GOOD WELCOMES ARREST OF WILDLIFE SMUGGLERS: fewer poached abalone going out of the country means fewer drugs coming back in
Statement by Mark Rountree
3 February 2020
Environmental expert and GOOD’s Policy Officer, Mark Rountree, has welcomed the arrest of three abalone smugglers on the weekend in Pretoria. They were caught with 37 boxes of abalone worth an estimated R7 million. The suspects were arrested on their way to the Zimbabwean Beit Bridge border post.
Abalone – known locally as perlemoen – is a large shellfish found in kelp forests in the ocean. Fresh abalone sells for up to R20,00 per kilogram in China. The large species of abalone that is most in demand is found only off the South African coastline. However, wildlife trade monitoring network TRAFFIC reports that majority of abalone exported to Hong Kong between 2008 and 2015 came from outside of South Africa – from countries like Mozambique, where the species is not found, and Zimbabwe and Zambia, which have no coastlines at all.
Hong Kong is the primarily destination. TRAFFIC estimated that just 2% of the abalone exported there in 2015 came from legally wild harvested sources. One third of the supply was from legally farmed source, but the majority – 65% – of the abalone was from illegal trade. Former poachers confirm that the illegal trade usually involves swopping poached abalone for drugs such as methamphetamine (tik). Many communities in the Western Cape, where abalone were once plentiful, now suffer from extreme drug addiction challenges.
GOOD has welcomed the arrests and want to thank and congratulate the Gauteng Provincial Endangered Species Unit and other partners who were behind the intelligence operations and arrests.
“Fewer poached abalone going out of the country means fewer drugs coming back in to communities” said Rountree. “If we are going to make our South Africa safer, we need a whole-system approach. This means arresting and persecuting those who commit crime, but it also means government must work with communities to help solve the underlying causes of drugs and crime.”
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