Sunda pangolins live in the Indonesian rainforest, in the trees and in burrows underground. Rainforest destruction leaves pangolins without a home and poachers gain easier access to remote habitat areas.
In 2016, Sunda pangolins were granted the highest form of international protection offered to wildlife, during the annual Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). Species listed in CITES "Appendix I" are defined them as: "threatened with extinction and CITES prohibits international trade in specimens of these species".
Pangolins are the world's most trafficked mammal - they are poached in higher numbers than elephants, tigers, or rhinos. Huge areas of their rainforest home are cut down or burned on a daily basis for the production of palm oil. Roads cut for plantations are the same roads used by poachers to speed up the process of finding, hunting down, and killing pangolins.