As recent as April and June this year, three Guyanese were arrested at the John F Kennedy Airport in New York with a total of 34 live finches that they were smuggling into the United States to later sell for lucrative sums of money. In fact, according to the charge brought against two of the men, the birds are usually entered into “singing” competitions and the one with the strongest voice can sell for as much as US$5,000 or sometimes more.
This is just one aspect of the illegal wildlife trade that is reported to be worth some US$20 billion a year, according to estimates by the United Nations Environment Programme. Money, ignorance and corruption are three of the reasons why the illegal wildlife trade remains viable today despite the fact that it has contributed to the extinction of some wildlife species and the decimation and endangering of others.
Finches, better known by their local name ‘Towa Towa’, are known to be heavily propagated in Guyana, where caged specimens in whistling/singing contests are a fairly common sight. However, nothing about this makes doing it right, nor is it okay to squeeze birds, that really ought to be living in trees, into plastic hair curlers or other similar objects and try to smuggle them out of the country in a get-rich-quick scheme.
Ever so often, animal rights activist Syeada Manbodh who recently received a national award for her work in this field, is called upon to rescue sloths or other wild animals from being sold. In addition, there are places in this country, none of them hidden, where a fairly common sight is too many parrots or macaws in a single cage awaiting the buyers who will likely make them pets, or a string of live iguanas touted as fresh meat for those with the taste for it.
It is beyond sad that there seems to be no understanding that the world’s ecological system is a careful balance of its flora and fauna and removing too many of either kind will dangerously affect that equilibrium. Why is it necessary to wait until an animal has been hunted to near extinction before harmful practices by humans, such as killing for sport and trophies, for pelts and furs, for tusks (ivory) and other body parts are halted? Clearly there is need for more education.
Hundreds of years ago, hunting and killing animals for sustenance and clothing was necessary. But all of that changed when humans developed the ability to domesticate animals for their produce and to make clothing from plants and today, synthetic materials. Yet, all over the world, there is a quickening rather than a slowing in the trading of wildlife, particularly that which is done out of the sight or ostensibly so, of the authorities. It is known that wildlife crime is big business – US$20 billion is nothing to joke about. In fact, the illegal trade is often compared to drugs and arms smuggling and there are many places in the world where those behind the illegal trade in wildlife are dangerous international criminal networks. As at two years ago, the illegal wildlife trade was deemed at number four on the world black market, coming behind drugs, arms and human trafficking.
Why? Well it could have to do with the fact that elephant tusks, a pair of which could weigh as much as 100 pounds were sold for somewhere around US$1,500 per pound, or the horn of the now-endangered black rhinoceros sold for US$25,000 per pound in China as little as four years ago. Dealing in such sums made it easy for criminals to grease the palms of some in authority so that they would look the other way. Of course scum like these would make the ‘Towa Towa’ smugglers look like petty thieves. But they are all criminals.
Wildlife snuggling thrives on corruption, which can be either systemic or ad hoc depending on the circumstances. Obviously, not everyone is corruptible, but when one considers that the countries where certain animals are mostly found are more often than not very poor the scope of the problem is that much clearer.
Nor are animals the only species exploited in this way. Trees are also cut indiscriminately and some plants over-harvested threatening species of fauna as well.
Just last month, the London Conference on the Illegal Wildlife Trade, hosted by the Government of the United Kingdom saw leaders from over 80 countries, along with many other stakeholders renew their commitment to fight the multi-billion-dollar illegal trade.
Of course, not all wildlife trade is illegal. The Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), which was signed in Washington DC in March 1973 and entered into force in July 1975, “provides the fundamental legal framework for the regulation of international trade in 36,000 species of animals and plants, including their parts and derivatives, to ensure that this trade is legal, sustainable and traceable,” according to its website. In so doing, it is able to promote solid conservation methods that would keep the world’s ecosystem from going into crisis mode, which is extremely necessary to the survival of humankind. To put greed aside and only take what is necessary from the earth is not too much to ask.
