WWF: Royal event to tackle illegal wildlife trade
LONDON – (21st May) His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales and the UK Government will host a conference to call for action at the highest level to end the trade in illegal wildlife – a trade that presents a grave threat not only to the natural world, but also to national and regional security. WWF welcomes this initiative, which aims to highlight this issue on the international political agenda. As President of WWF-UK, HRH The Prince of Wales shares many of the same conservation interests, including the desire to see an end to illegal wildlife trade.
With reference to the event, David Nussbaum, Chief Executive of WWF-UK said:
“The illegal wildlife trade threatens to overturn decades of conservation efforts, putting some iconic and ecologically important species at risk of extinction. This multi-billion pound trade also fuels other types of crime and has a devastating impact on some of the poorest people on the planet.
“With poaching and wildlife trafficking at record levels, we hope that this meeting will be the start of a ground-breaking initiative in the fight against this deadly and destructive trade.”
A record 668 rhinos in South Africa were killed by poachers last year, and close to 300 have died so far in 2013. Earlier this month, atleast 26 elephants were massacred in a World Heritage Site in the Central African Republic, after 17 individuals armed with Kalashnikov rifles entered the unique elephant habitat Dzanga Bai, known locally as the “village of elephants”. [1]
This meeting will lay the groundwork for a Heads of State meeting in the autumn, also hosted by the UK Government. It is hoped that governments at the autumn meeting will commit to actions that will reduce demand for endangered wildlife and related products in markets around the world; improve global enforcement and criminal justice against the organised syndicates engaged in this activity; and assist rural communities to find long-term, viable alternatives to the trade.
Environment Secretary Owen Paterson said:
“It is all too easy to think that the extinction of a species is a thing of the past, when it is a very real problem today. That is why I’m pleased to be co-hosting the Illegal Wildlife Trade Conference with the Prince of Wales. This is a real opportunity to get these issues raised at the highest level internationally. By working together we can reduce demand for endangered wildlife and related products around the world and assist communities to find long-term alternatives to the trade.”
In preparation for this meeting, WWF, along with other partners, have been working with The Prince of Wales’ International Sustainability Unit, and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) to share expertise and knowledge of illicit wildlife trafficking, and potential solutions to the current global wildlife crime crisis.
In summer 2012, WWF and TRAFFIC [2] launched a global Illegal Wildlife Trade campaign to raise the profile of illegal wildlife trade as a serious crime and to spur governments and international institutions to tackle it as such. For more information go towwf.org.uk/endwildlifecrime and note that the official Twitter hashtag for the event on 21 May 2013 is #endwildlifecrime
-ENDS-
Notes to editors:
[1] For more information: http://www.wwf.org.uk/what_we_do/press_centre/index.cfm?uNewsID=6585
[2] TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade monitoring network, is a joint programme of WWF and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). For more information: www.traffic.org
For more information:
Robin Clegg | Media Relations Manager, WWF-UK
E: [email protected] | M: 07771 818 707
About WWF
WWF is one of the world’s largest and most respected independent conservation organizations, with over 5 million supporters and a global network active in over 100 countries. WWF’s mission is to stop the degradation of the Earth’s natural environment and to build a future in which humans live in harmony with nature, by conserving the world’s biological diversity, ensuring that the use of renewable natural resources is sustainable, and promoting the reduction of pollution and wasteful consumption.
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