THE POACHING NETWORK

Poaching is a multi billion dollar dirty industry that involves many players and driven by greed for money among others. Poaching majorly involves involves illegal killing and harvesting of wild flora and fauna. In Africa the illicit trade started a long time with the arrival of the Greek, Romans, Persians, Arabs, British, Belgians,French,Portuguese,Spaniards and off late the Chinese. The Romans poached wild game from Africa for recreational purposes in their many auditoriums in the vast empire,Arabs poached elephants and Rhinos for their horns and tusks. The rhino horns was used as dagger holders while the elephant tusks were used to make beautiful carvings. All this happened under the full knowledge of the African rulers like the Kabaka of the buganda kingdom. The Arab traders were given exclusive rights to poach this wild game in exchange for gifts like mirrors,guns, clothes among others. In other words the genocide had begun, the Arabs exploited the  weakness of the African rulers to get what they want. With the entry of the monetary economy globalization, poaching took a new twist, huge masses of the African population which constituted the youth lacked jobs and with the biting poverty the far East countries took advantage of the arena. The Chinese with their belief that rhino horn acts as an aphrodisiac and the Thai and Japanese population view the possession of a curving from an elephant tusk as a status symbol then the rhino was nearly brought to extinction. Government officials,the community living with the fauna, business people, airlines, ship companies and consumers have become the driving force to an ever increasing demand of the illegal wild game products.
The local people clearly know the location of this wild flora and fauna and the presence of poachers in the area, the poachers will bribe them for a safe passage, the police officers will allow them to drive past the several road blocks and this is with the help of their local master who has an understanding of the system. The mafias in the overseas countries will see to it that the loot reaches them by bribing the airport, airline, port and shipping companies officials. The consumers finally rush to get the loot and the cycle begins again.
So how can this be stopped? Empowering the local community to financially independent, to inform the local community on the importance embracing transparency, the government to invest back the millions of dollars it generates from game related tourism back to the community, this will make the community appreciate the wild flora and fauna. Stiff penalties should be put in place to curb the vice by strengthening the judicial law systems,
adoption of modern technologies like scanners in all ports of entry and exit, poaching should be made an international crime, consumers of this products should be informed on the harm they are putting unto this wild game and the economies that depend on it to survive.
What do you think?