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UNFAIR CONSUMPTION PATTERNS
source: www.iucn.org/themes/
ssc/news/SSGdonation.html
www.savedolphins.org
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Ivory pieces, turtle shells, leopard skins, ostrich eggs… Whether you go around the corner or around the globe, you could stumble upon products made from endangered or threatened wildlife.
Sometimes you may not even know that what you buy could contain anything remotely questionable. So, it's up to you to read labels, ask questions, request documentation. Just a couple of examples of endangered species available on the marketplace:
- Sturgeon produce one of the world’s most valuable wildlife commodities - the caviar of some species may sell for more than € 5800 (US$ 7700) per kg. In the IUCN Red List, 27 species of the sturgeon and paddlefish family are listed as threatened with extinction. The international community is working through CITES* to help the states of the Caspian Sea (among the main producers) to build a science-based management system for the long-term conservation and sustainable use of sturgeon.
- Commercial trade in bushmeat (meat from wild animals killed for human consumption, also known as ‘wild meat’) is having a devastating effect on wildlife populations in Africa, Asia, Oceania and South America. A vast range of species are affected, from birds and small mammals such as the duiker and flying fox, to the larger animals such as deer, hippo, buffalo and forest elephant. Bushmeat hunting is now one of the world's most pressing conservation problems.
When consumers make the difference…
- Tuna fishermen in the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean found that setting nets on dolphins to catch the tuna swimming underneath was a lucrative technique for tuna fishing, even though the practice is extremely harmful to dolphins. Seven million dolphins have been killed in the past 40 years from this practice. Since the US ‘dolphin.safe’ tuna program and other provisions of the Marine Mammal Protection Act dolphin deaths have decreased by 97%.
* CITES Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.
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