09
Jan 2009 - Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia - Wildlife
trade monitors say they are alarmed by the
possibility that seized pangolins and pangolin
scales went back on the illegal market soon
after they were auctioned in Vietnam.
In December, Vietnamese
customs officials in Cai Lan seaport, Quang
Ninh, Vietnam seized 4,400kg of frozen pangolins
and 900kg of pangolin scales in similar
packaging to pangolins seized early last
year that went up for auction in October.
Pangolins – also known
as Scaly Anteaters – are the most commonly
seized illegally trafficked mammals in east
and south-east Asia with an estimated 100,000
a year required to satisfy Chinese demand
for scales for traditional medicinal uses.
Last October, pangolins were elevated from
a near threatened to an endangered status
in the International Union for the Conservation
of Nature’s (IUCN) Red List assessment.
“Selling off the seized
pangolins sent out entirely the wrong message,”
said Sulma Warne, Greater Mekong Programme
Co-ordinator of TRAFFIC, the IUCN and WWF
wildlife trade monitoring network.
“While it was permissible
under Vietnamese law, it undermined the
very enforcement efforts that led to the
seizure, for which the government received
much-deserved praise.
“This latest seizure
in Quang Ninh re-affirms the need to destroy
all seized wildlife products, as sell-offs
such as the one in October only help to
increase demand for pangolins in the region.
We call on the authorities to think carefully
about how they deal with the seized pangolins
in this case.”
At the time of their
initial seizure, pangolins had been shipped
from Indonesiaand were en route to China.
TRAFFIC expressed concern at the plans to
auction the seizure, drawing attention to
Indonesia’s destruction of meat and scales
from a July 2000 raid on a warehouse that
resulted in the seizure of nearly 14 tonnes
of frozen pangolin and the arrest of 14
suspects.
A lack of transparency
on the auction outcome has hampered inquiries
into where the pangolins had gone, although
it is understood they had been transferred
to the winning bidder.
“With this new seizure,
Viet Nam has another chance to make good
on their progress towards protecting pangolins
by following the positive example from Indonesia,”
said Chris Shepherd, Senior Programme Officer
for TRAFFIC Southeast Asia.
Commercial international
trade in pangolins is banned under CITES
(the Convention on International Trade in
Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora).
The illegal trade sees pangolins harvested
mostly in Malaysiaand Indonesiaand trafficked
through the Greater Mekong region for consumption
mostly in China, but also increasingly in
Viet Nam.
Viet Namand Indonesiaare
members of ASEAN Wildlife Enforcement Network
(ASEAN-WEN), a partnership that seeks to
end illegal cross-border wildlife trade
in the region.
Local hunters throughout
Southeast Asiareport that pangolins are
becoming increasingly scarce.
“There is a crucial
need to move pangolin conservation up the
political agenda,” said Shepherd. “It’s
now or never for pangolins.”
+ More
Hong Kong residents
have twice footprint of China's
08 Jan 2009 - Hong Kong
- Hong Kong residents are using nearly twice
the resources of citizens of mainland China,
according to an ecological footprint assessment
by WWF Hong Kong and the Global Footprint
Network (GFN).
Hong Kong’s ecological
footprint per person is more than double
the sustainable level, and the carbon component
has increased approximately seven-fold since
1965 according to the first Ecological Footprint
Report for Hong Kong, released late last
year.
According to the report,
Hong Kong residents require an area of land
and sea greater than the size of 250 Hong
Kongs to produce the natural resources it
consumes, and to absorb the carbon dioxide
it is responsible for emitting.
To reduce Hong Kong's
ecological deficit, WWF is urging Hong Kong
to put the concept of "Low Carbon Economy”
into real action immediately and develop
a comprehensive energy strategy.
"Hong Kong is fortunate
in having financial resources to transform
into a truly modern city where we can live
well on a modest ecological footprint,”
said Dr Andy Cornish, Director of Conservation
WWF Hong Kong.
“In doing so, Hong Kong
can lead by example, providing a sustainability
blueprint for other cities in China and
around the world. However, our current ecological
footprint is far beyond the sustainable
level. Hong Kong needs to reduce our footprint
by increasing efficiency and reducing consumption.”
Hong Kong covers its
significant ecological deficit mostly by
importing natural resources from other nations.
As resource demand around the world continues
to grow and resources become increasingly
scarce, the report suggests that Hong Kong’s
dependency on imported resources poses considerable
risk.
"Although small
geographically, Hong Kong not only has significant
resource demands, but it also has an over-proportional
influence on the world," said Global
Footprint Network Executive Director Mathis
Wackernagel.
"In an era of increasingly
limited resources, it will be in Hong Kong's
self-interest to take its ecological balance
sheet seriously and limit its resource dependence
if it wants to stay prosperous and competitive."
The Hong Kong Ecological
Footprint Report will be produced by WWF-Hong
Kong every two years. "To move towards
a more sustainable Hong Kong, we should
reduce our footprint to a sustainable level,”
said Dr Cornish.
“We already know where
to start. The biggest contributor to Hong
Kong's footprint is the way in which we
generate and use energy: carbon emissions
make up 80 per cent of our overall footprint.
Reducing carbon emissions is therefore essential
to reducing Hong Kong's overall ecological
overshoot.”
