THE CHANCES ARE YOU DON’T consider yourself a consumer of wildlife products. You might forage a few autumn fruits and fungi, but you’re not part of an annual legal trading market worth a staggering $220 billion (£182 billion) a year – or, indeed, complicit in the illegal one, estimated at anywhere between £6-19 billon.
The chances are you’re wrong about that. Bought any fish recently? Or anything made of wood? They are both wildlife products.
Alternatively, open up your food cupboard – what do you see? Have you got any marshmallows or soft drinks? They probably contain gum arabic, the hardened sap of an acacia tree that grows in semi-desert areas of North Africa, the Arabian Peninsula and the Indian subcontinent. Most of the world’s gum arabic comes from Sudan, where it is a major economic activity for more than 10 per cent of the population. The substance is also used in pharmaceuticals, paint, glass manufacturing, textiles, and the weapons and fireworks industries.
There are plenty of other common products harvested from wild).
