Mike Carson, director of eBay recently spoke about how the platform is addressing illegal wildlife trade on their marketplace.
eBay are taking various steps to tackle the huge and ongoing threat of illegal wildlife trafficking. For them ensuring the related regulations on their marketplace evolve appropriately is paramount in helping with this.
If you have been reading Tamebay for a while, you might remember back in in 2008 when eBay banned the sale of elephant ivory and bone items on their platform. 12 or so years ago this was a big deal because it meant that there were still questions over what was allowed and what wasn’t, a good example being older instruments with parts made from ivory. Since then, eBay have continued to evolve and strengthen their actions, leading to the expansion of their prohibited wildlife policies which now includes a much larger list of endangered species.
In the post by Carson, it was noted that since 2017 eBay have blocked or removed 522,000 that violated their prohibited wildlife policies with 257,000 blocked or removed in 2020. This shows that eBay are responding but also how the pandemic may have encouraged listings of this nature.
eBay is also now a founding member of the Coalition to End Wildlife Trafficking Online a partnership of companies who work with the leading conservation organisations WWF, TRAFFIC and IFAW to reduce illegal wildlife trade through web-based platforms.
You can find out more about eBay’s modern commitments to environmental and social governance in their 2020 Impact Report.
