Wildlife Trade: Does the ‘Livelihoods Depend on It’ Defense Hold Up?
New research into the turtle-meat trade reveals that assumptions and unsubstantiated claims could hurt conservation efforts
Here is a story I wrote this month for The Revelator about whether the frequently made claim that commercial trade in wildlife signficantly contributes to people's livelihoods holds up. Images changed from original story.
Wild beasts are often the stuff of legends, but narratives surrounding wildlife trade contain some tall tales, too.
One of the most frequently uttered statements in support of the wildlife trade is that many people depend on it for their livelihoods. But just because this claim is common, “does not necessarily make it true,” wildlife researchers Vincent Nijman and Chris Shepherd wrote in the journal Discover Animals earlier this year.
Taking these broad assertions — often made by researchers, government agencies, or others — at face value without further study has the potential to “pervert conservation efforts,” the paper warns.
Reptiles offer an example. Some conservationists have defended the trade in reptile skins, arguing that it supports livelihoods.
Nijman and Shepherd wanted to understand if this held true for an area in which they have significant expertise: the export of wild turtle meat from Indonesia. Their study reveals how many turtle collectors can make a basic living from the trade.
The answer? Surprisingly few.
One in a Million
Indonesia permits the harvest of four freshwater turtle species for consumption: Asiatic softshell, Southeast Asian box, Asian leaf, and Malayan softshell turtles. Almost all the meat from these species is exported. On average Indonesia permits around 50,000 turtles to be legally collected from the wild annually.
The researchers considered Indonesia’s quotas for catching and exporting turtles, the range of prices collectors get for turtles, and the recommended minimum wage in different areas.
They found the trade could generate a minimum wage for somewhere between 241 and 360 full-time collectors, or around one person in every million inhabitants.
If expanded to include people who supplement their income with occasional turtle collecting, the researchers estimate that the trade could support between 2,400 and 3,000 people.
“Very often, when we publish things on unsustainable reptile trade — the turtle trade in particular — we get hammered by people who believe it is an important component of livelihoods,” says Shepherd, who took a role as senior conservation advocate with the Center for Biological Diversity (publisher of The Revelator) after completing the paper.
Yet, the findings reveal that the turtle meat trade is hardly the economic engine that proponents claim.
Of course, other people also make money from the turtle meat business, such as exporters and sellers in importing countries. But wildlife trade chains like this have a pyramid structure, Nijman says, with many people at the base, such as the people who hunt or collect the animals from the wild, and fewer people involved further up. Livelihood claims usually refer to the often-impoverished people at the base of the pyramid.
Nijman emphasizes that the analysis focuses solely on Indonesia’s international trade in turtle meat because the regulations on harvest and exports mean that any legal domestic use and trade of these animals locally should be very limited.
Broadly speaking though, he says local use and trade of wildlife “clearly contributes to livelihoods” and is a fundamental aspect of many people’s lives in Indonesia.
Time to Re-Evaluate?
All four turtle species traded internationally from Indonesia for meat are “experiencing population declines and two are considered globally threatened,” the researchers explained in their paper.
“If very few people actually make a living out of this [trade] … then perhaps you have to reevaluate and say, well, our justification of ‘it’s a livelihood issue’ may not be all that correct,” says Nijman.
This has wider ramifications. Asian turtles have faced an ongoing crisis for decades. Researchers began raising the alarm about populations of Asian tortoises and freshwater turtles in the 1990s and identified collection of the animals for trade — for their meat and as pets — as chief among the causes. At that point, researchers in the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s turtle-focused specialist groups determined that almost three-quarters of known species in the region were threatened.
The situation is even worse now. A 2018 assessment found that 83% of Asia’s turtle species were threatened.
And this crisis does not exist in a vacuum. Experts say diminishing populations of Asian species has led to increased trade on other turtle species around the world, including the United States.
The U.S. exports millions of turtles annually. The animals are often raised on farms but several states also permit commercial exploitation of wild populations.
“The legal and illegal trade of turtles has certainly taken a significant toll on certain populations across the United States,” says the University of Richmond’s Jennifer Sevin, who is co-founder of the Collaborative to Combat the Illegal Trade in Turtles.
However, she says state and federal agencies have taken steps to better safeguard wild populations over the past five years.
Around 40% of turtle species in the U.S. are threatened, according to the Association of Fish & Wildlife Agencies. Globally, researchers say over half of turtle and tortoise species are at risk of extinction, due to pressures like habitat destruction and exploitation.
