6th April 2020 Dear Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus [Director General, World Health Organisation] and Dr Zhang Qi [Co-ordinator of Traditional and Complementary Medicine Unit (TCM), World Health Organisation], COVID-19: Health risks and wildlife[1] markets – the need for a permanent global ban on wildlife markets and a highly precautionary approach to …
Living with wild animals, Part One: Cash cows or fellow beings?
As we approach World Health Day on Tuesday, 7 April 2020 – please join the call to end wildlife markets/wildlife trade across the globe to protect human health, including re-emphasising the inherent human health risks of tuberculosis (TB) transmission from the lion bone trade. World-wide, TB has been infecting and killing …
Bitter Pill to Swallow – China’s flagrant trade in leopard bone products
EIA research reveals that at least 24 Chinese pharmaceutical companies have been listing leopard bones as an ingredient in their traditional medicines, although there are fewer than 450 wild leopards left in that country. “Bitter Pill to Swallow – China’s flagrant trade in leopard bone products,” Environmental Investigation Agency, April …
Zoonotic Diseases of Mass Destruction
Banner image courtesy of artist Olaf Hajek and The New York Times Sunday Review The ‘true’ cost of wildlife abuse – Coronavirus and the viruses to follow…. “If we fail to understand and take care of the natural world, it can cause a breakdown of these systems and come back …
On the Butcher’s Block – the Mekong Tiger Trade Trail
“There is no escaping the fact that countries from which wild tigers have been wiped out or virtually wiped out in recent years – Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and China – are countries where the tiger has been valued solely for the sum of its body parts…End the domestic trade and …
Botswana government won’t let the truth get in the way of its trophy hunting narrative
By Ross Harvey, Conservation Action Trust, 5 March 2020 Symptomatic of the Botswana government’s shaky relationship with reality is its letter to the United Kingdom’s Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA). A full week after the deadline (25 February 2020) for public submissions on whether the UK should ban …
“Unfair Game” – An exposé of South Africa’s captive-bred lion industry
“Unfair Game” – An exposé of South Africa’s captive-bred lion industry UK Link – “Unfair Game“ USA Link – “Unfair Game“ By Lord Ashcroft on Wildlife “In April 2019 Lord Ashcroft published the results of his year-long investigation into South Africa’s captive-bred lion industry. Over 11 pages of a single …
China’s ban on wildlife consumption is an overdue death knell for lion bone industry
by Don Pinnock, Daily Maverick, 24 February 2020 The Chinese government has placed an immediate ban on the illegal trading of wildlife and the consumption of wild animals. This follows a link between pangolin meat and the coronavirus outbreak. Despite international outrage, South Africa is allowing a quota of at …
UK Ivory Bill – Appeal
Banner Image – Protesters supporting the UK Ivory Bill being enacted in full outside the High Court, 24 February 2020 – courtesy of Action for Elephants Back in November 2019, Friends of Antique Cultural Treasures (FACT – a limited company formed by dealers and collectors, with funds channelled via …
Botswana auctions off the last of its big tusker elephants
By Ross Harvey, Conservation Action Trust, 14 February 2020 “Why not allow any willing bidder (such as the EMS Foundation) to pay for these licences if that raises revenue to conserve magnificent bull elephants instead of eliminating them?“ The Botswana government has again demonstrated to the world that it either does …