© WWF-Canon / Adam OSWELL
The skins of Indochinese tiger (Panthera tigris corbetti) and other rare cats are openly displayed for sale in Cholon District, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. October 2002
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Key contact
Sulma Warne
Programme Coordinator
TRAFFIC Southeast Asia Greater Mekong Programme,
Hanoi
+8447261722
One of the greatest threats to biodiversity
Globally, the illegal wildlife trade is now a multi-billion dollar business, and WWF regards it to be one of the greatest threats to the biological diversity of the Greater Mekong Subregion.
The WWF Greater Mekong Programme's broad conservation mission means that many of its current activities have an impact on some aspect of the trade.Development also paves the way for the illegal wildlife trade.
An increase in the scale and scope of the illegal wildlife trade seems likely to be one of the “environmental impacts” of continued Asian Development Bank (ADB) investment in trade facilitation in the Greater Mekong and the resulting increase in personal incomes.
Until recently, the potential impact of the Asian Development Bank's Greater Mekong Subregion Programme and other development trends in the region on the wildlife trade have been largely overlooked.
But development trends, particularly improved regional transport and communication networks and simplified cross-border commerce, are likely to stimulate or facilitate the wildlife trade unless there are suitable mitigating actions.