ANIMAL CONSERVATION:Illicit trade in wildlife has exploded into a €14.5 billion criminal enterprise, threatening government stability and national security, the WWF warned yesterday.
A report from the world’s biggest conservation group said the current effort to stop trafficking in ivory, rhino horn, and other endangered species was pitifully inadequate against powerful and sophisticated crime syndicates.
“It has been a failure. We are losing these populations in front of our eyes,” WWF president Carter Roberts said. “It is being outgunned in terms of technology. It is being outgunned in terms of resources, and it is being outgunned, worst of all, in terms of organisation.”
The group plans to brief United Nations ambassadors on the crisis on Wednesday.
