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Green Corruption: Dissecting a Recent Wilson Center Event
›In today’s episode of New Security Broadcast, ECSP’s Angus Soderberg breaks down a recent Wilson Center event against the backdrop of the 10th annual Conference of State Parties (COSP) to the UN Convention on Corruption, which is under way in Atlanta this week. On September 19, ECSP and the Wilson Center’s Global Europe Program, in partnership with the U.S. Department of State, the Embassy of the Principality of Liechtenstein, and the Basel Institute on Governance, hosted Combating Green Corruption: Fighting Financial Crime as a Driver of Environmental Degradation. The speakers discuss how corruption fuels wildlife trafficking and other environmental crimes, which finance illicit activities, hamper development, and erode efforts to combat biodiversity loss and climate change across the globe.
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Can the Growing Trans-Pacific Wildlife Trade Be Stopped?
›Today’s celebration of World Wildlife Day is a perfect time to focus greater attention on the rapidly growing Latin America-to-Asia wildlife trade. It now has reached crisis proportions, with both illegal and legal shipments rising in tandem with China’s economic investment in the region.
Experts link this mushrooming trans-Pacific animal trade to large-scale development projects by Chinese companies. Over the past 15 years, two state-owned Chinese banks have loaned more than $140 billion for infrastructure, road, railway and mining projects in Latin America.
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It’s Time for the World to Treat Wildlife Crime as Serious and Organized Crime
›On August 18, 2021, we witnessed a potential game-changer in the fight against international wildlife crime (IWT). One of the world’s leading wildlife trafficking hubs, Hong Kong, voted to change its laws to treat wildlife Crime as “Organized and Serious Crime.” From 2010 to 2020, local authorities valued wildlife seizures in the city at more than HK$1 billion (USD128.5 million), but the scale of the illicit trade passing through Hong Kong has likely been many times larger.
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Taking Action to Address Wildlife Crime’s Environmental, Health, and Security Risks
›“This COVID-19 pandemic has reminded us, albeit in a devastating way, of the interconnected nature of things, most particularly between economies, the environment, human and wildlife health and welfare,” said John Scanlon AO, the former Secretary-General of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) and Chair of the Global Initiative to End Wildlife Crime, at a recent Wilson Center event on wildlife crime’s connection to human health and security. Despite its serious implications for a broad swath of issue areas, wildlife crime and trafficking remain under-studied and under-regulated. At the event, experts from diverse fields in defense, global health, and conservation highlighted the need for international cooperation to mitigate wildlife crime’s impact on environmental degradation, the spread of zoonotic disease, and transnational security threats.
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John Scanlon on the Case for Criminalizing Wildlife Trafficking under International Law
›“The world is still feeling the full brunt of the COVID-19 pandemic which most likely had its origins in a wild animal,” says John Scanlon AO, Former Secretary-General of CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) and Chair of the Global Initiative to End Wildlife Crime, in this week’s Friday Podcast. Scanlon spoke at a recent Wilson Center event on the connections between wildlife crime, human health, and security.
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Michael Standaert, Ensia
How effective are China’s attempts to reduce the risk of wildlife spreading disease to humans?
›Nearly a year ago, somewhere in China, a previously unknown virus made its way from a wild animal into a human host. There it found not only a hospitable home, but also an opportunity to spread trillions of copies of itself, eventually replicating to become the global Covid-19 pandemic.
That outbreak, now having infected more than 46 million people around the world, has been the impetus for a series of actions taken by the Chinese government to — in theory — get a handle on zoonotic disease outbreaks now and in the future.
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Sharon Guynup, Mongabay
Landed by the thousands: Overfished Congo waters put endangered sharks at risk
›October 27, 2020 // By Wilson Center StaffIn a video clip, seven fishermen climb into a wooden “Popo” boat that’s beached on the Republic of the Congo’s sandy shoreline. They start up the motor of the 40-foot, limo-length motorized canoe and head out into the Atlantic. The men aboard the weathered craft — its blue paint chipped and faded by years of salt and sun — could be out for a week.
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Sharon Guynup, Mongabay
Brazilian Amazon Drained of Millions of Wild Animals by Criminal Networks
›August 18, 2020 // By Wilson Center StaffThe Brazilian Amazon is hemorrhaging illegally traded wildlife according to a new report released last month. Each year, thousands of silver-voiced saffron finches and other songbirds, along with rare macaws and parrots, are captured, trafficked and sold as pets. Some are auctioned as future contestants in songbird contests. Others are exported around the globe.
Showing posts from category wildlife trafficking.