{"id":4538,"date":"2019-08-14T10:03:45","date_gmt":"2019-08-14T07:03:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/africasustainabilitymatters.com\/?p=4538"},"modified":"2026-01-11T05:30:28","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T05:30:28","slug":"wildlife-smuggling-is-worth-up-to-r348bn-a-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/2019\/08\/14\/wildlife-smuggling-is-worth-up-to-r348bn-a-year\/","title":{"rendered":"Wildlife Smuggling Is Worth Up To R348bn A Year&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><em>By Kweku Bedu-Addo<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Around the\nworld, endangered species are being driven to the point of extinction by the\ndemand for illegal wildlife products. Despite our best efforts, the criminals\nare still winning. To turn the tide, we need to rethink our approach. That\nmeans recognizing that everyone has a part to play \u2013 including the financial\nsector.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The scale of the challenge is enormous, and the statistics are\nalarming. More than&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.unitedforwildlife.org\/issues\/elephants\/\"><strong>30 000 elephants are killed each year<\/strong><\/a>.&nbsp;Tigers\nhave become so rare that there are&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.worldwildlife.org\/stories\/more-tigers-in-american-backyards-than-in-the-wild\"><strong>more of them living in US captivity than in the wild<\/strong><\/a>.&nbsp;And\nthere is a real human cost as well &#8211; approximately 1 000 wildlife rangers have\nbeen killed in the last 10 years&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/thingreenline.org.au\/our-projects\/\"><strong>while\ntrying to protect endangered species<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This isn\u2019t simply a conservation issue. The reality is that the\nillegal wildlife trade is an organized crime which&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.chathamhouse.org\/sites\/default\/files\/public\/Research\/Africa\/0214Wildlife.pdf\"><strong>fuels violence, drives corruption, and impoverishes communities<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.zsl.org\/conservation\/how-we-work\/illegal-wildlife-trade-crisis\/illegal-wildlife-trade-impacts\"><strong>brutal\nbusiness is now worth between $7 &#8211; 23bn annually (around R105 &#8211; R348bn at\ncurrent rates) to the criminals behind i<\/strong><\/a>t.&nbsp;Research also shows that it is often linked to other damaging crimes:\nAccording to David Fein, two-thirds of the cases of illegal wildlife trade\nanalyzed were connected to the narcotics trade.&nbsp;That means that combating\nthe illegal wildlife trade offers an opportunity to better tackle the threat of\norganized crime\u2026<a href=\"https:\/\/www.fin24.com\/Opinion\/wildlife-smuggling-is-worth-up-to-r348bn-a-year-and-the-finance-sector-can-help-stop-it-20190814-2\">Read more&gt;&gt;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Kweku Bedu-Addo Around the world, endangered species are being driven to the point of extinction by the demand for illegal wildlife products. Despite our best efforts, the criminals are&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4539,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[101],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4538"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4538\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}