Friday, October 14, 2016

Conservation vs Slaughter - The US Election

Hillary Clinton has been in awe of elephants since a trip to Africa nearly 20 years ago.  As Secretary of State she pushed an aggressive conservation agenda for the Obama Administration and implemented an $80 million anti-poaching program through the Clinton Global Initiative.  She is committed to wildlife conservation.

“I love the way…the matriarch of the family looks for everybody, I just have such a sense of connection to elephants and it just breaks my heart that they are being poached and murdered and babies being left to fend for themselves,” Clinton said on a portion of the show that only aired on Facebook.

Clinton’s affinity for elephants is not widely known or reported. But during her tenure as Secretary of State in the Obama Administration, she helped bring the issue of global wildlife trafficking out of obscurity.

“International criminal syndicates are orchestrating the slaughter of many of the world’s iconic wildlife species and profiteering by marketing ivory, rhinoceros horn, and other wildlife parts in the U.S., Asia, and Europe,” said Jorge Silva, a spokesperson for the Clinton Campaign. “Many of the criminal syndicates have ties with, and are helping to fund, terrorist groups around the world, and also are engaged in human, drug, and arms trafficking.”

When asked for input regarding Donald Trump position on elephant conservation The Guardian got no response.  Of course, you could infer the Trump position on conservation from this photo of his namesake son, taken just after Trump Junior had shot and killed an elephant. 

 The Trump campaign did not respond to repeated requests for its position on elephant conservation or the global wildlife trade, but its website mentions neither. This is not surprising given the website lists very few positions regarding any environmental issues, including making no mention of climate change – although Donald Trump has claimed that climate change was a hoax invented by the Chinese.

In 2012, media leaked photos of Donald Trump’s sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, taken during a big game hunt safari in Zimbabwe. In one image, Donald Trump Jr. stands next to an elephant he shot to death and holds up its severed tail. Cutting off an elephant’s tail is traditional in some African cultures where the hair is made into a bracelet.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Will Resume Shortly

 Taking a break from blogging.  Worn out by Trump and his fascist followers, Covid-19 pandemic fatigue, etc.....