Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Member National Assembly Moeen Wattoo said that the government is committed to stamping out illegal wildlife trade in the country and urged stakeholders to join its efforts.
“Protecting wildlife from all sorts of threats is top priority of the government, particularly the problem of illicit wildlife trade, which has shown an unprecedented spike,” he said.
He was speaking at the national consultative policy workshop on ‘Tackling Illegal Wildlife Trade in Pakistan through a National Monitoring Network’ held on Saturday.
Wattoo observed that the wildlife trade is the most pressing threat to animals in many parts of the world, including Pakistan.
Around the globe, wildlife was being bought and sold on an increasingly colossal scale as pets, meat, food, medicine, furs, feathers, skins and trophies, he added.
He said that globally illicit wildlife trafficking is valued at billions of dollars per year besides narcotics and illegal arms trades, and the situation in Pakistan is also upsetting.
“As the wildlife species are worth billions of dollars, they continue to be unlawfully trafficked to different countries from Pakistan too because of weak implementation of relevant laws, lack of technology and lack of capacity of relevant government departments, including security agencies,” he added.
Talking about the negative impact of the wildlife trade, he said that the illegal wildlife trade has disturbed biological balance by overturning decades of conservation gains made by the country.
Today a number of wildlife species have reached near extinction while many others are endangered due to this problem of unlawful wildlife trafficking, he added.
Talking about the Prime Minister’s Green Pakistan Programme (GPP), Wattoo apprised the participants that besides increasing tree cover in the country, the initiative is also aimed at protecting wildlife species and strengthen institutional capacity of the government departments to fight illegal wildlife trafficking through inter-provincial cooperation and coordination.
