Environmental Justice in the Post Covid-19 Regulation of Wildlife Trade and Markets

This article argues that an environmental justice theory framework should be used to inform the post-COVID-19 regulation of wildlife trade to ensure justice is afforded to communities and nations reliant on this trade. This is in response to the pattern of interventionism and dominance in the international regulation of wildlife trade that has historically denied justice, and a recent increase in the discourse calling for the closure of live animal markets which has the future potential to deny justice. In this paper, we utilise a multifaceted and pluralist environmental justice theory to highlight where injustice has occurred in the regulation of wildlife trade. Each element of this theory is applied in three different case studies (bird species trade, ivory trade, and pangolin trade) to highlight how injustice has occurred through domination and interventionism. We discuss how the issues and concerns surrounding injustice in this historical analysis are relevant in the COVID-19 context. Finally, to disrupt this pattern of dominance, we implore researchers, governments and policy-makers to alter their discourse and political action from interventionism to a support-based, collaborative role, to ensure environmental justice is afforded to the communities and range states reliant on wildlife trade