Illegal Wildlife Trade in China

This book offers a theoretically-based study on crimes against protected wildlife in mainland China with first-hand empirical data collected over five years. It provides an overall examination of crimes against protected and endangered wildlife and an extensive account of the situation in China, where a significant portion of the illegal wildlife trade is currently happening. This emerging field has become an important topic for enforcement and governments alike yet remains an under-researched area. The collected data covers illegal tiger-parts trade, the illegal ivory trade, and the consumption of protected wildlife. The book will serve as a useful reference for scholars, law-enforcement agencies, lawyers, and conservation and wildlife-protection NGO groups to facilitate their understanding of the growing illegal trade in protected and endangered wildlife. The Illegal Wildlife Trade in China has three general aims: first, to contribute to the general development of green criminology and specifically to the literature of the illegal transactions of protected wildlife at the distribution stage. Second, it aims to understand how illegal transactions are carried out to create insights for policy makers and law enforcement professionals. Finally, Wong seeks to apply theoretical frameworks (such as that of trust, networks, and situational crime prevention) to the understanding of the distribution of illegal wildlife products in order to make contributions to ongoing sociological and criminological discussions.

“Rebecca Wong’s book is a fascinating and expansive consideration of the flourishing underground illegal wildlife trade in China. … This book has inspired me to consider the illegal wildlife trade in far greater depth—I hope that it inspires others to do the same. Overall, Wong should be commended for producing this excellent, expansive, and significant piece of work; I very much look forward to reading more of her work in the future.” (Sally Atkinson-Sheppard, Asian Journal of Criminology, Vol. 16, 2021)

Rebecca W. Y. Wong completed her PhD studies at the Department of Sociology, University of Oxford. Her primary research interests are in the fields of Green Criminology, Environmental Crime, the illegal endangered wildlife trade, criminal networks and issues of trust in the underworld. She is also an associate member of the Extra-Legal Governance Institute and the Elephant Research and Conservation Network, University of Oxford.