Report shows extent of endangered animal trade between Africa and Asia

            After Madelyn had her talk on CITES, I grew interested in how involved CITES was across international regulation and found this article, which talks about the animal trade between continents Africa and Asia. Asia apparently has a major appetite for exotic animal products, no matter if they’re endangered or not. In about a decade, more than a million live animals and plants, many of them endangered, along with animal skins and thousands of tons of meat, have been legally exported to Asia from Africa. About 1,000 species have been transported which are at risk, a sticky situation that may in the long-run cause something much more than an “at risk” title.

            While these trades are not illegal, the traffic index reports report that most of these species are either classed as Appendix 1 – the most endangered – and Appendix 2 – defined as “not necessarily threatened with extinction, but may become so unless trade is closely controlled.” What this means is that if this trade isn’t regulated, these at-risk species can have detrimental effects in the future. According to CITES, 50 tons of Hippopotamus teeth are exported from Uganda and Tanzania. Namibia exported the highest number of mammal skins, mostly from Cape Fur Seals, in the last decade. South Africa was the biggest single exporter of both birds, mammals, and plants. I’ve attached the South African trade profile.

            CITES has to keep watch on these trades, but from my research it seems that this is the norm, and is actually much better than it has been in the last few decades! Thank you CITES for protecting the world’s species.

References:

https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/06/asia/traffic-report-africa-asia-wildlife-trade-intl/index.html

-Mark Buckup