There’s a new, unlikely ally in the fight against illegal wildlife crime: Big tech. 

Earlier this year, new commitments from household names including Paypal, Meta, eBay and Etsy were announced at the United For Wildlife Business Forum to End Wildlife Trade.

Wildlife trafficking is a sophisticated international crime worth billions of dollars. As wildlife trade increasingly moves online, traffickers are using social media, e-commerce platforms and even cryptocurrency to operate across borders.

The involvement of these organisations will be crucial in disrupting the networks behind wildlife crime and experts have welcomed these pledges but the question remains: will these new commitments be enough? Especially when some of the same technologies being enlisted to fight wildlife trafficking have also helped enable its growth, as shown by recent reports watchdog organizations.