There is no hiding from these facts today. On our phones, laptops and our TV screens, we can see the images and read the reports that lay bare the truth of this crisis. That knowledge brings responsibility: the responsibility to do everything in our power to reverse the march towards eradication of these fine animals.
The good news is that we are far from powerless in this struggle. We can turn the tide of extinction. We know where the animals we are trying to protect live. We know many of the roads, the airports and ports criminals use to transfer their cargo, from killing fields to marketplace.
And over the last few years, we have seen a groundswell of action by governments to improve their laws and to work across borders to fight the traffickers. Only last month, President Xi announced that China would take steps to halt the domestic trade in ivory, adding to the ban on ivory carving imports he announced in February.
But we know the illegal wildlife trade cannot be solved by governments alone. The spotlight falls back on all of us, and on the choices we have to make to play our parts in addressing this problem. We have to accept the truth: that consumers are driving the demand for animal body parts — for arts, for trinkets, or for medicine. Only we as consumers can put the wildlife traffickers out of business by ending our demand for their products. I know we can do this.
The desire to possess animal trophies or ornaments made from ivory has been felt on every continent for centuries. I know this topic is sensitive for many families. For example, until a hundred years ago, my ancestors were those who had little concern about acquiring ivory without the knowledge of the threats of extinction, corruption and violence that the ivory trade would lead to. My rejection of ivory today is not a judgment of past generations. It is an acceptance of the world as I find it today, and the world that I want my children, George and Charlotte, to inherit.
【威廉王子登上中国综艺节目 宣传保护野生动物】相关文章:
★ 大学英语演讲稿
★ 人的自信
★ 人才的全面发展
最新
2019-11-14
2019-11-09
2019-11-09
2019-11-08
2019-11-08
2019-11-07