The 2016 World Environment Day is being observed in Bangladesh today along with the rest of the world with a focus on saving wildlife from illegal trafficking.
This year’s theme for the day is “Go wild for life: Zero tolerance for the illegal wildlife trade.”
The Department of Environment has organised a round table discussion on the issue in observance of the day. The discussion will take place at CIRDAP auditorium in Dhaka today.
The United Nations Environment Programme (Unep) is stressing the importance of stopping wildlife poaching to save wildlife this year.
The growing trend of trading wildlife products illegally is directly affecting Earth’s biodiversity, which in turn puts the existence of humans at huge risk, according to the Unep website.
“The killing and smuggling is also undermining economies and eco-systems, fueling organised crime and feeding corruption and insecurity across the globe,” the website says.
Unep has identified iconic elephants, rhinos, tigers, gorillas and sea turtles to be especially endangered by wildlife crime.
It also listed off the specific species that have already gone extinct in recent years due to wildlife trafficking: A subspecies of Javan rhino, western black rhinos, great apes, helmeted hornbills and pangolins. The extinct plants include wild orchids and rosewood.