TTTĐ – Over the past 10 years, the trend of illegal hunting and trading of wild animals has become increasingly complex and internationalized, with no signs of decreasing in severity and becoming more serious: there have been many cases involving thousands, tens of thousands of specimens confiscated and seized.
| Strengthening the effectiveness of the fight against wildlife trafficking and transportationAmendments to the legal framework to prevent hunting and trading of wildlife |
Many species are threatened with extinction in Vietnam.
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has just released its Wildlife Crime Report 2020, which highlights that the multi-billion dollar illegal wildlife trade continues to pose a major threat to nature, global biodiversity and human health. Notably, criminal groups are increasingly using social media platforms to sell their goods.
Traffickers are increasingly using lion, leopard and cheetah body parts as substitutes for tigers, the report said. The rise in seizures of tiger products, which often include bones for wine or tiger bone glue in China and Vietnam, has prompted traffickers to increasingly source parts from other big cats, such as clouded leopards, snow leopards and leopards.
It is estimated that there are more than 12,000 tigers living in captivity around the world, including 6,057 in China, more than the remaining wild populations in India and Southeast Asia. Notably, many of these facilities are linked to smuggling networks.
In contrast to the rising demand for tiger products, demand for ivory and rhino horn has shown signs of steady decline, with prices from poachers in Africa falling. However, data from several large seizures of ivory and rhino horn in 2019 suggest that 2019 was a record year for smuggling of both products.
As for pangolins, their trade increased tenfold between 2014 and 2018. Pangolin populations have declined sharply in Asia, making West and Central Africa the hubs for pangolin smuggling. Pangolin scales are commonly used as medicine in China and Vietnam.
Analysis of wildlife product seizure data from 149 countries and territories over the past two decades reveals the scale of global wildlife trafficking, and describes trends in illegal markets for rosewood, ivory, rhino horn, pangolin scales, live reptiles, big cats, and European eels.
Vietnam is ranked 16th among the countries with the highest biodiversity in the world. However, Vietnam is also a “hot spot” for biodiversity, meaning that the population of rare wildlife species is seriously declining, facing the risk of extinction – the culprit is illegal hunting and wildlife trade.
Although the Vietnamese Government and domestic and international conservation organizations have made many efforts to prevent it, illegal hunting and trading activities have caused many serious consequences for Vietnam’s wildlife and biodiversity.
Vietnam is currently known as a place with many endangered species. Of these, 407 animal species are listed in the Vietnam Red Book with different levels from rare to endangered, threatened with extinction; 7 animal species of Vietnam are in the list of 100 most endangered species in the world.
The main reason is for commercial purposes, to meet market demand; moreover, corruption and protection of illegal wildlife trade are also among the reasons hindering efforts to investigate, prosecute and try wildlife crimes.
No need to go far, just use the Internet, access social networking sites and we can carry out many transactions related to wildlife trade. Illegal wildlife trade is rampant and has become one of the largest illegal economic activities, leading to countless consequences.
In the past 10 years, the trend of illegal hunting and trading of wildlife has become increasingly complex and internationalized, with no signs of decreasing in severity and becoming more serious: there have been many cases involving thousands, tens of thousands of specimens confiscated and seized.
Although the Vietnamese Government and domestic and international conservation organizations have made many efforts to prevent it, illegal hunting and trading activities have caused many serious consequences for Vietnam’s wildlife and biodiversity.
Vietnam is currently known as a place with many endangered species. Of these, 407 animal species are listed in the Vietnam Red Book with different levels from rare to endangered, threatened with extinction; 7 animal species of Vietnam are in the list of 100 most endangered species in the world.
The main reason is for commercial purposes, to meet market demand; moreover, corruption and protection of illegal wildlife trade are also among the reasons hindering efforts to investigate, prosecute and try wildlife crimes.
Commercial trade is a major threat to most other mammals, including populations of tigers, gaur ( Bos gaurus ) and banteng ( B. javanicus ). A comprehensive review of the status of these three species suggests that their populations in Vietnam have been severely reduced to 100, 500 and 170–195 individuals respectively . The result of sustained market pressure on these species is that their remaining populations will become extremely small, such as the heavily hunted one-horned rhinoceros ( Rhinoceros sondaicus annamiticus ) , or become locally extinct, such as the grey ox ( B. sauveli ). Although many birds are captured for consumption, display and release, commercial trade is still less of a threat to these species than habitat loss and depletion. However, for parrots and lorikeets, especially the red-breasted parrot ( Psittacula alexandri fasciata ), hunting for the pet trade is probably the main cause of population decline and loss of biodiversity.
