2024-08-01
Early warning of trends in commercial wildlife trade through novel machine-learning analysis of patent filing
Publication
Publication
Nature Communications , Volume 15 - Issue 6379
Unsustainable wildlife trade imperils thousands of species, but efforts to identify and reduce these threats are hampered by rapidly evolving commercial markets. Businesses trading wildlife-derived products innovate to remain competitive, and the patents they file to protect their innovations also provide an early-warning of market shifts. Here, we develop a novel machine-learning approach to analyse patent-filing trends and apply it to patents filed from 1970-2020 related to six traded taxa that vary in trade legality, threat level, and use type: rhinoceroses, pangolins, bears, sturgeon, horseshoe crabs, and caterpillar fungus. We found 27,308 patents, showing 130% per-year increases, compared to a background rate of 104%. Innovation led to diversification, including new fertilizer products using illegal-to-trade rhinoceros horn, and novel farming methods for pangolins. Stricter regulation did not generally correlate with reduced patenting. Patents reveal how wildlife-related businesses predict, adapt to, and create market shifts, providing data to underpin proactive wildlife-trade management approaches.
| Additional Metadata | |
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| doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-49688-x | |
| Nature Communications | |
| Released under the CC-BY 4.0 ("Attribution 4.0 International") License | |
| Organisation | Staff publications |
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Hinsley, A., Challender, D. W. S., Masters, S., Macdonald, D. W., Milner-Gulland, E. J., Fraser, J., & Wright, J. (2024). Early warning of trends in commercial wildlife trade through novel machine-learning analysis of patent filing. Nature Communications, 15(6379). doi:10.1038/s41467-024-49688-x |
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