Runway To Extinction Report - Middle East

The Middle East chapter for the 2020 ROUTES Partnership and C4ADS report "Runway to Extinction: Wildlife Trafficking in the Air Transport Sector" which examines the trends, transit routes, and trafficking methods used by wildlife smugglers exploiting the aviation industry in six world regions: Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and Oceania.

Main Takeaways:

The Middle East is a prominent transit region, particularly for wildlife and wildlife products trafficked between Europe, Africa, and Asia.
Middle Eastern countries can be destination countries for exotic live animals (e.g. cheetahs) and for falcons, particularly saker falcons.
Middle Eastern countries seem to make few wildlife seizures or publicly report few wildlife seizures, likely in large part due to the region’s role as a transit hub and the difficulty of stopping trafficking instances in transit.
Flight routes for specific African wildlife products seem to rely on one Middle Eastern country more than the others (e.g. pangolins tend to fly through Turkey, rhino horn flies through Qatar, and ivory flies through the UAE). Knowing which types of wildlife products tend to fly through which airports can help enforcement target the transport methods most commonly used by traffickers of each product.

application/pdf ROUTES_RunwayToExtinction_MiddleEast.pdf — 3233 KB

Main Takeaways:

The Middle East is a prominent transit region, particularly for wildlife and wildlife products trafficked between Europe, Africa, and Asia.

Middle Eastern countries can be destination countries for exotic live animals (e.g. cheetahs) and for falcons, particularly saker falcons.

Middle Eastern countries seem to make few wildlife seizures or publicly report few wildlife seizures, likely in large part due to the region’s role as a transit hub and the difficulty of stopping trafficking instances in transit.