WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Chris Coons (D-Del.), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,spoke with Huffington Post Live about why Wildlife trafficking poses a risk to regional security in many African countries and national security. Senator Coons just came back from a 10-day CODEL to Mozambuique, Zimbabwe, Botswana, and Namibia to meet with government officials, NGOs, and other Aide Organizations about wildlife poaching and trafficking, as well as political, economic, and military/security issues affecting each of these countries. Senator Coons was joined by Senator Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), Senator Ben Cardin (D-Md.), the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Thad Cochran (R-Miss.), and Representative Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the ranking member of the House Committee on Intelligence.
Senators Coons and Flake recently coauthored an oped in CNN about the legislation they introduced to combat the growing crisis of wildlife trafficking.
Video of Senator Coons’ interview with Huffington Post Live is available here: http://bit.ly/1LfWcVZ
Transcript of Senator Coons’ remarks below:
“Something that’s a little bit off the plate for the average American, but that I think ought to be of concern to us is that sophisticated, international criminal gangs are increasingly involved in massacring thousands of elephants, dozens of rhinos all across Africa so rapidly that it’s entirely possible rhinos will be extinct in the wild within the next decade and elephants within the next 20 years. That is because rhino horn and elephant tusk now command a value in Asia in countries like Vietnam and China that exceeds that of heroin or gold, so they are attracting far more sophisticated criminal syndicates and armed poaches than had been the case in the past.
“Why is this of concern to us? Well first, because these beautiful, iconic wild creatures are being slaughtered across Africa, but second because it’s also funding terrorism and organized crime. The very same networks that are involved in trafficking the products of the massacre of elephants and rhinos are also trafficking people, they are trafficking money, they are trafficking guns, they are trafficking drugs, and they are destabilizing countries all throughout central and southern Africa at an alarming rate. So it is something that Senator Flake of Arizona and I have joined together to tackle.
“There have been hearings in the Foreign Relations Committee, we have a number of bipartisan cosponsors, there is a similar bill that has come out of the House of Representatives and I’m actually cautiously optimistic that we will have a bipartisan bill through the Senate and ready for action by the President before the end of the year, and that this will contribute in a meaningful way to tackling the very real crisis of wildlife trafficking that is currently afoot in a dozen African countries and that poses a real threat to wildlife and to the security of the region and ultimately the United States.”