The establishment of ASEAN-WEN will promote the capacity of ASEAN to combat the organised trans-boundary criminal activities of wildlife trafficking and trade, as well as to effectively enforce CITES agreement in the region. The ASEAN region has long been targeted by illegal wildlife traders as a ‘hotspot’ in the lucrative multi-billion dollar global trade of wildlife, in which both live and processed goods of most species protected by CITES are traded, ranging from tigers and elephants to rare orchids and indigenous medicinal herbs to rare marine species, endemic reptiles and songbirds.