Leboncoin becomes a pioneer in the fight against wildlife trafficking online in Europe

Leboncoin has joined The Coalition to End Wildlife Trafficking Online—convened in March 2018 by WWF, TRAFFIC, and IFAW—thus becoming the first European-founded e-commerce platform to join leading technology companies such as Google, eBay, Instagram, and Facebook.

Leboncoin has collaborated with IFAW since the publication of IFAW’s report Wanted, Dead or Alive in 2014, which helped raise the company’s awareness of their need to fight wildlife trafficking in order to save endangered species. During their research, investigators covered 17 online marketplaces and identified 1,192 ads for endangered or threatened species in France—ivory tusks, trinkets, furs and skins of large cats, live birds and reptiles—worth nearly €1 million.

In 2018, IFAW monitoring found that Leboncoin succeeded in reducing the number of ads for endangered African grey parrots over the period 2014–2018, a time during which these parrots were added to CITES Appendix I, the highest level of protection possible for a species. This was revealed in the Disrupt: Wildlife Cybercrime report published in 2018, which prompted Leboncoin to remove almost 600 ads reported to them by IFAW.

Leboncoin has taken bold steps to introduce wildlife friendly policies: by firstly banning the sale in ivory, refining the detection capabilities of its algorithm using keywords provided by IFAW and finally by sharing protected species lists with its users through its distribution rules in order to raise awareness of the important cause of banning the resale of these species.

"Leboncoin is a responsible company and is committed to always being compliant with rules and legislation. That is why we are delighted to expand our already successful collaboration with IFAW by joining The Coalition to End Wildlife Trafficking Online today. We are proud to be the first European-founded company to be part of it and hope that others will join us in the future”, explains Antoine Jouteau, CEO of Leboncoin.

"IFAW France is pleased with this new milestone: IFAW and Leboncoin have been pursuing a constructive collaboration for several years and it is now being formalized through Leboncoin joining the Coalition," explains Céline Sissler-Bienvenu, Director of IFAW France and francophone Africa. “It will help focus our efforts on the enforcement of Leboncoin's policies. This is a very positive sign for the future of the fight against online wildlife trafficking in France."

The Coalition seeks to prevent the displacement of trade from one online platform to the next by ensuring that there is an industry-wide approach to tackling online wildlife trafficking. 

In the first six months after joining the Coalition, Leboncoin will focus on implementing its current wildlife-friendly policies through staff training and updating its filters, as well as increasing user awareness with the assistance of IFAW and partners. 

“As the first global platform founded in Europe to join the Coalition, Leboncoin is paving the way for other European e-commerce companies by demonstrating a pro-environmental approach,” says Tania McCrea-Steele, IFAW’s Global Wildlife Cybercrime Project Lead. “This membership is an important step towards the Coalition’s goal of reducing 80% of wildlife trafficking online by 2020.”

IFAW’s engagement with Leboncoin is funded by the European Union’s Internal Security Fund — Police.

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