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FancyEnglish   Going Green: Wildlife Poachers   百科知识

VOA -- English Central Going Green: Wildlife Poachers Hello! I'm VOA's Rebecca Ward. Do you know, going green isn't just about recycling, it's about conservation and protection. They lent to Alexander the strength of Hercules. The wisdom of their foreheads and the cunning of their knees. So says Jungle Book author, Rudyard Kipling. But even the mighty elephant is no match for illegal wildlife traffickers. Most people think today that the greatest threat to wildlife might be global warming, might be loss of habitat but for those of us who are in this particular business, we see poaching as a major threat to the continuous survival of many of the, we call charismatic animals that are out there. John Webb is a prosecutor with the US Justice Department. Globally, it's estimated to be between five to twenty billion dollars annually. The People's Republic of China and ourselves are the two biggest demand-side countries in the illegal trade. Webb says, ivory from Africa is in high demand among illegal traders and from Southeast Asia, tiger parts for traditional Chinese medicines. This despite a treaty signed by 175 countries to prevent the illegal trafficking of wildlife, both dead and alive.