Wildlife Crime a Threat to Nations' National Security

12/12/2012 at 12:44 pm · Filed under Agriculture, Fishing, and Hunting, Conservationist Action, Endangered Species, Human Action, Political and Corporate Action, Wildlife and tagged: Born Free Foundation, Cameroon, China, Elephants, Ivory, Malaysia, Wildlife Trafficking, WWF

A tiger cub rescued from smugglers in Thailand en route to China, WWF

www.bbc.co.uk 12/12/12

New research by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) states that the illicit trade in animal and plant parts is worth $19 billion a year, making it the fourth largest illegal trade after narcotics, counterfeiting, and people trafficking. The report highlights the potential risk to national stability as armed rebel groups are using the trade to fund civil conflicts. The WWF study cites the example of a large elephant massacre in northern Cameroon as an example. In this case, rebel groups from Chad and Sudan killed 450 elephants in order to sell their ivory to buy arms. A recent seizure of an estimated 20 tonnes of ivory in Malaysia on route to China only shows to exemplify the scale of the trade. According to the Born Free Foundation, the number of elephants killed from poaching (c. 30,000) now exceeds the number that die of natural causes.

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