Thailand may face heat over ivory trade business at endangered species conference

By Darryl Fears

BANGKOK: -- It was a professional hit, the quick and ruthless slaying of a family of 12. Poachers with machetes hacked off the tusks of 11 African elephants on Jan. 5 in a Kenyan reserve, passing over a baby that was crushed by its mother after a gunshot felled her.

The same day, customs officials in Hong Kong seized more than 770 tusks, weighing more than a ton and valued at more than $1 million, according to Born Free USA, a group that tracks poaching and government seizures.

The United Nations banned the ivory trade in 1989 but created exceptions that allowed African nations with stockpiles of seized ivory, or ivory removed from beasts that died naturally, to sell it legally. [more…]

Full story: http://www.washingto...b712_story.html

-- The Washington Post 2013-01-17

If they do not impose trade bans on Thailand there will be no wildlife left to poach. Sick puppies all of these people. The human is the only animal in the food chain that kills for no reason. That of course does not allow for the trade in skins, ivory and tiger paws, teeth, purported sexual virility enhancement and so on. Superstition and greed, a deadly combination to our fauna.

The only thing that will make Thailand pay attention are sanctions. Trade sanctions have been imposed on countries that have refused to behave responsibly and it will be interesting to see what happens. However, in a world where the Japanese and Norwegians still slaughter whales despite the world opposing the acivity, I think we know the outcome.

Well lets see human trafficking, Illegal trading of ivory.

wonder what there next show will be.

In all fairness I can't blame it on the PT. It has been going on for years.

The problem is the clone leader is to busy posing for photo ops and shopping to notice the rest of the world is getting a lot less tolerant of it. She has to be hit over the head with it before she does any thing about it.

Look what she did with the Burmese refuges first said they posed a threat to join the terrorists in the south so she wanted to send them back with out any thought as to there welfare and what they would face if sent back. But as the world got indignant about her proposed handling of them she woke up and said she was going to make sure they were treated humanely.

With the Thai respect for the elephants I don't think it will take much promoting to get her attention and put her best man on it. That is if he is sober enough.

Turn up the heat on Thailand. That's what the world should do. Turn up the heat on this and numerous other issues.

Expect to hear of a few cosmetic crackdowns in the run-up to the March conference.

Thailand should be shamed along with all countries who are party to this barbaric slaughter.

If they do not impose trade bans on Thailand there will be no wildlife left to poach. Sick puppies all of these people. The human is the only animal in the food chain that kills for no reason. That of course does not allow for the trade in skins, ivory and tiger paws, teeth, purported sexual virility enhancement and so on. Superstition and greed, a deadly combination to our fauna.

Agreed, yet this line of thought needs to carry out further with the question, "If people only live to survive, and that survival threatens such as these, then when will the practicality of allowing these humans exist come into question?".

You see, we have a conundrum here. We are willing to shame ourselves with guilt and at the same time those in power hold human life at the highest level altruistically. Man has stuck his nose into every form of control there is on this planet, yet the issue of allowing human life to come into being is, and has been sacrosanct up to this point. Yet at the very same time I type this, this issue I submit is being encroached upon by (in my view) humans who have no regard for other life and whose destiny it seems is to exist only with the purpose of killing, destroying, wasting and polluting the very resources which responsible people need.

But the conundrum is that these poachers need to survive also. They are answering the call of hunger in the only way they can. Africa is not known to be a fertile place to grow and to find pastures for herds to graze. Food is a scarcity there. So isn't it a bit odd that we shit on the poachers for doing what comes naturally, and at a cost to the non-human environment; to survive until the next meal?

So, I understand your view, yet I am waiting for the day when people begin addressing the issues which have been ignored on the basis of religious taboo. I am waiting for the day when mankind begins viewing itself as a part and not the whole; and that as a part of the whole, we need to address the possibility that we may have to begin eliminating those parts of us which damage the whole. Population increase is unavoidable. Failing to address this issue will only result in more and more articles which describe the symptoms and not the cures.

I have no solution, and to even imagine what I am saying frightens me; but to ignore the underlying reasons that these poachers do what they do (to survive and to do so on a daily basis, where their outlook for survival extends only to their next meal) to ignore this and the steady increase in population which will spawn even more of these kinds of people who exist to survive is sheer folly.

This point of view is further illustrated by those who describe the green house effects, and the food shortages by 2025, and water shortages. They all talk about these things, yet no one mentions the clear connection with the ramifications of these statistics. We are either going to have to make the Earth a place where any number of human kind can spread around the globe and live a quality life, or we are going to have to begin facing the facts that all these problems with the Earth will lead us to a point in the near future when the only liveable real estate will not be able to support the population.

