Story | 06 Jun, 2016

Celebrating Wildlife - Fighting against illegal trade in wildlife

World Environment Day is celebrated every year on June 5 to raise global awareness of the need to take positive environmental action. This year's theme, 'Go Wild for Wildlife' calls on everyone to celebrate the species under threat from the poachers and traffickers, and inspires us to take action - to eradicate this form of organised crime.

Photo: © IUCN/Nguyen Hai Van

In accordance to this year's theme, IUCN Asia has created a photo series that highlights various projects and programmes from countries in Asia that are working to combat illegal wildlife trade.

Through its membership union uniquely composed of both government and civil society organisations, IUCN is at the forefront of the fight against wildlife trafficking. In China, for instance, the ‘Starving the Supply – Interventions to Curb Illegal Wildlife Trade from Southeast Asia into Southern China’ project, implemented by TRAFFIC and funded by the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund (CEPF), trains customs officials, and facilitates policy discussions, to tackle illegal wildlife trade.

In India, MIKE (Monitoring the Killing of Elephants), an initiative of CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) aims to deliver a site-based system to monitor population trends and incidences of illegal killings to enhance effective conservation and management of elephants.

To view more projects, please click here to be brought to the photo series on Facebook.