Just days before UK Prime Minister David Cameron’s landmark Conference on Illegal Wildlife Trade, the London-based Environmental Investigation Agency has set out the key actions it believes are essential to tackle the international organised criminal networks plundering the environment
The United Nations’ anti-crime body today resolved to step up the global fight against wildlife and forest crime in recognition of the urgent threat it poses and the serious nature of the criminal networks involved
In a joint press release with the Wildlife Protection Society of India and Freeland we explain that the recent CITES meeting in Bangkok did not go far enough to tackle poaching of elephants, tigers and rhinos by continuing to allow domestic and international trade of wildlife products which drives illegal activity.
Despite signing up to global initiatives to protect wild tigers and double their number by 2022, Government departments in China have quietly set about stimulating domestic markets for tiger skins and body parts. As few as 3,500 tigers survive in the wild, yet more than 5,000 captive-bred tigers are held in China
International policy-makers must stop stimulating demand for critically endangered species. EIA warned that conflicting decisions and top-level discussions regarding trade in the products of endangered species such as elephants, tigers and precious woods create consumer confusion and ultimately drive poaching/theft
With the 2nd Asian Ministerial Conference on Tiger Conservation in Bhutan preparing to discuss the plight of snow leopards, EIA warned they and Asia’s other big cats are in danger of being forgotten. Analysis shows that since 2000 at least 4,000 Asian big cat skins have entered into trade, nearly 3,400 of them leopards