Sight of a tiger is enough to send shivers down your spine. But thanks to illegal trade, the majestic creature has its tails tucked between legs, along with a few others.
The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) has just released a list of top 10 species, which need immediate global actions to save them from trade and it includes, apart from tiger, porbeagle shark, spiny dogfish, Sawfish, Asian rhinos, red and pink coral, European eel, elephants, great apes and the bigleaf mahogany.
Incidentally, the list comes out as delegates from 170-odd countries assemble for the Conference of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) early next month at the Hague, the Netherlands.
While poaching and illegal trade has significantly reduced the population of tiger and the Asian rhino, the recent global market demand has created the same crisis for marine creatures.
Dr Susan Lieberman, Director of WWF’s Global Species Programme said the new list portray a contemporary picture of the bleak scenario.
Lieberman said
For some, there are new threats, others are new on the agenda due to changing trade dynamics in the global economy, while for yet others, organized criminal elements continue to ply their trade across the globe.
Whatever the problem, nothing will change unless governments take this trade and its impacts on conservation and local people’s livelihoods seriously.
Image