Wildlife Alliance works with park rangers, wildlife police and law enforcement throughout Southeast Asia and the Russian Far East to identify poachers and wildlife traffickers, rescue animals, and ensure that the criminals who profit from crimes against nature are brought to justice.

Asia is a hotspot in the global illegal wildlife trade. This devastating criminal activity, valued at $6 to $20 billion each year in revenue by Interpol, trails only the illegal arms and drug trades in profitability. The destruction it causes is rapidly eradicating many of the world's endangered and threatened species such as leopards, tigers, and sun bears. Until recently commercial wildlife poaching and the illegal wildlife trade received little attention from law enforcement agencies in many parts of the world, such as Asia; and political will to curb this emergent global issue has been almost negligible.

The international crime that Wildlife Alliance works to address is "Nature Crime." This can be defined as the black-market trade in flora and fauna (plants and animals) and other natural resources. The products include live specimens of wild animals for the pet trade and as status symbols, as well as consumable products made from wild animals such as exotic bush meat, trophies from rare wildlife, and luxury items for display such as ivory, tiger pelts, and shahtoosh wool from the endangered Tibetan antelope. In addition to wild animal species, protected and endangered timber and plant species are also at risk due to international smuggling and illegal timber harvesting and plant collection. Among the plant species threatened by nature crime are such as agarwood (aloe wood), ramin wood, ginger, and ginseng. Financially, these species represent a significant proportion of transnational nature crime, either in the form of timber, live flowers or bulbs, or aromatics and other derivatives.