better monitoring and protection is essential. At a raptor-focused meeting under the umbrella of the UN Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS) in July this year, governments committed to protecting over 7,500 sites along flyways for migrating raptors in Africa, Europe, and Asia.
Birdlife International described this move as “momentous” but pointed out that countries need to now act on these commitments.
Alongside implementation, the enforcement and strength of protections matter. In the UK, for instance, raptors are protected in existing law. Despite this, they are frequently persecuted and killed.
Much of this persecution is suspected to be related to the sport shooting industry, which appears to view raptors as competitors because their prey can include the industry’s target birds. A recent report by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) linked two-thirds of illegal killings of raptors in 2022 to shooting estates.
Abuse of legal trading system
The falcon project documents the illegal capture and cross-border smuggling of a Peregrine falcon, spanning the countries of Libya, Egypt, and the UAE. A prior investigation also pointed to Syria, Jordan, and Iraq, as hotspots for illegal trafficking of falcons.
There is also an international legal trade in captive-bred raptors and some wild caught individuals, which is regulated through the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).
Peregrine falcons, Gyrfalcons, and Saker falcons, are popular species in this legal trade.
In some instances, illegal trade can interlink with the legal trade, as countries that are signatories to the convention – known as CITES parties – highlighted in 2016.
That year, Canada unsuccessfully tried to get restrictions loosened for trade in Peregrine falcons. In feedback provided for the proposal, some countries said they could not guarantee that wild Peregrines were not being laundered through captive breeding operations, while others pointed to a continued risk of illegal trade, take, or use, of the birds in their countries.
In other words, the legal trading system and national safeguards are not airtight enough across the board to eliminate the risk of abuse by illicit actors.
Western exceptionalism
There are ways CITES can strengthen the legal trade system to better disentangle it from illegal activity.
Firstly, countries engaged in the legal trade can abide by the CITES rules surrounding it. One of the rules relevant to the trade in falcons is that all captive-breeding operations involved in the commercial trade of Appendix I species must be registered with CITES.
CITES lists species in three appendices based on their known risk of extinction and trade restrictions vary accordingly. Peregrine falcons and Gyrfalcons are both listed in Appendix I, the top tier appendix, along with some other falcon species.
At a CITES Standing Committee meeting in November, the EU and the UK were both found to be non-compliant with the rule requiring countries to register all relevant captive breeding operations.
The EU and UK argued that they have provisions in place that adequately regulate breeding operations. Indeed, both gave the impression that their systems are superior to the safeguards that CITES’ provisions provide in some regards.
In comments to The 4 Percent, The UK’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said it has “strict domestic provisions to ensure robust oversight of all operations.”
Nonetheless, the Standing Committee determined that this non-compliance was unacceptable and advised countries to reject exports from unregistered facilities in the EU and UK.
Defra acknowledged the importance of CITES compliance and said it is now undertaking a process to “understand the implications of the Standing Committee decisions and any necessary changes needed to address the concerns of the Committee,” such as combining full CITES registration with its existing arrangements.
The department said it expects trade to be affected by the committee’s decision, though it anticipates “a transitional period between the current arrangements and any future approach.”
A European Commission (EC) official also told The 4 Percent that the EU and its member states (MS) note and respect the Standing Committee decision, although they assert it was “taken on the basis of incomplete information, despite the EU and its MS having expressed readiness to provide any additional information and documentary evidence, both on the legislation, and on the specific cases identified by the Secretariat.”
The official added that the EU and MS “will identify and take the necessary steps to implement the recommendations.”
Electronic permitting
One prominent way illicit actors exploit the legal trading system is by fraudulent use of its still largely paper-based permitting system. This has been a years-long issue in trade in many species, including raptors, despite having a clear solution.
An off-the-shelf electronic permitting system exists for countries to adopt in place of paper permits. The CITES Secretariat recently emphasised the importance of countries implementing an electronic system, saying it “has clear advantages in efficiency, transparency, and accountability,” along with being “a powerful tool for combating illegal trade.”
But only a minority of countries have any kind of e-CITES permitting in place. For the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region, which is the focus of the falcon project, only Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Bahrain, appear to have implemented an electronic system, according to a map CITES maintains.
Systemic inadequacies
When moving wild species between countries, illegal traders may have to pass through border posts. This should be a key safeguard against illicit trade. But scrutiny of wildlife shipments at borders needs strengthening.
