The companies have formed a coalition to try to stop traffickers from trading in endangered species and items from wildlife, such as ivory. Source: Sia Kambou/AFP/Getty Images Hoping to “collectively reduce wildlife trafficking across platforms by 80 percent by 2020,” 21 tech companies have joined forces to create The Global Coalition to End Wildlife Trafficking Online.

Organized by Google and the World Wildlife Fund, group members include Alibaba, Baidu, Baixing, eBay, Etsy, Facebook, Google, Huaxia Collection, Instagram, Kuaishou, Mall for Africa, Microsoft, Pinterest, Qyer, Ruby Lane, Shengshi Collection, Tencent, Wen Wan Tian Xia, Zhongyikupai, Zhuanzhuan and 58 Group.

"We've realized that law enforcement on its own can't handle this global surge in illegal trade in wildlife that's happening online and we recognize that the companies themselves are very keen to try and help solve the problem," said Crawford Allan, senior director of TRAFFIC, a WWF-affiliated wildlife trade monitoring network.

The group is designed to stop wildlife traffickers from trading wildlife products such as ivory and endangered species on their respective platforms. Although some of the companies in the group have long been attempting to keep traffickers from their respective platforms by means of filters and keyword searches, they recognized that these past efforts weren’t successful because traffickers would simply move to another platform entirely.

"If you have one weak link in the chain, that's where all of the illegal trade will gravitate towards. It's like the whack-a-mole effect if you like," Allan says. "The important thing is to get the companies to think collectively and surprisingly, in spite of what are traditionally very competitive companies. They realized it's a non-competitive issue and they stepped up together to help find solutions with us."