tagged w/ Traditional Medicines
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PHOTO: The last rhinoceros cow in Krugersdorp park, South Africa, bled to death on Wednesday after poachers hacked off her horn. Photograph: Reuters
Poachers kill last female rhino in South African park for prized horn - Record levels of poaching are endangering survival of rhinoceros in South Africa
South African wildlife experts are calling for urgent action against poachers after the last female rhinoceros in a popular game reserve near Johannesburg bled to death after having its horn hacked off.
Wildlife officials say poaching for the prized horns has now reached an all-time high. "Last year, 129 rhinos were killed for their horns in South Africa. This year, we have already had 136 deaths," said Japie Mostert, chief game ranger at the 1,500-hectare Krugersdorp game reserve.
The gang used tranquilliser guns and a helicopter to bring down the nine-year-old rhino cow. Her distraught calf was moved to a nearby estate where it was introduced to two other orphaned white rhinos.
Wanda Mkutshulwa, a spokeswoman for South African National Parks, said investigations into the growing number of incidents had been shifted to the country's organised crime unit. "We are dealing with very focused criminals. Police need to help game reserves because they are not at all equipped to handle crime on such an organised level,'' she said.
Rhino horn consists of compressed keratin fibre – similar to hair – and in many Asian cultures it is a fundamental ingredient in traditional medicines.
Mkutshulwa said poaching was also rife in the Kruger Park. Five men were arrested there in the past week alone – four of whom were caught with two bloodied rhino horns, AK-47 assault rifles, bolt-action rifles and an axe.
Krugersdorp game reserve attracts at least 200,000 visitors every year. It is also close to a private airport, which may have been used by the poachers.
"The exercise takes them very little time," Mostert said. "They first fly over the park in the late afternoon to locate where the rhino is grazing. Then they return at night and dart the animal from the air. The tranquilliser takes less than seven minutes to act.
"They saw off the horns with a chainsaw. They do not even need to switch off the rotors of the helicopter. We do not hear anything because our houses are too far away. The animal dies either from an overdose of tranquilliser or bleeds to death."
The committee of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) warned last year that rhino poaching had reached an all-time high. The Cites conference in Geneva in July 2009 heard that Asia's economic expansion had fuelled the market in rhino horns.
The horns are also used in the Middle East to make handles for ornamental daggers. Cites said demand for them had begun to soar in recent years. In the five years up to 2005, an average of only 36 rhinos had been killed each year.
Conservationists estimate that there are only 18,000 black and white rhinos in Africa, down from 65,000 in the 1970s. Mostert, who has been a ranger for 20 years, said the animals fetch up to 1m rand (£85,000) at game auctions and cannot be insured.
Cites has praised South Africa for its action against poachers. Two weeks ago, a Vietnamese man was jailed for 10 years for trying to smuggle horns out of the country.
Krugersdorp game reserve attracts at least 200,000 visitors every year. It is also close to a private airport, which may have been used by the poachers.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jul/18/poachers-kill-last-female-rhinoPHOTO: The last rhinoceros cow in Krugersdorp park, South Africa, bled to death on... more
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TRAFFIC - Wildlife Trade News - World leaders have failed to deliver commitments made in 2002 through the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) to reduce the global rate of biodiversity loss by 2010, and have instead overseen alarming biodiversity declines, according to a paper just published in the journal Science.
In the first assessment of progress made towards achieving the 2010 target, scientists from a wide range of institutions examined data from over 30 indicators of biodiversity – such as changes in species’ populations and risk of extinction, habitat extent and community composition – but found no evidence for a significant reduction in the rate of decline.
“Our analysis shows that governments have failed to deliver on the commitments they made in 2002: biodiversity is still being lost as fast as ever, and we have made little headway in reducing the pressures on species, habitats and ecosystems”, said Dr Stuart Butchart, of the United Nations Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre and BirdLife International, and the paper’s lead author.
“2010 will not be the year that biodiversity loss was halted, but it needs to be the year in which we start taking the issue seriously and substantially increase our efforts to take care of what is left of our planet.”
The indicators included in the study were developed and synthesized through the 2010 Biodiversity Indicators Partnership – a collaboration of over 40 international organizations and agencies developing global biodiversity indicators and the leading source of information on trends in global biodiversity.
They included indicators developed by TRAFFIC and IUCN to monitor trends in the status of species used for food and medicine. These showed that birds and mammals used for these purposes are generally more threatened than those that are not. This may be due to over-exploitation or for other reasons such as habitat loss, or a combination of factors.
“Regardless of the causes, the diminishing availability of wildlife resources threatens the health and well-being of the people who depend on them directly for food and medicine and on their wild harvest as a source of income,” said Thomasina Oldfield, Research and Analysis Programme Leader for TRAFFIC and a co-author of the Science paper.
There needs to be urgent action to tackle the world’s biodiversity crisis, coupled with sustained investment in coherent monitoring and use of indicators to track and improve the effectiveness of any responses.
The results from the latest study will feed into Global Biodiversity Outlook 3, the flagship publication of the CBD, to be released in Nairobi on May 10th, when government representatives from around the world will meet to discuss the 2010 target and how to address the biodiversity crisis.
“Although nations have put in place some significant policies to slow biodiversity declines, these have been woefully inadequate, and the gap between the pressures on biodiversity and the responses is getting ever wider,” said Butchart
http://www.traffic.org/home/2010/4/30/world-governments-fail-to-deliver-on-2010-biodiversity-targe.htmlTRAFFIC - Wildlife Trade News - World leaders have failed to deliver commitments made... more
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PHOTO: Described in 2005, the Laotian Rock Rat [Laonastes aenigmamus] was first encountered by scientists on sale at an outdoor food market in Lao
Over one thousand new species have been discovered in the Greater Mekong Region of Southeast Asia since 1997, says a new report by WWF.
Among the most incredible finds documented in 'First Contact in the Greater Mekong' are the Lao Rock Rat, thought to have gone extinct 11 million years ago but discovered in a Lao food market; the hot-pink “dragon millipede” that produces cyanide in self-defense; the world’s largest huntsman spider, which has a leg span of over 30 centimeters; and a new species of purple banana from Southern China.
All told, over 500 plants, 250 fish, 80 frogs, 40 lizards, and 20 snakes, as well as 15 mammals, 4 birds, 4 turtles, 2 salamanders and a toad, were found throughout the six countries of the Greater Mekong region, Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam and the southern Chinese province of Yunnan.
In documenting such a prolific rate of discovery—an average of two species per week were discovered over the past decade—the report’s findings reaffirm the importance of the Greater Mekong as a biodiversity hotspot and conservation priority. As a result of such high biodiversity, the region is also recognised as a hub for the illicit trade in wildlife. Plants and animals of all sizes and description are poached from their natural habitats, transported across the region to major markets such as China and Viet Nam.
However, while many of these discoveries are new to science, Sulma Warne, Co-ordinator of TRAFFIC’s Greater Mekong Programme, says it is likely that many of the species have been known by local communities, and in some cases have long been harvested for food, medicine or other reasons.
While excited about the recent discoveries and recognizing the importance of sharing such news with the rest of the world, he was, however, concerned that high levels of publicity might motivate a demand for some species that was previously non-existent beyond low level local consumption.PHOTO: Described in 2005, the Laotian Rock Rat [Laonastes aenigmamus] was first... more
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