Plundering, Trade and Cruelty

Vivants ou morts, entiers ou en morceaux, les animaux sauvages sont une marchandise ordinaire à vendre au plus offrant jusqu’à l’extinction de l’espèce. Les réseaux criminels s’enracinent, s’enrichissent et se mondialisent. La faune est traquée pour décorer, habiller, faire bander, guérir, divertir et se nourrir. Un cauchemar. Depuis juillet 2013, Robin des Bois publie « A la Trace », trimestriel unique sur le braconnage et la contrebande de la faune sauvage, sur les risques sanitaire du commerce international et sa cruauté. La disparition progressive de la faune sauvage prive la Terre de ses plus belles couleurs.

Brittany: the land of asylum for poached ivory

26 Mar 2015

Sulfurous auctioning in Morlaix, Finistère, Monday, March 30, 2015 at 2:30 p.m., 37 rue de Paris. Wildlife pollution is going to descend over the city at the beginning of the week. The Dupont house and its associates are organizing a garage sale of old taxidermies. All of the pillaged African wildlife will be brought together. The noticeable presence of a pretty monkey’s head with its mouth open – complete with original teeth – and a lion cub measuring 28 centimeters long.

But the center pieces are coming from the Niokolo-Koba National Park in Senegal. The personal collection of André-Roger Dupuy, the correspondent of the Museum of Natural History in Paris, head curator of the park from 1967 to 1974 and director of Senegal’s national parks between 1973 and 1987 – 20 years of a safari the hunting version rather than a photographic one – will finish by being dispersed.

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41 spokespeople of the elephants of Africa and Asia

23 Mar 2015

Today, on behalf of 41 international and European Non-Governmental Organizations, Robin des Bois is sending the attached letter to the European commissioner in charge of the environment and to all the UE ministers in charge of the trafficking of species threatened by extinction.

This letter asks the European Union and all the member states to suspend all exportation of raw ivory. It turns out that the unilateral decisions taken by the United Kingdom, Germany, Sweden and France are in fact ineffective insofar as elephants tusks sold at auctions can eventually leave the European Union from a country that has not made an analogous decision. The example of Cannes Enchères in France (see the press release “Ivory to China: the Belgian Network” that was published on March 4, 2015) is the sad proof of this.

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Panic at Cannes Enchères

7 Mar 2015

Last Friday, custom services visited the Cannes Enchères auction room and found several irregularities with regards to CITES regulations on trade in endangered species of wildlife. We’re far from the image of an establishment beyond reproach supposedly cited as an example by state services. Robin des Bois requests that the Ministry of Ecology and customs make public the exact result of this animal inspection that lasted over 6 hours.

500 kg of ivory stamped as legal will be sold on Saturday afternoon by Cannes Enchères. A colonial heritage with the aura of legality granted to ancient ivory, these tusks taken from homes, attics and garages thanks to the active prospection carried out by Cannes Enchères will, if the buyers succeed in getting them out of France and the European Union, feed the workshops and supermarkets of those who make profit out of the elephants’ extinction.

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Cannes: the sale of ivory under police protection

6 Mar 2015

Following the lead of the United States, Sweden, the United Kingdom and Germany, France decided to ban from its soil the exportation of raw and cut ivory.

Cannes Enchères (Cannes Auctions) took the responsibility to circumvent this decision by proposing to future Asian buyers the sale of these tusks on Saturday, March 7. They will do this by shipping the tusks through Belgium and by benefiting from re-exportation certificates delivered by Belgian authorities. Belgium has not yet followed the lead of the four other European countries. Alerted to this prospect, the Belgian Minister of Energy, of the Environment and of Sustainable Development just declared that if this ivory arrives in Belgium for purposes of exportation outside of the European Union, she will halt it for investigation. Ms. Marghem, the minister, is also calling for a global European accord on the ban of the re-exportation of ivory tusks from the European Union.

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Ivory to China: the Belgian network

4 Mar 2015

Marie-Christine Marghem, the Belgian Minister for Energy, Environment and Sustainable Development, declared yesterday that she was quite pleased with the action of her department in the struggle against the traffic of endangered species and ensured that her country gave a special attention to the protection of elephants. At the same time, Belgium is preparing to clear on the international market raw ivory tusks imported from France, despite an export ban taken in January by the French Ministry of Ecology and immediately practicable.

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Ivory: the Cannes scandal

23 Feb 2015

On 27 January 2015 the French Minister of Ecology gave instructions to services to not further deliver CITES certificates (1) for re-export of raw tusks or ivory tusk sections. She also called upon the European Commission so as for “Member States to no longer encourage demand by exporting legal ivory, being proven that it plays an important role in development of illegal slaughter of elephants.” This decision was applauded by 39 Non-Governmental Organizations around the world who had asked Madam Royal to take such action. (2)

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“On the Trail” n°7

12 Feb 2015

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Ebola over There

17 Nov 2014

Between 2009 and 2013, US customs officials seized 69,000 pieces of African bushmeat.

Born Free, the English NGO, estimates that close to 8,000 tons of bushmeat are imported into the United Kingdom each year.

At the Roissy-en-France airport, results of a surveillance program of morning flights from western Africa lasting three weeks in June 2008 suggest that at least 3,287 tons of meat, of which 273 tonnes were bushmeat, were imported each year through terminal 2E of Roissy-Charles-de-Gaulle.

Fish meat, mutton and lamb, goat, cow beef and bushmeat made up the majority of the tonnage.

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“On the Trail” n°6

3 Nov 2014

“On the Trail” n°6

Wildlife is bubbling
“On the Trail” n°6, 134 pages of beauty and cruelty
Information and Analysis bulletin on animal poaching and smuggling.

Open parcels and find poisonous scorpions, search a shop in Malaysia and stumble on a vial of elephant sperm, find out about the latest trafficker’s tricks, meet the rhino mafia, hunt the MGM lion and discover the Tibetan Wild Ass, or Kiang.

Introduction: Several recent studies suggest that violence on animals and abuse of animal’s weakness show predisposition to violence against humans and that witnessing domestic violence or being submitted to parental harassment leads to a predisposition to violence against animals. Violence is a viral and vicious circle …

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“On the Trail” n°5

29 Jul 2014

We are pleased to announce the publication of the 5th edition of « On the Trail », Information and analysis bulletin on animal poaching and smuggling.
1st April – 30th June 2014. 132 pages, 506 events.

English version (pdf 7,2 Mo):
https://robindesbois.org/wp-content/uploads/ON_THE_TRAIL_5.pdf

Numerous messages have been sent to Robin des Bois from Africa, Asia, Europe and the American continent. They come from Custom officers, CITES delegates, governmental institutions, Non-Governmental Organizations and from the general public. They all testify to the usefulness of “A la Trace” and the English version “On the Trail”, », Information and analysis bulletin on animal poaching and smuggling.

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