By Craig Tarasoff
Unfortunately, Vietnam continues to struggle with its illegal wildlife smuggling industry. As one of the world’s most biodiverse countries, thousands of illegal hunters prowl the forests of Vietnam looking to cash in. The pangolin, which is almost extinct, is a prized capture, selling for $60 per pound. Unlike in other countries of the world, those caught trafficking wildlife in Vietnam often evade punishment. The founder of Save Vietnam’s Wildlife, Nguyen Van Thain, has worked to intercept poached animals before they reach the black market. He has helped rescue 20 pangolins, in the past three months. Read more about his story at the New York Times.
By Craig Tarasoff
Wildlife crime, one of the fasting growing international crimes, is estimated to be worth between $8 and $10 billion each year. Over the past three years, over 100,000 elephants have been poached. This represents a figure that far exceeds the rate at which they can reproduce. In Africa, the ivory trade is estimated to be worth over $165 million each year, and the rhino-horn trade is estimated to range between $63 and $192 million. As trafficking spreads, monkeys, birds, and trees continue to see their populations decease. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon has issued a statement condemning illegal wildlife trade as degrading to our ecosystem and threatening to national security. See Bloomberg for more information.
By Lucy Lei, GIELR
Online Staff Editor
Currently valued at
US $213 billion,
wildlife crime has escalated dramatically in recent years, and many species are
in crisis as a result of poaching and illegal trafficking of their parts. The
magnitude of the problem is particularly prominent in African countries with
elephant and rhino populations. In this year alone, more than 700 rhinos have
been killed in South Africa for their horns, partly as a consequence of many
Asian countries using rhino horns as part of traditional medicine. Likewise,
more than 35,000 elephants are
killed across Africa each year for their tusks, which are prized for their use
in making decorations and trinkets.
Even more troubling is
the current trend in
poaching carried out by organized criminal groups rather than poor villagers
who kill the occasional animal to help feed their families. Income from ivory
allegedly supports militia groups in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and
Uganda’s Lord’s Resistance Army, which some may recognize as the group led by Joseph Kony.
* Published in collaboration with the Georgetown International Environmental Law Review (GIELR). To read more, check out GIELR's blog here.
By Matt Klinger
According to a recent New York Times article, scientists are busily at work
attempting to resurrect the passenger pigeon from extinction. More than a
billion of the birds once populated the eastern United States, but the last one died in
1914.
Scientists are now sequencing passenger pigeon DNA and developing
elaborate plans to recreate the bird's cells, introduce them into an existing
type of pigeon, breed the offspring, and eventually train the resulting
passenger pigeon-like birds to behave as their "ancestors" did.
With any luck, scientists believe a new population of passenger pigeons
could be self-perpetuating by 2060.
The prospect may seem far-fetched but at least one animal
has already been brought back from extinction, even if only briefly.
The possibility of re-creating dead species has some envisioning Jurassic
Park-like scenarios where woolly mammoths again roam Siberia. But, as
Stanford Law professors Jacob S. Sherkow and Hank Greely note, the issue
raises a host of legal questions. For instance, could de-extinct species
be patented? Would they be "endangered?" And what regulations,
domestic and international, should be in place to govern the process?
