{"id":13364,"date":"2021-03-22T03:45:00","date_gmt":"2021-03-22T03:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eodishasamachar.com\/en\/2021\/03\/22\/still-trading-in-extinction-hong-kongs-insatiable-demand-for-exotic-wildlife-dead-or-alive-according-to-a-report-by-adm-capital-foundation\/"},"modified":"2021-03-22T03:45:00","modified_gmt":"2021-03-22T03:45:00","slug":"still-trading-in-extinction-hong-kongs-insatiable-demand-for-exotic-wildlife-dead-or-alive-according-to-a-report-by-adm-capital-foundation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eodishasamachar.com\/en\/2021\/03\/22\/still-trading-in-extinction-hong-kongs-insatiable-demand-for-exotic-wildlife-dead-or-alive-according-to-a-report-by-adm-capital-foundation\/","title":{"rendered":"Still Trading in Extinction: Hong Kong&#8217;s Insatiable Demand for Exotic Wildlife &#8211; Dead or Alive, according to a report by ADM Capital Foundation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> \n<\/p>\n<div id=\"\">\n                            <!--<a class=\"format-txt\" href=\"{baseURL}\/View\/{release.id}?_download=1\">View this article in .txt format<\/a>--><\/p>\n<p>HONG KONG SAR &#8211;\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.media-outreach.com\/\">Media OutReach<\/a>\u00a0&#8211; 22 March 2021 &#8211;\u00a0Amidst a global biodiversity crisis, Hong Kong&#13;<br \/>\nauthorities seized a record breaking 649 metric tonnes (MT) of rare and&#13;<br \/>\nendangered wildlife in 2018 and 2019, according to a report released today by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.admcf.org\/\">ADM Capital Foundation<\/a> (ADMCF), which&#13;<br \/>\nmonitors the trade through the city.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><img src=\"https:\/\/release.media-outreach.com\/release.php\/Images\/Thumb\/500x0\/134022\/ADM-image.jpg#image-134022\" width=\"500\"\/><\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n&#13; <\/p>\n<p align=\"center\">Photographs: Paul Hilton \/ Earth Tree Images, further press materials:&#13;<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/bit.ly\/2OTHc9b\">http:\/\/bit.ly\/2OTHc9b<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n&#13; <\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n&#13; <\/p>\n<p>In its latest wildlife trade report, &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.admcf.org\/research-reports\/still-trading-in-extinction-the-dark-side-of-hong-kongs-wildlife-trade\/\"><b>Still&#13;<br \/>\nTrading in Extinction: The Dark Side of Hong Kong&#8217;s Wildlife Trade<\/b><\/a><b>&#8221; ADMCF <\/b>detailed&#13;<br \/>\nHong Kong&#8217;s growing wildlife seizures (2018-2019), prosecutions (2017-2020) and&#13;<br \/>\nthe city&#8217;s continuing role&#13;<br \/>\nin the global illicit wildlife trade. <\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n&#13; <\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n&#13; <\/p>\n<p>Based on government data, the report shows that volumes of&#13;<br \/>\nwildlife seized in 2018 and 2019 surpassed all annual totals for the preceding&#13;<br \/>\ndecade with the exception of 2015. Figures indicate a shift in trade dynamics&#13;<br \/>\nwith a decline in ivory in trade following the local ban, pangolins at&#13;<br \/>\ndevastatingly high levels and a worrying diversification of other endangered&#13;<br \/>\nspecies seized. <\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n&#13; <\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n&#13; <\/p>\n<p>Indeed, the &#8220;<i>Other&#13;<br \/>\nEndangered Species<\/i>&#8221; seizures, including everything that is not ivory,&#13;<br \/>\npangolin or wood, were at an all-time high in 2019, a threefold increase over&#13;<br \/>\nthe previous year, which itself was a threefold increase since 2017. <\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n&#13; <\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n&#13; <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It is vital that decisive action is taken to change our&#13;<br \/>\ncity from being a hub for the illegal wildlife trade to become a global leader&#13;<br \/>\nin the fight against it&#8221; said Sophie le Clue of ADM Capital Foundation.\u00a0 &#8220;If not, we will continue to inflict&#13;<br \/>\nirreversible damage on the world&#8217;s biodiversity and suffer impacts long into&#13;<br \/>\nthe future.