This is partly because the legal trade in wildlife is huge, involving CITES-listed species and many more species that fall outside of the body’s regulation. As Focused Conservation’s Tim Santel, who is a retired US Fish and Wildlife Service agent, explained to The 4 Percent about border controls:
Certain species or situations are likely get looked at more than others. But with the number of shipments that come in, it's not possible to look at them all or even completely. That’s why so much stuff keeps getting through, it’s overwhelming.
CITES also suffers shortfalls in funding, leaving important elements of trade oversight undone. For instance, CITES periodically reviews species’ protections, i.e. it checks whether they are in the right Appendix category. At a meeting this June, however, the Secretariat revealed that the latest review could not go ahead due to a lack of funding.
Moreover, many of the decisions made at CITES’ last Conference of the Parties in November 2022 – CoP19 – are still lacking all or part of the funding they need to be implemented a full year later.
Multiple threats
These inadequacies need to be considered in the wider context of the impact of trade on wild species. A 2019 report by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) found that direct exploitation of wildlife, which includes trade, is the second largest driver of biodiversity loss and change for terrestrial and freshwater species and the largest driver for marine species.
The trade in some species can also be detrimental for others. For instance, falconry is having a negative impact on Houbara bustards, who are commonly targeted in hunts.
Moreover, exploitation is not the only threat that wild species face. For raptors, the IUCN report highlighted that energy production and mining are high on the list of threats, such as through collisions with power lines and wind turbines.
This chimed with a 2023 CMS report, which warned that 34% of migratory raptor species in Europe, Africa, and Asia who feature on the IUCN Red List as near threatened or worse are now “on the verge of extinction,” with vultures being hardest hit. It also highlighted that more than 50% of migratory birds of prey in Africa-Eurasia are facing population declines.
Both reports stressed that habitat loss from agriculture and related pollution from substances like pesticides are also significant threats to raptor species.
Meanwhile, a probe of human-led threats to raptors globally found that “conversion of habitat for agriculture or aquaculture is the most common threat across all raptor species, followed by logging and wood harvesting, and hunting and trapping.”
Overall, the global food system is the leading cause of declines in the world’s biodiversity. It is also a major source of greenhouse gas emissions driving the climate crisis.
The climate crisis is threatening wild species around the world too, as journalist and author Benjamin von Brackel outlined in his book Nowhere Left to Go: How Climate Change Is Driving Species to the Ends of the Earth. Many animals and plants are having to migrate, while other species have little room for manoeuvre in the changing climate reality.
Take the Gyrfalcon, a bird that nests in the Arctic. As the planet warms, there aren’t any colder climes it can migrate to. Plus, the Peregrine falcon is moving into the Gyrfalcon’s territory, as the former expands its range in the changing climate. This has led to conflict between the species.
Elsewhere, scientists have found that a collapse in some desert bird populations is likely due to heat stress. Baby birds, who are obviously quite immobile, are also dying in their millions in the US from extreme temperatures.
Honouring gods
Clearly, there are lots of strides that policymakers can make in various intergovernmental forums to improve the situation for wildlife.
Needless to say in a year filled with extreme weather-related disasters that is on course to be the hottest in 125,000 years, decisions that ensure transformative change in the emissions-intensive energy and food sectors would also beneficial for people.
It’s also apparent that transformative change is needed in the wildlife trade. This was among the conclusions of another IPBES report on the exploitation of wild species, which highlighted the “need for adaptive management and transformative changes to address current and future pressures and challenges.”
In a further report on valuing biodiversity, IPBES put it this way:
Transformative change needed to address the global biodiversity crisis relies on shifting away from predominant values that currently over-emphasize short term and individual material gains to nurturing sustainability-aligned values across society.
Humans can be resistant to change, particularly if they have a perceived interest in maintaining the status quo.
In reality, however, all people have a more pressing interest in maintaining the delicate yet immense web of life on Earth, which is the planet’s life support system.
This is recognised in the worldview of many indigenous cultures, who are by far the best conservationists on the planet, and the growing Rights of Nature movement.
The falcon project also reflects this understanding, positioning a bird as the protagonist of its story, meaning it treats the falcon not as a ‘thing’, nor purely a ‘resource’, but as a stakeholder.
This is one of the many ways in which the falcon project does justice to these gods of the sky.
This post was produced with support from Internews’ Earth Journalism Network.
Read the investigative reporting by Ahmed Ashour and Maher Al-Sha’eri on the illegal falcon trade: The Season of Migration into the Nets
Watch the Rewriting Climate Headlines videocast on The Falcon’s Route.
Proper journalism right here! Great piece Tracy.