Tech, crypto firms to help tackle illegal wildlife trade

LONDON, June 22 (Reuters) – A group of leading international technology, crypto and other businesses on Monday announced plans to help stamp out the illegal trade in wildlife.

• Announcement made as part of a business forum convened by Prince William and The Royal Foundation’s United for Wildlife during London Climate Action Week.

• Companies including Google, Meta, TikTok and Alibaba commit to end trafficking on their platforms. To look for ways to eradicate online listings, including through AI-enabled detection and prevention.

• Represent a fifth of the global e-commerce market and 90% of the world’s social media users.

• Vodafone, Vodacom, Safaricom to use AI in anti-money-laundering and transaction monitoring systems across mobile money platform M-Pesa.

• Crypto, blockchain analytics firms and payment companies including PayPal, TRM Labs, Chainalysis and Luno commit to disrupt financial flows linked to the illegal wildlife trade.

• British Airways and Heathrow to launch a public awareness campaign about the trade.

• A United Nations Environment Programme report says trade in wildlife products generates as much as $23 billion annually. Estimated 1 million plant and animal species are threatened with extinction.

• David Fein, co-chair of United for Wildlife: “What we see from the private sector today is a recognition that the illegal wildlife trade is both an environmental and a business issue.”

(Reporting by Simon Jessop; Editing by Kirsten Donovan)