THE ILLEGAL ANIMAL TRADE
CNN's Anderson Cooper recently presented a great report on the trade in endangered animals at Bangkok's Chatuchak Market, otherwise known as JJ. This was part of a series entitled 'Planet in Peril'.
Anderson joined a Thai police team following an undercover surveillance operation the previous day that showed a number of endangered animals being offered for sale. However word soon spread of the impending raid and the targeted shops had closed their shutters moments before the Police team and Anderson arrived.
The frustrating thing is that Thai law prevents the Police from entering a shop unless they can clearly see evidence of endemic endangered Thai animals being sold. On this occasion they couldn't so nothing happened. I suspect that within hours of the raid those shops were open and animals were again being traded. They did recover some birds, most of which were dead, but no arrests were made.
Although this report was aired last weekend the actual raid happened in March of this year. I obviously missed the first showing.
2 comments:
Which of course begs the question: How did the perpetrators know that the police were coming?
Along with the issue of transparency that you deal with daily with your staff, there is similar issue related to law enforcement. Corruption is rampant in the Thai police force, and nothing can be done about it until there is a broad movement towards understanding why laws exist. A civil society cannot exist without the rule of law, not as a threat of punishment for wrongdoing, but as a defining line of acceptable and unacceptable behavior. The Thai economy will go nowhere unless there are assurances that a contract can be enforced, that intellectual property is protected, and that personal property cannot be taken at the whim of an "important person."
As long as a police officer is phoning tips in to people engaging in criminal behavior, none of this can be expected any time soon, and so business will go where the rules are more clearly spelled out and enforced.
I couldn't agree with you more David, but it obviously doesn't mean it's right. We (my company) are trying to buck that trend but will anyone notice or even care? (I'm talking about the transparency and honesty particularly now).
Thanks for your comment. It's appreciated.
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