Channel Asia News, AFP, 09 March 2013
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| Poaching and illegal trade in protected species like elephants, rhinos and tigers has boomed into a billion-dolloar industry that threatens security and stability in many countries, the World Wildlife Fund warned Wednesday. (AFP/File Rodger Bosch) |
BANGKOK:
Ruthless and heavily armed "criminal syndicates" linked to drug
smugglers and militias are running the global wildlife trade and turning their
guns on the park rangers tasked with protecting endangered species.
Hundreds of
rangers have been killed over recent years as poachers stop at nothing in their
quest for lucrative animal parts such as ivory and rhino horn, according to
experts at a global convention on protecting wildlife in Bangkok.
The illegal
trade "poses an immediate risk to wildlife and to people, including those
serving on the frontlines to protect wildlife" says John Scanlon,
secretary general of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered
Species (CITES).
"It
increasingly involves organised crime syndicates and in some cases rebel
militia."
The death
toll among the rangers has risen as the slaughter of elephants and rhinos
reaches record levels -- with photographs of carcasses stripped of horns or
tusks stirring public outcry.
At least
1,000 rangers have been killed in 35 different countries over the last decade,
said Sean Willmore, president of the International Ranger Federation (IRF),
adding that the real global figure may be between 3-5,000.
"There
is an undeclared war going on on the frontline of conservation," he told
AFP citing the example of a group of 50 rangers in the Democratic Republic of
Congo who stumbled across a 5,000-strong militia group out poaching armed with
AK47s.
And while
attacks by lions or elephants make their work "dangerous enough", he
said 75 per cent of the dead were killed by traffickers, with their lack of
equipment, training and low wages weighing against them.
Every
weakness is exploited by criminals determined to cash in on large animal
reserves in some of the world's poorest, most unstable countries.
"Wildlife
crime has historically been known as a low-risk, high-profit crime,"
according to Ben Janse Van Rensburg a senior CITES official.
Alarmingly,
the groups are part of a web of global criminals involved in other illicit
trades such as drug and human trafficking, he said.
Although
the countries worst hit by the scourge of wildlife trafficking have shown
willing to tackle the issue, they do so with limited means.
But some
countries have not even made the issue a serious crime "making conviction
difficult", says Jorge Rios of the UN Office against Drugs and Crime
(UNODC), urging political commitment to be "accompanied by resources at
national and international level".
For
poaching to be curbed those resources must be targeted at a the whole
trafficking chain.
"We
cannot just focus on poachers... we also have to deal with middle men working
in transit countries, and people distributing and selling the merchandise in
market countries," Dan Ashe, director of the US Fish and Wildlife service
told AFP.
"We have
to deal with people who are financing these operations."
But it is
not an easy task, with corruption lubricating the movement of illicit wildlife
-- often destined for Asia as delicacies or use in traditional medicines.
"They
(traffickers) have a lot of money... they are paying for the right to do
whatever they want," says Steve Galster, executive director, of
conservation group the Freeland Foundation.
After
several years of investigation his group accused Vixay Keosavang, an
influential Laos national, of orchestrating a major trafficking network.
Tigers,
turtles, pangolins, snakes and monkeys from Africa arrived on the banks of the
Mekong river in legitimate breeding farms used as a front to sell protected or
poached species, he said, highlighting the "loopholes" of CITES that
have failed to stop people like him flouting the law.
- AFP/fa
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