Prince William is currently in Singapore for the third Earthshot prize ceremony. He gave a speech in which he said that the world was losing precious natural resources including of course many iconic species of animal “at a frightening pace, all in the name of greed and exploitation.”
He’s right of course. He believes that the world can win the battle against illegal wildlife trade which by the way is worth billions of dollars annually. This is the mass exploitation of wildlife and you know there’s a treaty called CITES which is meant to be an agreement between countries to stop wildlife trade but it doesn’t work. It never has done. Governments are not sufficiently interested. They have more important fish to fry they believe.
Prince William was speaking at the United for Wildlife conference. He founded the conference to protect endangered species from illegal wildlife trade.
He said that the illegal trade in wildlife both flora and fauna is worth up to $20 billion annually. It’s a problem that needs to be addressed vigorously and now.
He added: “This United for Wildlife summit will address how to protect our natural world from the international criminal gangs intent on plundering out.”
These gangs are highly organised and they trade in such wildlife body parts as pangolin scales, rhino horns and tiger paws. They are the same gangs which traffic people, arms and drugs. William added that the illegal trade in wildlife was “as much a human crisis as an environmental one.”
He’s referring to the 1,500 wildlife rangers who died while carrying out their duty in protecting wildlife. And he says that modern day slavery, conflict and acts of terrorism are financed by profits from the illegal wildlife trade.
He began his speech by saying: “I’m delighted to be back in Singapore. It has been 11 years since Catherine and I enjoyed a memorable visit on behalf of my late grandmother in her Diamond Jubilee year.”
He says that United for Wildlife had led to an international statement on principles agreed by governments with the intention of preventing and detecting and deterring “the financial activity that sustains the illegal wildlife trade.”
Comment: he’s optimistic which is nice but I am pessimistic. He is making very big efforts to make inroads into this illegal trade but I’m afraid he is going to be disappointed.
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Apparently, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK and the US and South Africa and Singapore have committed to regular cooperation in attempt to combat money laundering from international criminal syndicates. He wants the agreement to “facilitate joint investigations and lead to more high-value seizures and arrests.”
He ended his speech as follows: “Let’s use this summer to renew our collective determination to defeat the criminal gangs who inflict such unnecessary environmental and human loss. This is a battle that can and must be won.”
Five category winners in his Earthshot competition will receive £1 million each with the intention of scaling up their invention/creations to make them commercially viable.
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