Across most regions of the world, habitat loss and the illegal wildlife trade are leading causes of biodiversity loss. This is particularly the case with Africa, a continent whose rapdily growing population is battling to escape the cusps of poverty.
The illegal wildlife trade is the fourth largest illict market in the world after weapons, drugs and human trafficking. Unfortunately, Africa’s wildlife has fallen victim to this lucrative trade with criminal syndicates targeting elephants for their ivory tusks, rhinos for their keratin horns and pangolins for their keratin scales. Meanwhile the primary drivers of habitat loss in Africa include agricultural expansion, climate change and encroachment of freshwater ecosystems. This has led to severe human wildlife conflict, further confounding biodiversity loss.
On this episode, I discuss the impact of habitat loss, human wildlife conflict and the illegal wildlife trade on Africa’s biodiversity with Dan Bucknell, the Executive Director of the TUSK Foundation. We also talk about the various initiatives of TUSK to mitigate the poaching crisis, human elephant and human carnivore conflict.
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