&#8221;<i\/><\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n&#13; <\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n&#13; <\/p>\n<p>Facilitating enhanced enforcement to stem the illegal&#13;<br \/>\ntrade in Hong Kong, a Member&#8217;s Bill submitted by Hong Kong law maker Elizabeth&#13;<br \/>\nQuat was tabled in LegCo&#8217;s Environmental Affairs Panel today.\u00a0 The proposed policy reform to amend <i>the Organised and Serious Crimes Ordinance&#13;<br \/>\n(OSCO) to include wildlife offences in its schedules, <\/i>could demonstrate&#13;<br \/>\nHong Kong&#8217;s global leadership in combating wildlife trafficking. <\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n&#13; <\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n&#13; <\/p>\n<p><i>&#8220;This bill to amend OSCO is&#13;<br \/>\nurgently needed and we commend the government for responding to the global&#13;<br \/>\nbiodiversity crisis&#8221; Said Amanda Whitfort, Associate Professor of Law at The&#13;<br \/>\nUniversity of Hong Kong. <\/i><\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n&#13; <\/p>\n<p><i>\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n&#13; <\/p>\n<p>The 1,404 seizures over the two years&#13;<br \/>\nreflected in the report also included almost 7,000 live animals. This meant&#13;<br \/>\nthat in 2019 alone, over 2,300 seized endangered animals had to be euthanized by&#13;<br \/>\ngovernment authorities. <\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n&#13; <\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n&#13; <\/p>\n<p><i>&#8220;The unrelenting rise in Hong Kong&#8217;s wildlife seizures is a clear&#13;<br \/>\nsignal that we cannot continue to ignore the wildlife traffickers who exploit&#13;<br \/>\nour city&#8221; said Dr David Olson, Director of Conservation at WWF-Hong Kong. <\/i><\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n&#13; <\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n&#13; <\/p>\n<p>Wildlife&#13;<br \/>\ncontraband seizures consistently rank within the top five customs seizures in&#13;<br \/>\nterms of value, annually. The value of <b>2018-2019 seizures was estimated at HK$207&#13;<br \/>\nmillion <\/b>according to government data<b>.&#13;<br \/>\n<\/b>\u00a0Sentences for convicted carriers ranged&#13;<br \/>\nfrom a fine of HK$300 to 32-months imprisonment. &#8220;Enforcement in the wildlife&#13;<br \/>\ntrade typically focuses on carriers of the products instead of investigating what&#13;<br \/>\nare often syndicates behind the trade&#8221; said Dorothy Cheng of WildAid Hong Kong.&#13;\n<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n&#13; <\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n&#13; <\/p>\n<p>Members of Hong Kong&#8217;s Wildlife Trade Working Group&#13;<br \/>\nformally delivered a co-signed letter to the Chairman of Panel on Environmental&#13;<br \/>\nAffairs, in support of the Member&#8217;s Bill. <i\/><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.media-outreach.com\/release.php\/View\/69741#Contact\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>HONG KONG SAR &#8211;\u00a0Media OutReach\u00a0&#8211; 22 March 2021 &#8211;\u00a0Amidst a global biodiversity crisis, Hong Kong&#13; authorities seized a record breaking 649 metric tonnes (MT) of rare and&#13; endangered wildlife in 2018 and 2019, according to a report released today by ADM Capital Foundation (ADMCF), which&#13; monitors the trade through the city. &#13; &#13; Photographs: Paul &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13365,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[60],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eodishasamachar.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13364"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eodishasamachar.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eodishasamachar.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eodishasamachar.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eodishasamachar.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13364"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/eodishasamachar.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13364\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eodishasamachar.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eodishasamachar.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eodishasamachar.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eodishasamachar.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}