Global Ecology and Conservation

Populations of Asian pangolins have severely declined, and intercontinental trafficking of African pangolin scales to Asia has emerged in the last decade. Coastal countries in the Gulf of Guinea have been highlighted as hotspots of illegal pangolin trade, and in 2017, international commercial trade in pangolins was banned. This paper characterises the trade and international trafficking of African pangolins in the coastal countries around the Gulf of Guinea using data across three tiers.