In November 2022, I commented on the sentence of Pascal Ochiba who, at the age of 63, received a life sentence from the specialist wildlife court in Uganda for possession of less than 10kg of ivory
The huge variation in sentencing across the African continent is concerning – in Nigeria, sentencing is so lenient that it implies impunity while, for the general public in Uganda, two years for four tonnes of ivory in Kenya and life for possession of 10kg makes no sense at all
Images of a container-load of pangolin scales or ivory or, occasionally, the picture of a rather glum-looking fellow in handcuffs holding up a tiger skin are compelling to Western audiences, but these represent only a disruption, not an end to the stripping down of the world’s biodiversity
The most trafficked mammal is one that you might not expect – many people may never have even heard of them but pangolins are severely decreasing in population and are at extreme risk of extinction
The beginning of any New Year should be filled with hope and expectation but 2017 is barely weeks old and already several multi-tonne seizures of pangolin scales in Africa and the end markets in Asia has injected a dash of forlorn reality
The map is intended as a regularly updated resource for use by anybody working in pangolin conservation as well as for general interest and is based on a subset of poaching and seizure incidents from 2000-15, derived from publicly available records, from primarily English and Chinese language sources