Azores Experiences - Whale Watching & Jeep Tours

Illegal wildlife trade –or animal trafficking– is the transport of animals from one place to another for purposes of commercial enterprise.   Illegally trafficked leopard and tiger heads at a warehouse in Denver, USA (National Geographic, 2016) Animal trafficking relies on the killing of hundreds of thousands of animals and is a multi-billion-dollar criminal industry –ranking around 23 billion USD worldwide. It is one of the world’s most pressing conservation challenges, affecting hundreds of millions of people and thousands of wildlife species. The illegal and unsustainable wildlife trade is one of the highest valued illicit trade sectors in the world. Yet work within this field is uncoordinated. Some animals that are frequently traded include fishes –including sharks and rays–, insects and arachnids, turtles and snakes, crocodilians, tigers and other big cats, monkeys, pangolins –the world’s most trafficked mammal and perilously close to extinction–, rhinos, elephants, and...

Plastic pollution is the accumulation in the environment of synthetic plastic products.   Plastic polluted “paradisiac” beach in Tulum, Mexico (Maria Serra, 2018) Plastic pollution has become one of the most pressing environmental issues: the accumulation of plastic in the ecosystem creates problems for wildlife and their habitats as well as for human populations. When the first plastic was produced in 1860, little they knew that the material would be so harmful. From that first object –a billiard ball– many modifications have been made: now plastics contain additives making them stronger, more flexible and durable.  Nowadays, 500 million metric tones of plastic are produced every year –90% more than 40 years ago– and it is projected to triple by 2050. 12 million tons of plastic waste –the equivalent of 800 Eiffel Towers– escape to the oceans annually. Every second, 200Kg of plastic is dumped into the sea. 80% of the plastic trash in the oceans –Earth’s last sink– flow...

Overfishing is the taking of wildlife from the sea faster than stocks can replenish.   Commercial fishing (Wikipedia 2020).    The number of overfished stocks has tripled in half a century. Highly disruptive to the food chain, what had been isolated and regional depletions became a global and catastrophic impact by the late 20th century due to multinational fishery companies. Today, one-third of the world’s assessed fisheries are pushed beyond their biological limits, meaning that they have already collapsed.  The 90% of the fishing stocks are overexploited or exploited to their top capacity .        State of World fisheries (Environmental progress, 2018).   A study published in 2006 in the journal Science predicted that by 2050 fish populations will crash. Faced with the collapse of large-fish populations, commercial fleets are going deeper in the ocean and farther down the food chain for viable catches. Today, 90% of all large ocean hunters...