French customs clamp down on unlawful bushmeat

Tons of of kilos of bushmeat are seized by customs officers each week at France’s largest airport, Roissy-Charles-de-Gaulle, close to Paris.

In 2021, customs at Terminal 2 seized 36 tons of unlawful merchandise from wild species, primarily from Africa or Asia.

The bushmeat poses a danger to public well being whereas additionally threatening biodiversity.

“More often than not, on flights, 99% of the time, passengers don’t have any proof. The customs authorities are due to this fact working to grab this merchandise to forestall it from getting into the European Union and French territory”, admits Adrien Clopier, Deputy Head of the Terminal 2 Brigade.

The ban additionally covers vegetable and plant merchandise reminiscent of fruits and different gadgets. 

Usually merchandise are apprehended after which disposed of.
Repeat offenders and people transporting protected species are punished.

“I assumed there was a tolerance for plant merchandise. So at this time I’m a little bit upset”… (…) “To go on all this journey after which have all of it taken away from me. I am a little bit upset. Properly, now we have to take care of it. The legislation is the legislation”, laments Jean-Man Kervasdoue, a traveler from Bangui within the Central African Republic.

On Wednesday, French authorities have launched an consciousness marketing campaign for travellers “on the well being and felony dangers concerned” in touring with these merchandise.

“….anybody who needs to carry again meals, particularly meat or stay animals, is prohibited, that it encourages poaching, that it’s dangerous to biodiversity and that it’s punishable by as much as three years of imprisonment and a high-quality of €150.000“, introduced French junior atmosphere minister, Berangere Couillard.

In response to the Worldwide Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), wildlife trafficking is value 23 billion euros per yr.