Gabonese authorities have outlawed the sale of pangolin scales in the country. The animal, considered by environmental protection NGOs as the most victim of poaching in the world, is indeed suspected by a team of Chinese researchers of having transmitted the Covid-19 disease to humans, on another game market, some 11,000 kilometers from Libreville, in Wuhan, China.
The decision has come as a blow to dealers who lament that, Chinese buyers who usually come to the market to grab their products have now disappeared.
Where the Gabonese celebrate the flavor of its meat, the Asian customers are also interested in the scales which cover the pangolin. Used in Chinese medicine, they are snapped up at the price of gold, “1,000 dollars per kilo, more or less like ivory,” from illegal dealers in China, details Luc Mathot, director of the NGO Conservation Justice, a price which he judges “ridiculous” since the scales “are made of keratin, therefore of the nail”.
The price of Gabonese pangolin, previously consumed locally, has surged in recent years, according to researchers who published a study on the subject in 2018 in which they accuse international traffickers of having boosted demand.
In Gabon, three of the four African pangolin species live in the forests that cover 88% of the country. Strict wildlife protection standards have been adopted, and the country has actively worked to have the giant pangolin classified in 2016 as one of the most endangered species in the world and its international trade prohibited, the Minister of Water and Forests, Lee White says. At the national level, game “can be sold between members of the same community” for “customary use”, but its trade on the Libreville markets is “illegal”, Mr. White emphasizes.