UN urges end to wildlife trafficking

The world must clamp down hard on the illegal global wildlife trade, the head of the UN’s environment agency warned yesterday, calling it a multibillion-dollar criminal business that is threatening to wipe out the planet’s most iconic species.

Achim Steiner, executive director of the UN Environment Programme, made the call during the opening meeting of the 178-nation Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, or Cites, in Bangkok. He cited the massive upsurge in poaching of Africa’s endangered elephants and rhinos, whose slaughter — the worst in two decades — is driven by rising demand in Asia for their tusks and horns.

“The backdrop against which this meeting takes place should be a very serious wake-up call for all of us,” Steiner told about 2,000 delegates at a convention centre in Bangkok.