This week’s book is “Black Market: Inside the Endangered Species Trade in Asia” by Ben Davies.

Book Summary: Black Market: Inside the Endangered Species Trade in Asia is a shocking portrait of the plundering of endangered species destined for Asia’s illegal wildlife markets. Asia’s insatiable appetite for endangered wildlife products, combined with the region’s relentless population growth have forced rhinos, tigers, and elephants (and countless others) to the very edge of extinction.

Illustrated with extremely graphic photos that will forever haunt the reader’s mind, this book is a comprehensive examination of the economic forces behind the well-funded organized crime syndicates responsible for fulfilling Asia’s unsustainable demand for wildlife products – the human greed behind the senseless slaughter of hundreds of thousands of our planet’s most endangered animals.

Why this book is important: Black Market: Inside the Endangered Species Trade in Asia goes where most other books do not. Instead of making “politically correct” excuses for Asia’s – especially China’s – role in pushing thousands of species to endangered status in the first place, Black Market exposes the horrifying effects that long-standing Asian cultural myths and superstitions are having on our fragile wildlife populations. Thankfully, the author also provides us with a glimmer of hope by including conservation success stories – and introducing us to heroes who are bravely fighting the battle against the illegal trade in endangered species.

Quotable moment:

The trafficking routes, however, led beyond Taiwan to Guangzhou, a sprawling city of 6 million inhabitants in southern China. In the White Swan Hotel on the outskirts of town, Galster and his Taiwanese assistant Rebecca Chen, first made contact with men whose aim was to drive the rhino to extinction.

“The smugglers believed that if the rhino became extinct, the price of rhino horn could easily have doubled,” says Galster, who posed as a wealthy South African buyer of rhino horn. “This was a calculated attempt to corner the market using horns from one of the most valuable and endangered species on earth.”

Galster learned that senior government officials were involved at every level of the operation.

Where to purchase ‘Black Market: Inside the Endangered Species Trade in Asia’

You can purchase Black Market: Inside the Endangered Species Trade in Asia online at Amazon.com.

Rhishja Cota-Larson

I am the founder of Saving Rhinos LLC, which publishes news and information about the global rhino crisis. Besides writing Rhino Horn is Not Medicine, I am the author of the book Murder, Myths & Medicine, the Editor of Project Pangolin, and a writer for the environmental news blog Planetsave. When I'm not blogging about the illegal wildlife trade, I like to rock out to live music.

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