The burden of restoring ecosystems
First of all, wildlife consumption is contributing to the “destruction” of humans and their fellow human beings. Wildlife consumption causes species extinction, ecological imbalance, and has a direct negative impact on humans. This is no longer a distant, impractical scientific theory, but the negative impacts of ecological imbalance have occurred and can be seen very clearly, it is just that we have ignored it or do not want to see it.
As evidence for this, the Center for Conservation of Wildlife in Vietnam (Save Vietnam’s Wildlife – SVW) uses the story of the viper species that appeared en masse in many places and attacked people in late 2018 and early 2019 as one of the clearest examples. An important reason is that natural enemies of snakes such as civets, foxes, wild cats, etc. have gradually disappeared due to becoming “bait”, the population of snake-eating animals is no longer large in that area, creating overpopulation, food in the natural environment is not enough to meet the demand, snakes move to residential areas to find more food where there are many poultry, rats and insects are the main food sources of snakes.
Although we may think of the animal world as separate from ourselves, our lives and theirs are inextricably linked, bound together by a million invisible threads. Plants, animals, humans, and the environment together form a biological community—an ecosystem in which each part depends on the others for survival. When one part of that community falls out of balance or is eliminated, the entire ecosystem suffers.
Illegal hunting of wildlife will directly affect environmental conservation, increasing pressure on nature and biodiversity protection, putting intense pressure on nature reserves and pressure on the populations of protected native species. The natural habitats of species are degraded and fragmented, reducing the population density of most species, leading to many species disappearing or becoming very rare, which will create a burden for future generations in restoring ecosystems.
Nowadays, some animal species are in higher demand from smugglers and consumers, leading to a clear decline in their habitats as they have been almost completely captured, thereby disrupting their natural ecosystems. Due to the indiscriminate hunting of wild animals along with deforestation, the habitats of many animal species have been severely damaged, causing some species to become aggressive, causing disasters for humans such as wild elephants and wild boars destroying production, rats and locusts destroying crops in many places.
In addition, the use of food and products from wild animals can directly affect human health. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), about 70% of infectious diseases in the past 50 years have originated from wild animals. Direct contact with wild animals is a favorable condition for humans to contract many dangerous viruses such as HIV/AIDS, bird flu, swine flu, SARS, Ebola, MERS. The initial source of Covid-19 – a pandemic that is having a serious impact worldwide – is also likely to be from wild animals.
To raise awareness among all social classes, news agencies and newspapers need to increase the amount of time spent on the topic of preventing and combating wildlife hunting and trafficking, creating public opinion and pressure for authorities to strengthen their direction and leadership in this work.
Despite positive changes in legislation and local and public awareness, Vietnam still faces many challenges in protecting rare wildlife. Therefore, urgent solutions are needed to end the illegal trade and consumption of these animals in our country.
Authorities need to investigate and strictly handle the ringleaders of illegal wildlife trafficking rings. Eliminate corruption and abetting violators; Have effective deterrent measures: Appropriately punish violators of wildlife trafficking and trafficking to effectively deter others.
The prohibition of rhino horn trade in all forms; including the trade of hunting specimens must be strictly implemented. Only then will the image of Vietnam as a consumer and transit country in the current rhino poaching crisis be gradually erased; Destroy the seized rhino horn and ivory stocks. Only a small amount of specimens will be retained for scientific research, DNA analysis and education and training purposes.
The unit tightened management of private tiger farms and uncontrolled tiger breeding: Since 2007, the number of tigers kept in captivity in private facilities and zoos increased from 55 to more than 189 due to uncontrolled breeding. These tigers have no value in the conservation of rare and endangered wildlife. Therefore, it is necessary to close down private tiger farms. At the same time, it is strictly forbidden to breed tigers in any form if they have no value or serve the purpose of scientific research, education and conservation.
We need to completely end bear farming; encourage private bear owners to transfer their bears without compensation. Otherwise, they will be punished according to current laws on wildlife protection violations.
Tighten the licensing of commercial wildlife farming by the following measures: When an effective management system has not been established and the authorities do not have the capacity to closely monitor and manage commercial wildlife farming facilities, the competent authority shall not grant licenses; revoke licenses for farming facilities that do not have sufficient legal evidence and transparent information about the origin of the wildlife being kept or traded; strictly handle local officials who are corrupt, cover up, or collude with illegal commercial wildlife farming activities.
In addition, it is necessary to enhance the responsibility of local authorities in controlling, managing and ending the illegal trade and consumption of wildlife in the area; Strengthen the fight against Internet crimes related to wildlife trafficking, by measures such as: Closing websites containing information about selling, advertising, or buying and selling wildlife; strengthening monitoring and blocking of personal pages on social networks used by subjects to sell wildlife.