Turtles Are Not Cut Out for Trade
“Turtles have evolved with traits like delayed sexual maturity, low reproductive rates, and high hatchling mortality which make them especially vulnerable to pressures like exploitation,” Sevin explains.
“Once a population begins to decline, it can be incredibly difficult for it to recover,” she warns.
This is especially true when it comes to commercial-scale exploitation, says Nijman. Although local use can impact targeted species’ populations, “the Asian turtle crisis really came about because of the large-scale commercial trade,” he says.
A 2021 study drew similar conclusions about the wildlife trade more broadly. It found that international and national trade significantly contributed to population declines of targeted animals, whereas local exploitation only had a “limited impact.”
The dynamics of the turtle meat trade makes matters worse.
For one thing, it targets bigger, mature turtles because they provide more meat. These are breeding age individuals who are important for producing future populations. On top of that, the turtle meat business is a “high volume, low value” trade, Nijman says. The income people get from selling turtles in the earlier stages of the chain is so low that the trade is “only commercially viable if it’s done at scale.”
In theory, Indonesia’s quotas and other restrictions should limit the volume of turtles traded. But as Nijman and Shepherd point out in the new study and several prior publications, poor management and other factors means overexploitation is rife.
For instance, research published in 2022 estimated that two traders in an Indonesian province received between 19,000 and 45,000 Southeast Asian box turtles a year from collectors when their combined quota was only 400 turtles.
Shockingly, Nijman says evidence like that suggests that up to 90% of the trade in turtle meat and carapaces out of Indonesia could be illegal.
In locations where a legal turtle trade exists, criminals can exploit the system to launder illegally collected animals by exporting or selling them alongside legal individuals.
Exceptions to the Rule
Another common claim about the merits of trading wildlife suggests it can benefit conservation. But Nijman says he can’t recall any instances where the Asian turtle trade has been shown to benefit targeted species.
Where “proper management” of wild species’ populations and their exploitation exists, trade can benefit conservation, Nijman says. But he stresses that these cases are the exception, not the rule.
Such cases include well-worn examples like the crocodile and alligator trade in Australia and the U.S., mainly for their skins. These trades are not without controversy though, particularly concerning animal welfare.
Another celebrated case comes from Peru — this one involving freshwater turtles. In certain managed basins in the country, Indigenous and local communities collect yellow-spotted river turtle eggs as part of a ranching program. After incubating and hatching the turtles, they release some back to the wild and sell others internationally as pets.
The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, the body that regulates global trade in threatened species, commissioned a case study on this program. It revealed that around two-thirds of supply-side earnings from the trade go to exporting companies, with communities taking the rest. When broken down, this income equated to around $14 per week for each involved family in 2017.
Monitoring efforts within the program have led to a significant rise in turtle numbers in some areas, such as the Pacaya Samiria Reserve, due to reduced poaching and illegal trade, according to the case study.
However, poaching of these turtles and their eggs in Peru overall remains a major problem, as Mongabay has reported. Official seizure data shows that the yellow-spotted river turtle was the third most trafficked species in the country between 2015 and 2020.
A Lack of Evidence
CITES’ core mandate is ensuring that trade does not threaten species’ survival. But “CITES and Livelihoods” is an active area of work for the body and in recent years it has been gathering evidence on the benefits of trade to livelihoods. It also commissioned an independent review of 48 relevant case studies to produce guidance and strategies for countries on “maximizing the benefits” of trade in CITES-listed species for Indigenous peoples and local communities. The guidance includes suggestions like supporting these communities to seize trade opportunities and mounting campaigns that “sensitize” potential consumers to the wildlife trade to create an “enabling environment.”
There is little consensus among countries about whether embracing the guidance and strategies is appropriate, particularly amid concerns that they may promote expansion of the wildlife trade and could curtail states’ ability to adopt strict trade limitations to protect species.
Considering that CITES regulates the international trade in over 40,000 threatened species, it’s notable that only 48 studies were identified as “relevant” to the independent review. It suggests that substantive evidence of the wildlife trade’s contribution to livelihoods is thin on the ground, as Nijman and Shepherd argue in their study.
The researchers have urged people to stop promoting the wildlife trade as important to livelihoods “unless proven to be factual.”
Nijman stresses that this is not because they are opposed to trade or do not consider livelihoods important. Rather, he makes the point that discussions must be data-led and “realistic” so that involved actors can honestly weigh up whether the level of livelihood support provided by international trade justifies the continued decline in targeted wild species like turtles.
“This conversation is not being had presently, that is the major issue,” says Nijman.
Very interesting. I knew hardly anything about such a trade existing. Thank you for sharing this.
Excellent piece. Thank you for raising these issues.