China pledges to tackle animal smuggling

[Guest guest]

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*China vows to fight animal smuggling*

 

 

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Beijing (dpa) - China on Friday promised closer cooperation with Southeast

Asian nations in the fight against trafficking in wild animals, of which it

is a major consumer.

 

" We want to be open and honest about what's going on here, " Wan Ziming, head

of enforcement for China's State Forestry Administration, said after talks

with officials from five Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean)

members and wildlife protection groups.

 

" Everyone is blaming China for consuming Southeast Asia's wildlife and wants

China to solve the problem, " Wan said in a joint press release after the

five-day meeting in China's southern cities of Guangzhou and Shenzhen.

 

" We need to work together with other countries, with Asean-WEN, to stop the

illegal trade, " he said, referring to the Asean Wildlife Enforcement

Network.

 

Steven Galster, director of operations for the Thailand-based Wildlife

Alliance, welcomed the talks.

 

" China's openness gives us hope that more meaningful cross-border

enforcement cooperation in Asia may be on the horizon, " Galster said in the

joint statement.

 

Eight police, customs and environmental officials from Thailand, Singapore,

Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines joined the talks, which were aimed

at agreeing on strategies to reduce the illegal cross-border wildlife trade.

 

 

The talks were the first formal dialogue on wildlife trafficking with Asean

in China.

 

The Asean officials visited a high-security warehouse for seized wildlife

products, including several tons of ivory and snake skins, the statement

said.

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

Promises promises.

 

China has promised in the past so many things on wildlife conservation and

animal welfare issues but has till now to produce any results. All these

governments want is to have a few talks, get their story endorsed by one or two

NGO's that are willing to lend their name to their objectives and then go ahead

with doing actually nothing at all.

 

Edwin Wiek

 

WFFT Thailand

 

www.wfft.org <http://www.wfft.org/>