Quite apart from the decimation of illegal poaching, legal eastern markets are tearing the wild heart out of Africa. Each year thousands of tonnes of live animals, bones, skins and meat head East in a plunder with no end in sight. The scale at which Africa’s wildlife is being drained by Eastern market demand is enormous, according to a report by the wildlife monitoring network TRAFFIC released this week. The focus on wildlife trade from Africa generally centres on the illegal trade and the massive poaching of iconic species such as elephants and rhinos. However, comparatively little attention has been…