At that time, I wonder how we will view the sanctity of life for those who still continue killing, destroying, wasting and polluting without regard to you and me, and only with regard for their next meal for their selves and their 14 malnutritioned babies.

And therein lies the problem. You cannot argue against the poachers until you have settled on a solution which either gives those humans a better way of life, or makes it so that humans have no reason to poach. Believe me, they are not going to wait for your answer, and this issue will remain taboo, I fear, until there is nothing to save. If that is the way it has to be, then so be it; but in that case, do not accuse something for what you yourself are not willing to be responsible for.

If the issue of controlling population is taboo, then I submit that every form of non-human life should be the first to go, and people have a right to survive until a solution is engaged for all, and not simply a privileged few. I do love elephants and whales, but I think humans should get the nod on this one.

We need to stop building space stations and killing machines and sucking oil out of the earth, and instead begin building water reservoirs, irrigation channels and sucking water out of the earth so that people can begin making choices which do not threaten the whole or the part.

Edited January 18, 201313 yr by cup-O-coffee

If they do not impose trade bans on Thailand there will be no wildlife left to poach. Sick puppies all of these people. The human is the only animal in the food chain that kills for no reason. That of course does not allow for the trade in skins, ivory and tiger paws, teeth, purported sexual virility enhancement and so on. Superstition and greed, a deadly combination to our fauna.

Agreed, yet this line of thought needs to carry out further with the question, "If people only live to survive, and that survival threatens such as these, then when will the practicality of allowing these humans exist come into question?".

You see, we have a conundrum here. We are willing to shame ourselves with guilt and at the same time those in power hold human life at the highest level altruistically. Man has stuck his nose into every form of control there is on this planet, yet the issue of allowing human life to come into being is, and has been sacrosanct up to this point. Yet at the very same time I type this, this issue I submit is being encroached upon by (in my view) humans who have no regard for other life and whose destiny it seems is to exist only with the purpose of killing, destroying, wasting and polluting the very resources which responsible people need.

But the conundrum is that these poachers need to survive also. They are answering the call of hunger in the only way they can. Africa is not known to be a fertile place to grow and to find pastures for herds to graze. Food is a scarcity there. So isn't it a bit odd that we shit on the poachers for doing what comes naturally, and at a cost to the non-human environment; to survive until the next meal?

So, I understand your view, yet I am waiting for the day when people begin addressing the issues which have been ignored on the basis of religious taboo. I am waiting for the day when mankind begins viewing itself as a part and not the whole; and that as a part of the whole, we need to address the possibility that we may have to begin eliminating those parts of us which damage the whole. Population increase is unavoidable. Failing to address this issue will only result in more and more articles which describe the symptoms and not the cures.

I have no solution, and to even imagine what I am saying frightens me; but to ignore the underlying reasons that these poachers do what they do (to survive and to do so on a daily basis, where their outlook for survival extends only to their next meal) to ignore this and the steady increase in population which will spawn even more of these kinds of people who exist to survive is sheer folly.

This point of view is further illustrated by those who describe the green house effects, and the food shortages by 2025, and water shortages. They all talk about these things, yet no one mentions the clear connection with the ramifications of these statistics. We are either going to have to make the Earth a place where any number of human kind can spread around the globe and live a quality life, or we are going to have to begin facing the facts that all these problems with the Earth will lead us to a point in the near future when the only liveable real estate will not be able to support the population.

At that time, I wonder how we will view the sanctity of life for those who still continue killing, destroying, wasting and polluting without regard to you and me, and only with regard for their next meal for their selves and their 14 malnutritioned babies.

And therein lies the problem. You cannot argue against the poachers until you have settled on a solution which either gives those humans a better way of life, or makes it so that humans have no reason to poach. Believe me, they are not going to wait for your answer, and this issue will remain taboo, I fear, until there is nothing to save. If that is the way it has to be, then so be it; but in that case, do not accuse something for what you yourself are not willing to be responsible for.

If the issue of controlling population is taboo, then I submit that every form of non-human life should be the first to go, and people have a right to survive until a solution is engaged for all, and not simply a privileged few. I do love elephants and whales, but I think humans should get the nod on this one.

We need to stop building space stations and killing machines and sucking oil out of the earth, and instead begin building water reservoirs, irrigation channels and sucking water out of the earth so that people can begin making choices which do not threaten the whole or the part.

Well to be blunt about it over population is the cause of many of the worlds problems.

As for what will these people in this illegal trade do well to but it into numbers poachers 1 starving people 100,000,000. He can join the other 100,000,000 people. Don't forget a lot of these people make a very good living at up to $1,000 a pound for Ivory.