Concern over illegal pangolin trade in China
There is a growing awareness in China over illegal wildlife trade, particularly regarding trade in #pangolins, with a number of cases coming to light in the last few years.
Pangolins, typically found in Africa and Asia, are under state protection in China. However, the mammals are often killed by poachers for their meat or for profits, given that their scales are believed to have medicinal qualities in traditional Chinese medicine.
China is currently Asia’s largest market for pangolin trade, with many of the animals being illegally transported across the borders with Myanmar and Vietnam, which serve both as a source of pangolins and a major transit hub for smuggled pangolins.
In recent years, police in China have stepped up their efforts to combat such illegal trade in wildlife. In fact, in December, a court in south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region sentenced a man to five years in prison for transporting 26 smuggled pangolins from Vietnam into China.
Chinese laws dictate that those who illegally catch, kill, buy or sell endangered wild animals that are on the state's protection list can face more than 10 years in prison along with fines. In the past decade over 1 million pangolins were traded across the world, according to a recent study published in Global Ecology and Conservation.
