Conserving pangolins through international and national regulation and effective law enforcement

This chapter introduces the history of range state legal regimes of relevance to pangolin conservation. It examines relevant, “hard” and “soft” international law and assesses their application to conserving pangolins. It details aspects of implementation of international law and the establishment of local laws to protect pangolins; in so doing, it also emphasises the need for cross border cooperation. The chapter then addresses complexities of conservation, from the local to cross-border levels within the poaching-trade life cycle: examining incentives, dis-incentives, deterrents and the wider nature of effective law enforcement. Finally, it scrutinizes deterrents at the higher, global level; advocating that wildlife crime must be regarded in a comparable vein to issues of national security because of its linkages with corruption, money-laundering and other types of syndicated, global crime. The chapter concludes by examining the relevance of the calls to tackle illegal wildlife trade by “following the money.