LONDON, England (Reuters) — Britain’s Prince William has teamed up with the global transportation industry to develop a new crackdown on illegal wildlife trafficking routes.
The industry has agreed a declaration which was signed by around 40 airline, shipping, port and customs agencies and conservation charities at Buckingham Palace on Tuesday (March 15).
William, who is President of United For Wildlife, convened the International Taskforce on the Transportation of Illegal Wildlife Products a year ago and appointed former conservative foreign secretary William Hague as chair.
The declaration has come up with an eleven point action plan to make it more difficult for traffickers to move their illegal goods around.
It focuses on information sharing and better reporting of suspicious cargo on key routes to make it unviable both in practical and economic terms for the traffickers to move their trinkets, jewellery and ornaments made from ivory, rhino horn and tiger and pangolin products.
“We have faced up to the fact that if current trends continue, the last wild African elephants and rhinos will be killed before my daughter Charlotte reaches her 25th birthday,” Prince William said.
“Let’s implement these commitments with the urgency the task requires. It is my view that if we have not turned this crisis round within the next five years, we will have lost this battle forever,” he added.
On Monday (March 14) Prince William toured the DP World at London Gateway port to see the scale of the task involved in stopping traffickers exploiting global transport routes to smuggle poached wildlife, such as black rhino, which are very endangered.
