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UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has called on consumers and suppliers of the illegal wildlife trade and governments to treat crimes against wildlife as a threat to the world’s sustainable future.
Speaking during the marking of the world wildlife day, Ban said It’s time to get serious about wildlife crime especially in Africa where thousands of Elephants and Rhinos are killed for their horns for the Asian market where there’s belief that they contain medicinal value.
Poaching of African elephants for ivory, which is reducing the population of the animals faster than they can reproduce, is worth millions of dollars a year when the products are sold in Asia, including Rhino-horn trade which is valued at more than 190 million dollars.
Wildlife crime has grown into one of the largest transnational organized-criminal activities, according to the UN. According to the UN over the three years through 2012, as many as 100,000 elephants were poached, while 1,215 rhinos were illegally killed in South Africa last year.
