Negotiations are set to begin on the world’s first international protocol to fight environmental crime, including wildlife trafficking, illegal deforestation, and illicit waste smuggling. The protocol, to be drafted over the next two years, aims to make it easier to investigate, prosecute, and adjudicate these crimes. The negotiations will take place under the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (UNTOC), a global treaty established in 2003 to combat international criminal networks, money laundering, and corruption. The resolution to begin drafting the protocol was approved Oct. 23 at the treaty’s 13th biennial gathering. “This is a landmark moment in the global fight against environmental crime,” Alice Pasqualato, global policy specialist for environmental crime at U.S.-based NGO Wildlife Conservation Society, said in a press release. The proposal was put forward by 12 countries — eight from Latin America and four from Africa — led by Brazil. It secured more than the required two-thirds majority: Of the 112 parties physically or electronically present and cast a vote, 83 voted in favor and 12 against. The latter included the U.S. and Japan. Another 27 countries abstained. The decision “sends a powerful message that governments recognize the scale, seriousness and interconnected nature of environmental crime,” Mark Jones, head of policy at U.K-based NGO Born Free, said in a press release. “We commend the States that developed, tabled and supported this resolution and look forward to engaging constructively in the negotiations ahead.” The draft protocol will be discussed at the next UNTOC gathering in two…This article was originally published on Mongabay

On Oct. 20, International Sloth Day, a bipartisan bill was introduced in the U.S. Congress to ban the import of wild sloths into the United States. The proposed legislation comes months after the deaths of 58 of the approximately 69 sloths imported to Sloth World, a Florida-based tourist attraction. “We owe it to these animals, and to the people in our community who spoke up, to make sure a tragedy like this never happens again,” Maxwell Alejandro Frost, a Democratic representative from Florida, said in a statement. The bill’s co-sponsor is Republican Laurel Lee. The Stopping Legalized Organized Trafficking and Harm to Sloths (SLOTHS) Act would allow limited imports of live sloths to institutions accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) for breeding purposes. Another exception would permit import of dead sloths for use in research, a press release notes. If the SLOTHS Act passes, illegal import could carry fines of up to $100,000. The push to ban sloth imports came from two Costa Rica-based NGOs, the Sloth Conservation Foundation and the Sloth Institute. When they analyzed U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service trade records, they discovered that more than 1,100 sloths were imported to the U.S. in the decade between 2011 and 2021: 100-plus sloths each year. “So, Sloth World is the biggest example of one owner importing a lot of sloths and then, of course, basically all of them dying, but it’s just not the only example,” Sam Trull, Sloth Institute co-founder and executive director, told Mongabay…This article was originally published on Mongabay

Inside an inspection facility in Hong Kong in 2018, shark biologist Diego Cardeñosa stared at dozens of large white bags. They were stacked, sometimes six or seven high, beneath strip lights hanging from the ceiling. Each bag weighed more than 50 kilograms (110 pounds) — and was stuffed with shark fins. “It was the first time I saw that,” Cardeñosa wrote in an email to Mongabay. “Obviously, as a student, it was a shock and [a] reality check for me.” Cardeñosa, now a shark trade researcher at Florida International University in the U.S., lived in Hong Kong in 2018 and returned repeatedly from 2015 to 2020 as part of his PhD field research at Stony Brook University, also in the U.S. He helped train law enforcement in Hong Kong to use a mobile DNA kit to identify shark species whose trade is regulated under CITES, a treaty signed by 184 countries and the European Union that establishes rules for international trade in imperiled plants, wildlife, and their products. Many of the fins Cardeñosa saw in Hong Kong back in 2018 were cut from silky sharks (Carcharhinus falciformis). Like all shark species, silkies are heavily hunted for their fins, which are used in shark fin soup in China and Southeast Asia; they are also netted in vast numbers as bycatch. Shark numbers have cratered over the last 50 years. A 2024 study found that overfishing has halved populations of roughly 1,200 species of sharks and rays since 1970. An average of…This article was originally published on Mongabay

Spain’s law enforcement agency, the Civil Guard, announced on Sept. 25, 2026, that it seized 209 reptiles from breeding facilities in Jérica and Sot de Ferrer (Castellón), including critically endangered iguanas endemic to Fiji. Nearly half of the reptiles were protected under CITES, the global wildlife trade treaty. They also seized unlicensed handguns and nearly 200 rounds of ammunition. Authorities arrested three individuals — two men aged 48 and 51 and a 37-year-old woman — on a litany of charges: Belonging to a criminal organization, wildlife-related offenses, smuggling, money laundering and illegal weapons possession. The alleged traffickers reportedly smuggled reptiles from the wild in the Americas, Africa and Asia, and then bred them without permits, the authorities said. They added that these reptiles were then sold at European reptile and trade fairs, mixing smuggled animals with legally acquired animals — a practice called laundering that’s prevalent in wildlife trade. In this way, traffickers exploit the “legal gray area surrounding documentation that certifies the animals’ origins,” the authorities said in a press release. The Spanish case is just one recent example among a slew of seizures and arrests involving rare tortoises, endangered turtles, poisonous frogs, endemic iguanas and many other protected reptiles and amphibians worldwide. The trade is lucrative — estimated to be worth some $2.5 billion — and comes with little risk. It’s often unregulated. Smugglers are rarely caught, and if they are, they get off by paying a small fine, which is absorbed as the cost of doing business.…This article was originally published on Mongabay

Like a dark cloud of pestilence spreading across the globe in a science fiction movie, a highly contagious, fatal strain of avian influenza is continuing its death march across the globe, infecting wild birds, poultry, dairy cattle and mammals from pole-to-pole, sometimes with massive mortalities. In mid-June, it invaded the last bird flu-free continent, Australia, when the first cases of this lethal virus were detected in migratory seabirds, who likely brought it from the Antarctic to Australian islands, and then, inland. “These outbreaks mark the loss of the last continent previously free from the virus,” said Amandine Gamble, an expert on pathogens in endangered seabirds at Cornell University in the U.S., in a statement. “There are serious concerns for wildlife in Australia, New Zealand and surrounding islands, which are home to many already vulnerable endemic species.” The virus has spread rapidly since then, killing thousands of birds in some 690 “events” as of Oct. 6. An event may involve a confirmed infection or death of one — or many — animals. H5N1 has now spilled over into mammals, including endangered Australian sea lions (Neophoca cinerea) at key breeding sites. Across the globe, species that live or breed in colonies have died in shocking numbers, and this virus continues to mutate and adapt, infecting new hosts. As of publication, it had infected some 613 types of bird and about 112 mammal species, both wild and domestic, according to the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations. “We have seen this virus…This article was originally published on Mongabay