Wildlife traffickers creeping back into Southeast Asia as Covid-19 restrictions ease
Wildlife traffickers creeping back into Southeast Asia as Covid-19 restrictions ease
Wildlife traffickers creeping back into Southeast Asia as Covid-19 restrictions ease.
The article from The Straits Times “Wildlife traffickers creeping back as Covid-19 restrictions ease: UN Report”, explains how illegal killing and transportation of illegal animal products is slowly increasing in Southeast Asia. As the Covid-19 virus began in China, at a market where wildlife product was sold, the demand for such products saw an immediate drop. Alongside this drop in demand for wildlife products, the border restrictions on Southeast Asian countries made it difficult to transport such products and saw an even further decline in trading. Mr. Jeremy Douglas, the UN representative for Southeast Asia explains that “the pandemic has gifted authorities with an opportunity” to combat further increases of illegal wildlife sales. Yet, as the Covid-19 restrictions begin to ease the trading of wildlife products has begun to slowly increase. Reports from the UNODC (UN’s Office on Drugs and Crime) are warning countries that because of the temporary decrease, a long-term increase of wildlife trafficking is about to occur.
Southeast Asia has a large diversity of wildlife and a lot of which is used for traditional reasons such as medicine. This invokes the use of illegal wildlife products and insures that there will always be a market. The article confirms the market hasnt completely fallen through as illegal wildlife product has been found stockpiled along the Mekong River, for when trading is profitable again. The trade of these wildlife products, as stated by the article has an international market. As many borders came into existence with colonialism, cultural practices have similar qualities throughout Southeast Asia. With this I believe that certain cultural areas of Southeast Asia were impacted differently on their cultural practices that relied on wildlife products. Therefore, countries that have a higher population of certain species, such as the Pangolin or Rosewood trees would not have experienced such a loss, but the surrounding countries that may use the same species and dont have as abundant sources would have suffered more culturally with the border restrictions.
I feel that this article highlights an ethical issue of traditional medicines in Southeast Aisa and the rest of the world. It is important to keep traditional practices alive but to what extent when native animals are becoming endangered and extinct. It does seem from reading this article that the preservation of native wildlife is weighted more than the continuing of traditional medicines.
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