Transforming the trade: Exploring alternative livelihood pathways with vendors at the largest illegal wildlife market in Amazonian Peru

Combating illegal wildlife trade (IWT) is a critical global priority for wildlife conservation. Over the past decade, there has been growing recognition of the importance of engaging local communities who live alongside wildlife as part of the solution. Here we apply a co-design approach to inform alternative livelihood initiatives aimed at reducing IWT at the largest market selling wildlife in the Peruvian Amazon. We combined two surveys with market vendors with two workshops (with wildlife sellers and government stakeholders), to: 1) understand vendors’ attitudes towards selling wildlife products and pathways for change, 2) identify potential sustainable livelihood alternatives to IWT, and 3) identify the challenges, opportunities and support needed for vendors to make transitions to non-wildlife-based sources of income. During the surveys, wildlife vendors were generally more reluctant to acknowledge the negative consequences of IWT, and they seemed to want things to remain the same, or more support to continue trading wildlife better. However, engaging wildlife traders in workshops to explore sustainable livelihood alternatives increased their openness to shifts away from IWT. Deeper engagement through involving wildlife traders in defining solutions and giving them a voice appeared to be crucial for fostering this change. There was also broad support from Peruvian government stakeholders for alternative-livelihood interventions. Our findings demonstrate that sellers of illegal wildlife products are open to engagement with researchers, NGOs, and authorities, and that there are elements of consensus among traders and government on the key opportunities and potential barriers for effective livelihood transitions. These results provide optimism in the fight against wildlife crime and suggest that solutions to unsustainable practices may be possible through the active participation of wildlife traders in anti-IWT interventions.