In July 2015, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution (69/314) to combat the illegal wildlife trade. He urged member states to “take decisive action at the national level to prevent, combat and eradicate illegal wildlife trade”. WWF provides technical and scientific advice on the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). WWF and TRAFFIC are studying the routes of illegal wildlife trade, the impact of wildlife trade on certain species, and gaps in wildlife trade laws. This information is essential for CITES and supports new plans to combat illegal wildlife trade. Thousands of wildlife species are threatened by illegal and unsustainable wildlife trade. For example, in recent months, media attention has focused on the plight of the world`s rhino species, which are facing increasing poaching as demand for their horns increases in Asia. In some parts of Asia, rhino horn is considered a powerful traditional medicine used to treat a variety of ailments. Although there is little scientific evidence to support these claims, the dramatic increase in poaching to meet this demand is driving rhinos to the brink of extinction.
In 2013, Tanzania`s Minister of Natural Resources and Tourism urged poachers to be shot on sight to stop the slaughter of elephants. [67] Since December 2016, anti-poaching police units in Namibia have been allowed to retaliate against poachers when they are the target of gunfire. [68] The Botswana government adopted a shooting-to-kill policy against poachers in 2013 as a “legitimate conservation strategy” and “ill-needed,” which reduced poaching to the point where it “virtually no longer exists” in the country and neighboring countries like South Africa should take similar steps to save wildlife from extinction. [69] [70] In May 2018, the Kenyan government announced that poachers would face the death penalty because fines and life sentences “were not sufficiently deterrent to curb poaching, hence the proposed harsher punishment.” [71] Human rights organizations oppose this initiative, but wildlife advocates support it. Save the Rhino, a UK-based wildlife protection organisation, notes that 23 rhinos and 156 elephants were killed by poachers in Kenya between 2016 and 2017. From March 2019, the measure will be implemented by the Kenyan legislator. [72] Another solution to mitigate poaching proposed in Tigers of the World was to implement a multilateral strategy targeting different parties to conserve wild tiger populations in general. This multilateral approach involves working with different authorities to combat and prevent poaching, as organized crime syndicates benefit from poaching and tiger trafficking; Therefore, there is a need to raise awareness in society and to use more protection and investigative techniques. For example, conservation groups sensitized park rangers and local communities to understand the impact of tiger poaching – they achieved this through targeted advertising that would impact the mainstream audience. Targeted advertising with more violent images to show the inequality between tigers in the wild and as a commodity has had a huge impact on the general population to combat poaching and indifference to this problem.
The use of speakers such as Jackie Chan and other famous Asian actors and role models who campaigned against poaching has also helped the tiger conservation movement. [33] Since the 1980s, the term “poaching” has also been used to refer to the illegal harvesting of wild plant species. [5] [6] In agriculture, the term “poaching” also applies to the loss of soil or grass due to adverse effects on farm animals` feet, which can affect the availability of productive land, water pollution through increased runoff, and animal welfare issues for cattle. [7] Cattle rustling, as in cattle rustling, is classified as theft, not poaching. [8] Poverty appears to be a major push to encourage people to poach, affecting both people in Africa and Asia. For example, in Thailand, there are anecdotal reports of a desire for a better life for children, prompting rural poachers to take the risk of poaching even if they don`t like to exploit wildlife. [33] Removal of animals from a nature reserve in tweets such as a national park, game reserve or zoo. The removal of animals or plants from regulated land is illegal. Poaching, like smuggling, has a long history in the UK. The verb poach is derived from the Middle English word pocchen, which literally means “bagged”, enclosed in a pocket linked to “pocket”. [17] [18] In “Pleas of the Forest”, violations of the strict Anglo-Norman forest law, poaching was reported without passion for England.
[19] William the Conqueror, who was a great lover of hunting, established and applied a system of forest law. This was done outside the common law and served to protect wildlife and its forest habitat from hunting by ordinary people in England and to retain hunting rights for the new French Anglo-Norman aristocracy. From then on, hunting for game in the royal forests by commoners, i.e. poaching, was invariably punishable by death by hanging. In 1087, a poem entitled “The Rime of King William”, included in the Peterborough Chronicle, expressed English indignation at the strict new laws. Poaching has been romanticized in literature since the days of Robin Hood`s ballads as an aspect of Merry England`s “greenwood”; In one story, Robin Hood is depicted as offering King Richard the lion-hearted game of deer illegally hunted in Sherwood Forest, with the king neglecting the fact that this hunt was a capital crime. The widespread acceptance of this common criminal activity is summed up in Guillaume Budé`s observation Non est inquirendum, unde venit wild (“We must not ask him where the game comes from”) in his Traitte de la vénerie. [20] However, the English nobility and landowners have been extremely successful in the long run in enforcing the modern concept of property, which e.B. in the enclosures of the common lands and later in the Highland Clearances, both of which were forced displacements of people from traditional land leases and once ordinary land. In the 19th century, laws such as the Night Poaching Act 1828 and the Game Act 1831 emerged in the UK, as well as various laws elsewhere. In rural Areas of Africa, the main motivations for poaching are the lack of employment opportunities and the limited potential for agriculture and livestock.
The poor depend on natural resources for their survival and generate money from the sale of bushmeat, which attracts high prices in urban centers. The body parts of wild animals are also in demand for traditional medicine and ceremonies. [10] The existence of an international market for wild animals implies that well-organised gangs of professional poachers invade vulnerable areas for hunting and that crime syndicates organise the trade in wildlife body parts through a complex network of networks with markets outside their respective countries of origin. [29] [30] Armed conflicts in Africa have been linked to increased poaching and the decline of wildlife in protected areas,[31] likely reflecting the disruption of traditional livelihoods that leads people to seek alternative sources of food. TRAFFIC highlights many poaching areas and trade routes and helps combat the smuggling routes that poachers use to transport ivory to areas of high demand, particularly in Asia. [58] According to Frederick Chen, there are two main solutions that would address the supply of this poaching problem to reduce its impact: enforce and adopt more conservation policies and laws, and encourage local communities to protect the wildlife around them by giving them more land rights. [35] In 1998, environmental scientists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst proposed the concept of poaching as an environmental crime, defining as illegal any activity that violates laws and regulations protecting renewable natural resources, including the illegal harvesting of wild animals with the intent to possess, transport, consume or sell them and use their body parts. They saw poaching as one of the biggest threats to the survival of plant and animal populations. [6] Wildlife biologists and conservationists believe that poaching harms biodiversity inside and outside protected areas as wildlife populations decline, species are depleted locally, and the functionality of ecosystems is disrupted. [10] In the United States, poaching was not considered a serious problem until the twentieth century, as there was a vast area of undeveloped land with abundant sources of fish and game. .
