Recent seizures of huge hauls of scales have turned Nigeria into Africa’s key illegal pangolin exporting country. Alexis Kriel investigates what is driving the trade Lagos market: The peddlar offered two live pangolins to a Chinese undercover volunteer called ‘African Warrior’. Photo courtesy China Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development Foundation “African Warrior” is a Chinese conservation activist who volunteered to travel to Nigeria in West Africa earlier this year to investigate the illegal trade in pangolins. For the sake of her security, and to protect her anonymity, her group gave her the soubriquet of a leader setting out to war. She provided regular updates on her progress in Nigeria to the China Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development Foundation, the environmental NGO that sent her there. Corresponding with them on WeChat, the Chinese social media app, she described what she found in a Lagos market: “The local peddler has two living pangolins. He can speak Chinese. The pangolins have been kept in a bag wrapped in two layers; the outer layer is a flour bag with the Chinese name of the flour printed on it, and the inside one is a yellow bag with English letters. “The peddler kicks the pangolins with his foot, indicating that they are alive. Another ragged peddler takes a pangolin out of another bag – it is curled into a ball. He lifts it up and throws it on the ground. After the pangolin uncurls and starts to move away, the peddler steps on its tail.” The foundation is achieving what few organisations, in China, have achieved before in the efforts to save pangolins from extinction. In September 2018 the foundation filed the first domestic public-interest litigation against the state forestry department of Guangxi Zhuang for negligence after 32 rare and endangered pangolins that had been confiscated died while in the state department’s care. In January this year, the foundation obtained notice of acceptance of the lawsuit and the first public-interest litigation case involving pangolins in China was officially approved and is currently being heard. Since then, the Chinese government has agreed to co-operate with the foundation to create new pangolin legislation, which it hopes will lead to the elevation of pangolins from a Grade II to a Grade I animal in China. This will mean permits for hunting pangolins and the use of pangolin scales are decided on a state level, as opposed to a provincial level, affording greater protection to pangolins and regulations more in line with those contained in the Convention in International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites). Dr Jinfeng Zhou is the Green Development Foundation’s secretary general and the first chairperson of the China Pangolin Research Centre, a private organisation established in February this year in a signed agreement with Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University. “We must fight for change urgently. We need more stakeholders,” said Zhou. Drastic surge: The growing demand for pangolin scales has contributed to making it the most heavily poached and trafficked mammal on the planet, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Graphic: Lori Bentley In Hong Kong business people are treated to pangolin meat openly, despite laws that prevent its consumption, and it is often used for boasting rights during business deals. The scales are used in Vietnam and China for traditional medicinal cures. The recent drastic surge in the illegal trade of pangolin scales has created panic among conservationists and environmental NGOs, who see the spike as signalling an acceleration on the course to extinction for this endangered animal that is high on the red list of threatened species of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). A confiscation of pangolin scales from Nigeria destined for China, amounting to 9.14 tons and intercepted by Hong Kong customs in February 2019, was the single largest confiscation of pangolin scales in history. Then, in April, there were two confiscations of scales in Singapore, a week apart. The scales were sent from Nigeria and were bound for Vietnam. The two amounts were just under 13 tons each and, combined, represented the deaths of an estimated 40,000 pangolins. As a result of the large quantities of scales being confiscated, Jinfeng Zhou’s foundation set up a team to investigate the illegal use of pangolins in Nigeria. His team’s work is devoted to opening up avenues for co-operation with Nigeria to stem the trade and to enforce the law.