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Porous China-Myanmar border allowing illegal wildlife trade

Porous borders are allowing vendors in Myanmar to offer a door-to-door delivery service for illegal wildlife products such as tiger bone wine to buyers in China, according to TRAFFIC's latest snapshot into wildlife trade in China.The State of Wildlife Trade in China 2008, released this week, is the third in an annual series on emerging trends in China's wildlife trade.The report found that over-exploitation of wildlife for trade has affected many species and is stimulating illegal trade across China's borders."China's border areas have long been considered a hotbed for illegal trade, with remote locations often making surveillance a difficult problem in sparsely populated areas," said Professor Xu Hongfa, Director of TRAFFIC's program in ChinaThe illegal trade in Asian big cat products is a key issue at the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) meeting, which began on 13 March and runs until 26 March.The meeting is taking place in Doha, Qatar, where

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