Our Wild World

Trade in endangered species is about money and politics, and everything can be had for a price. Is the ultimate price the loss of the very definition of ‘wildness’ when trade models based on privatized farming and domestication of the wild? When the poaching of wildlife happens inside the private fences and the breeders have blatantly stated that conservation is not their goal? Can breeders credibly cry wolf and animal cruelty when the value of the animal is only tallied upon its worth as a carcass or its parts? We’re now seeing in earnest both the expected and the unexpected acid fallout and backlash of CITES resolutions and the interests at heart in predator breeding facilities. The way it’s going so far, once again, it seems money will win the day as politics and trade negotiations put our earth and its living biosphere on the table to the highest bidders and the depth of what is wildness becomes sidelined.