Opinion | Wildlife trafficking through Hong Kong must be treated as an organised crime to be handled by the police

Mike Rowse says the recent seizure of ivory and pangolin scales by customs officials and the failure to prosecute those involved in the record ivory haul in 2017 show that Hong Kong must do more to ensure wildlife trafficking is treated as a serious crime

Reading Time:3 minutes

A game ranger stands next to a rotting elephant carcass poisoned by poachers in Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe in 2013. Hong Kong customs officers recently confiscated ivory tusks worth HK$20 million from a shipping container that arrived from Africa. Photo: AP

Published: 10:00am, 11 Feb 2019Updated: 10:08am, 11 Feb 2019

Perhaps it is because I am a six-time grandfather already, and expect to add to that score when my two teenage children marry. Or perhaps it is because a friend recently asked me to be godfather to his baby daughter who, with an average lifespan, can expect to live well into the next century. Either way, I have begun to give more thought to the kind of world we will bequeath to future generations.

I think we are all familiar – some American friends, such as US President Donald Trump, excluded – with the science on climate change, so I won’t dwell on it. We are also familiar with the horror of plastic starting to clog our oceans and enter the piscatorial food chain.

But one aspect I had not really focused on up to now was what humankind has done, and is doing, to the other species that share our world. No one could read Yuval Noah Harari’s bestselling book, Sapiens, without coming away with a deep sense of unease about the way we factory farm chickens, cows and other creatures on an industrial scale to feed humans without regard to the animals’ own circumstances. Our bellies are full of tender beef, but the calf never meets its mother. One doesn’t need to be of a particularly religious bent to wonder at the ethical propriety of this.

And so to the RTHK radio discussion last week of Hong Kong’s role in wildlife trafficking. Our customs officers recently seized more than HK$60 million worth of elephant tusks and pangolin scales that arrived in a shipment from Africa. It was the biggest ever seizure of pangolin scales. Although the container originated in Nigeria, the pangolins themselves probably came from other countries on the continent. You may wonder why pangolin scales from Africa are coming into Asia: the brutal truth is that there are few pangolins left here.

There were over 1,000 elephant tusks in the seized cargo, which means more than 500 elephants must have been slaughtered. Step by step, we are driving myriad species to the brink of extinction.

Hong Kong was not likely to have been the final destination for most of the contraband cargo. Rather, we are a link in the logistics chain because of our efficient port and airport. Reports indicate the cargo may have been destined for Vietnam, close to the Chinese border.