A new investigative report has laid bare the scale and complexity of wildlife trafficking across southern Africa, exposing a tangled web of corruption, organised crime and systemic failures that are eroding conservation efforts and fuelling illicit markets. Disruption and Disarray: An analysis of pangolin scale and ivory trafficking, 2015-2024 by the Wildlife Justice Commission is one of the most comprehensive examinations to date of how legal loopholes, political interference and institutional weakness have allowed the illegal trade in endangered species to flourish. The numbers beggar belief. There are big pangolins and small pangolins – eight species in all. Averaging out, a single pangolin carries between 500 and 600 grams of protective scales. To make up a tonne requires the slaughter of more than 1,800 pangolins. In 2019 alone global seizure of pangolin scales was more than 100 metric tonnes. That’s one year. The report estimates that seizures equal only 10% of totals trafficked. In darkened shipping containers, concealed under layers of timber or hidden within sacks of cashew nuts, the scales of trafficked pangolins and the tusks from butchered elephants crossed oceans, driven by relentless demand. The report paints a complex picture of wildlife trafficking from Africa to Asia between 2015 and 2024 - before and after the Covid-19 pandemic. Pangolins gained unfortunate notoriety as one of the most heavily trafficked wild mammals in the world when illegal trade in their scales became a global issue about 10 years ago. There are eight recognised species of pangolin, four found in Asia and four in Africa.