Ivory trade shrinks, but pangolin smuggling booms
The illegal global trade in ivory has declined.
But the good news for elephants is offset by grim tidings for other species.
That’s according to the latest United Nations report on wildlife crime.
Angela Me is research chief at the UN Office on Drugs and Crime.
She spoke to Reuters on Friday (July 10):
"One of the main reasons that we see is the decrease in demand, particularly in Asia and particularly in China, where clearly surveys done in terms of the use of ivory in retail markets has decreased. China has also put forward very important legislation, that is a ban on ivory selling in all of China that may also have had an impact.”
But the trade in tiger parts is on the up.
And pangolins are among the big worries now.
The reclusive creatures are covered in scales used in traditional Chinese medicine. Friday’s report says that is now one key driver of illegal trade.
It says the animals are mostly sourced in Africa.
"The trafficking of pangolin is going in the opposite direction from the ivory, where we see that even between 2014 and 2018, only in these five years, more than 370,000 pangolins have been seized.”
Pangolins may now be the world’s most heavily trafficked animal according to the report.
