Mercado Libre and WWF: together against illegal trade of wild animals
Republished from: Mercado Libre and WWF: together against illegal trade of wild animals | Blog Posts | WWF
The illegal trade of wild animals represents one of the greatest threats to global biodiversity, leading to the decline of species and negatively impacting ecosystems. In Brazil and other Latin American countries, the commercialization of these animals, their products, and derivatives, unfortunately, still persists. Faced with this reality and its commitment to sustainability as a well-known marketplace platform in Latin America, Mercado Libre has intensified its efforts to combat this illegal practice, establishing strategic partnerships, including collaborations with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).
Actions and policies aimed at protecting wildlife
In accordance with national and international regulations, Mercado Libre has strict policies that prohibit the offering of flora, fauna, and their derived products on its platform. Here are some examples:
Flora and fauna that are endangered, at risk, or whose sale is prohibited by national or international law. This includes, for example, protected species listed in Appendices I and II of the CITES Convention, such as elephants and jaguars. To see the complete list of CITES-protected species, you can consult the official interactive search engine here.
Live wild animals, such as deer, otters, turtles, and others.
Domestic animals whose breeding and/or sale involves any indication of mistreatment.
Animals for fighting or their accessories.
Products intended for the capture and/or treatment of prohibited species (e.g., hunting traps, cages, terrariums, aquariums, etc.)
Remains or parts of animals not in compliance with current legislation (e.g., carcasses, blood, urine, semen, and others).
Animal heads for display (taxidermy).
Internally, specialized content moderation expert teams actively monitor platform content, using various tools and technologies - including artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning systems - to automatically identify, block, and remove content that violates Mercado Libre's policies.
Mercado Libre also implemented a reporting tool for any user to anonymously flag the existence of any product listing that may be in violation of our content policies, such as our Flora and Fauna policy. Once flagged, these product listings are manually reviewed by Mercado Libre’s expert teams and quickly removed if the infraction is verified.
In continuous collaboration with ONGs and partnerships, such as WWF specialists, Mercado Libre improves its lists of prohibited keywords and trains both its content moderation teams and AI models to recognize content patterns that may indicate illicit animal sales.
Partnerships transforming the digital sector
Protecting the environment has always been a priority in Mercado Libre. This is why Mercado Libre has implemented early on various measures and best practices to combat illicit trade, and associated with relevant external partners and NGOs specialized in this problem to have expert knowledge on this topic.
In 2020, Mercado Libre signed a cooperation agreement with Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), to strengthen the detection of product listings that may be related to protected wildlife species.
Deepening its commitment to this cause, in 2022, Mercado Libre joined the "Coalition To End Wildlife Trafficking Online" (Coalition) alongside other platforms to work together and detect irregular content.
The Coalition collaboration is co-convened by WWF, ifaw, and TRAFFIC and includes training to Mercado Libre teams on identifying threatened species and continuously updating lists of prohibited wildlife products, aligned with CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) and local legislation.
Results and ongoing commitment
In the first half of 2025, Mercado Libre removed more than 80,000 irregular contents related to flora, fauna, and their derived products policy from its platform, preventing significant environmental impacts. Furthermore, Mercado Libre collaborates with local police and environmental authorities, providing information for investigations and seeking criminal accountability for offenders.
Combating the illegal trade of wild animals is a cross-sector challenge that requires collaboration between companies, NGOs, governments, and users. Mercado Libre reaffirms its commitment to biodiversity conservation and its efforts to keep its platform safe. In partnership with WWF, Mercado Libre advances in its role as an agent of social transformation.
If any user of the Mercado Libre platform finds a listing that violates the platform’s policies, such as those regarding flora, fauna, and their derived products policy, they may report the listing by clicking the “report” button located at the bottom of the listing page. The responsible team will review the report and, if the violation is confirmed, Mercado Libre will remove the irregular content.