The Local Context of Transnational Wildlife Trafficking: The Heathrow Animal Reception Centre

Abstract

Wildlife trafficking most likely conjures up images of a faraway seedy exotic street market full of cages of diverse wildlife, bound for stewpots or a collector on the other side of the globe. This chapter teaches us that ‘the other side of the globe’ is often as local as the nearby airport. Almost daily, illegally trafficked wildlife is transported through, or stored within, the surrounding industrial neighbourhood of London’s Heathrow Airport. Confiscated animals that are protected under the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) are seized at Heathrow and sometimes around the country and are brought to London to be housed at the Heathrow Animal Reception Centre, known as HARC. This chapter details the unique regulatory position and oversight given to HARC and examines the official documentation of seizures by the CITES enforcement authority; it also explores issues of harm and justice that arise from wildlife trafficking. Data were obtained by speaking with HARC staff and touring the facility, as well as by interviewing a CITES enforcement officer. The information gathered provides context as to how the transnational green crime of wildlife trafficking affects the local situation. Further evidence of the local impact is evident through a closer examination of two cases of animal confiscation that took place at HARC.