We must, collectively, speak out and demonstrate to China’s powerful president, Xi Jinping, and other powers that can influence him, that enormous finances and efforts must be deployed to end the trade in wild, and “farmed,” endangered species, once and for all.

London’s Economist Magazine is, in many ways, a publication for the power elite. Comparable publications in terms of content, tone and readership are the Wall Street Journal, and The Financial Times. Thus, it’s astonishing to find, in its April 16th, 2016 print issue, a special report devoted to the “trade in wild-animal parts” and the catastrophic threat it poses to thousands of animals comprised of dozens of endangered species around the world

The special report is comprised of two articles, neither of which minces words: the first concerns the illegal trade of wildlife and the second the internationally banned, though widely practiced trade in “farmed” endangered species. For a sense of scale, consider that “some 6,000 tigers, 50% more than survive in the wild, are on Chinese farms.”

The first article of the special report, “Last chance to see?” details “how poachers, smugglers and lax law enforcement combine to threaten rare species with extinction.” The picture is one of vast criminal syndicates operating across national and even continental lines. The trade begins with poachers, often “poor locals” employed by drug or weapons warlords. The parts are then transported across national borders and international waters, often through the Asian nations of India, Laos, Lhasa, Myanmar, Nepal, Thailand, and Tibet. The final destination, inevitably and depressingly, are individual customers, often in China and Vietnam. “A downside of the East Asian economic miracle,” the special report’s second article notes, “is that millions more people can afford to buy products made from endangered species.”

The list of species preyed upon by this trade is vast: rhino, tiger, leopard, bear, water buffalo, musk deer, sea turtle, alligator, scaly anteater, helmeted hornbill, manta ray, and more.

Often, the remains are used for trivial purposes like fashion and decoration. Tiger and leopard teeth are prized as amulets, their skins as decorations. Rhino horns are displayed as ornaments. The beaks of helmeted hornbills are carved and used as decoration. “Tiger-bone wine, rhino horn and the like are the platinum-label whiskies of the Asian wellness industry: pricey, prestigious and useful for lubricating business deals.”

Another use is even dangerous to humans. Tiger and leopard bones, pangolin scales, and bear-bile (bears are “caged with tubes attached to their gall bladders to ‘milk’ their bile”) are used for medical purposes. Often they are even administered in pill form. While stressing our objection to the use of animal parts for any scientific purpose, it is noteworthy that the there are, to our knowledge, zero scientifically verified medical uses for the remains of endangered species.

The economics of the trade are such that, extinction over the coming years or decades looks likely, if not certain unless extraordinary countermeasures are implemented and enforced,. “In 2010… the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) put the annual turnover of the traffic in tiger parts at around $5m.” Six years ago, the UNODC estimated the trade in rhinoceros horn at $8m a year. Exacerbating the crisis is the elementary economics principle of supply and demand. As endangered species are slaughtered and their populations decimated, the supply of their “goods” decreases, which accordingly drives up their price, further guaranteeing their continued slaughter.

The special report’s second article, titled “Prescription for extinction,” concerns the internationally banned, though widely practiced trade in “farmed” endangered species, and lays out a damning case of how this practice hinders efforts to save these magnificent species from extinction. Framing its case against the rhetorical questions: “Why not allow the sale of farmed products, rendering poaching redundant… [or] allow the sale of poached material seized by governments?” the article delivers a forceful, and convincing answer. “Nothing suggests that legal trade cuts poaching at all. On the contrary, it makes it easier to launder illegal goods. It also destigmatizes the consumption of endangered body parts, thus raising demand for them. And it can raise the value of the wild product.”

The Economist’s special report ends on a note of cautious optimism. “It should be possible, with public-education campaigns and the respectable parts of the industry, to cut demand for products that threaten endangered species. Just as shark’s fin soup has stopped being a fixture on Chinese-wedding menus since the danger to sharks’ survival caused by the harvesting of the fins became widely known, so consumers could be convinced that they do not need those ‘medicines’.”  In addition, advances in materials and textiles are bringing to market cheap, and remarkably convincing, synthetic (non-animal) good for use as decoration and fashion accessories. The special report ends by quoting Judith Mills, the author of ‘Blood of the Tiger,’ that our last and only hope may lie “with Xi Jinping, China’s powerful president. Many activists attribute a recent sharp drop in the price of ivory to an agreement last year between China and America to end legal sales. Other endangered species, too, might be saved by a pledge that the trade ban will stay and be enforced—not as an anti-China or anti-Asia conspiracy, but as a duty to the planet.”

Read more here and here.