Poaching Wars

[parakitaMol.]

ITV 9pm this week (2 parts)

This is why I get up and go to work everyday. To make a difference, to stop this....

If you're as interested as I am - please watch this and maybe consider helping those trying to make a difference. Or the beautiful gentle rhino, peaceful elephant, tiger, African dog, snow leopard, moon bear and many others will be extinct. Not due to natural selection but due to man's rape and deforestation of their habitat and brutal slaughter for vanity products.

http://www.itv.com/presscentre/ep1week34/poaching-...

“Like most of us I have a love for Africa’s magnificent animals. As a result I find it hard to stomach the poaching crisis sweeping the continent and pushing these amazing animals to the edge of extinction. Without doubt the rhino and the elephant are facing extinction well within our lifetime and the war on poaching is being lost. I’m making these documentaries because it’s something practical I can do to ask some questions that need to be asked.” Tom Hardy

Motivated by his love of animals, BAFTA award-winning actor Tom Hardy (Inception, The Dark Knight Rises, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy) travels to South Africa, Botswana and Tanzania aiming to uncover the truth about why poaching has reached crisis levels and to see for himself what can be done to stop the killing."

[Simpo Two]

Poachers are motivated by money. The only way to deal with them is:

1) Kill them - but new ones will emerge
2) Put them all in jail - but new ones will emerge
3) Pay them more money than they can earn by poaching to stop poaching - but they will still sneak out and do it anyway
4) Install a proper Government - but this will never happen because such countries have no idea of a Western democracy and it is not for us to tell them how to run their countries (any more than they can tell us to run ours)

Hence I think it cannot be stopped, any more than you can stop war, poverty or disease.

[Thevet]

Simpo Two said:

Poachers are motivated by money. The only way to deal with them is:

1) Kill them - but new ones will emerge
2) Put them all in jail - but new ones will emerge
3) Pay them more money than they can earn by poaching to stop poaching - but they will still sneak out and do it anyway
4) Install a proper Government - but this will never happen because such countries have no idea of a Western democracy and it is not for us to tell them how to run their countries (any more than they can tell us to run ours)

Hence I think it cannot be stopped, any more than you can stop war, poverty or disease.

Give up??

[Simpo Two]

Well if you have an idea that will work, I'm listening

[parakitaMol.]

It is way, way more complicated than just the poacher. There isn't a single answer, each country has its own set of problems, so, sadly does each species. Institutional corruption, lack of legislation, an insatiable appetite for 'ingredients', cultural acceptance/indifference and lack of enforcement powers to name but a few. The poachers are responding to economics and demand and that's where the change needs to occur. China is the biggest consumer of animal body parts but it's not the only one. Colombia, Russia, Africa, - criminal gangs from around the world are responsible for trafficking.

However, this does not mean we should not take action to protect the few remaining wild animals!! Only 3k tigers left in the wild, that's appalling. Rhinos and elephants slaughtered in more numbers this year than ever before. The solution isn't a single 'thing'.

This is a shocking subject, makes my blood boil, this series will be really interesting and very disturbing.

[Simpo Two]

Loss of habitat is another factor - human expansion and the need for raw materials/to make a living.