CCI Conservation Seminar - Dr Alice Hughes

CCI Conservation Seminar, Wed 13th September 2023

Dr Alice Hughes, University of Hong Kong

Understanding the potential impacts of legal wildlife trade

Overexploitation of wildlife has been demonstrated as one of the greatest threats to the survival of species. Yet whilst many people appreciate the threat posed by illegal wildlife trade, the threat posed by legal trade is often underappreciated, and legal trade is often conflated with sustainable trade, despite the lack of evidence in the majority of cases that it is infact sustainable. Here we systematically explore the intersection of legality, threat and sustainability that need to be considered in the context of trade, and the types of data needed to assess if the trade of a species is sustainable and how it could remain sustainable.

Using a variety of approaches I review various elements of legal wildlife trade, including three global assessments on trade in frequently neglected taxa. I highlight the knowledge gaps which potentially preclude assessment of the sustainability of trade in these (and other) groups which may be particularly threatened by trade, but for which there are insufficient safeguards in place to monitor and protect species. Following from this we explore the latest data available on trade in the United States through the LEMIS system, and again highlight not only what is in trade, but also what we can do to better monitor trade and develop approaches to ensure that trade is sustainable. In addition, I briefly discuss the other implications of the trade of animals and plants, including the spread of pests and pathogens, how we can monitor these impacts better and what approaches may reduce risks.

Ultimately unsustainable trade undermines access to future livelihoods of local populations, ensuring trade is sustainable through evidence-based approaches and application of the precautionary principle is critical to protect species and is a key component of access and benefit sharing.

Alice's research broadly has two major different themes. One is on conservation approach which explores how threats impact on biodiversity at regional and global scales and tries to develop more pragmatic solutions to maintaining biodiversity. Outcomes of this work have been presented in global policy meetings, including drafting a policy brief for the state council in China on Greening the belt and road initiative. Another possible success of my work was the uplisting of all Japans Goniurosaurus gecko species to CITES appendix 3 shortly after we published our paper on global reptile trade and recommended the group as in particular need of protection due to their small populations and high risk of trade. Our work highlighted that up to 70% of animals in trade from some groups (such as lizards) come directly from the wild, meaning that urgent attention is needed to effectively protect these species from unsustainable and largely unregulated trade.

The other main strand of my research has focused more heavily on bats. Whilst I have worked on bats (especially across the Asian region) for over 15 years, largely focusing on regional ecology, since 2018 we started on bats and viruses with collaborators from Shandong Medical University. Following the onset of the early cases of SARS-COV2 our samples were sequenced in January 2020, revealing some of the closest viruses to SARS-CoV2 in bats. Since then, we collected more samples, revealing a suite of further coronaviruses including close relatives of both SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV2 in bats, even just within a single cave. This showed that Rhinolophus bats irrefutably are reservoirs of SARS-CoV2, though an intermediate host may have existed between bats and humans. This work has paved the way for some of the work we hope to do on OneHealth, managing landscapes to maintain healthy wildlife populations and minimising the risk of spillover between bats and other animals.

Refreshments will follow in the DAB Common Room

Online participants need to register via Eventbrite for a Zoom link:

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/cci-conservation-seminar-dr-alice-hughes-13th-september-2023-tickets-710202985247?aff=oddtdtcreator

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