The event shows the participants’ support and determination to prevent the extinction of wild animals and encourage community not to use oriental medicine with ingredients from endangered animals. The race featured distances of 5km, 10km and 21km for runners, including children and professional athletes. Teams from Embassies in Hanoi, such as the United Kingdom, France, the United States, the European Union Delegation in Vietnam and other organisations also participated in the event.
Richard Leech from the Hanoi Red River Runners club said participants have not only a chance to join their favourite sport but also contribute to protecting endangered animals. He expressed his hope that the message of the race will be the motivation for action to protect the wildlife.
Wildlife protection is a global issue, and no single country or agency can effectively deal with it without a comprehensive cooperative mechanism and high-level commitment to action. It is called on the international community to take a multi-faceted approach to the issue, focusing on carrying out synchronous measures from completing legal regulations and institutions, enhancing law enforcement to eliminating illegal wildlife markets, launching campaigns to reduce demand for wildlife products and developing sustainable livelihoods for communities living in nature reserves, while strengthening international cooperation and coordination in those efforts.
Better measures and stronger actions are needed to fight crimes of this kind, bring those criminals to justice, including corrupted persons who allow those crimes to take place. Young people should be involved in the fight, for the future of later generations.
Vietnam is currently focussing on law enforcement and awareness raising campaigns to reduce the illegal trade and consumption of wildlife. Wildlife trade causes significant economic losses for governments, as well as damaging ecosystems and reducing biodiversity.
In addition, Vietnam launched a number of conservation programmes for rare species, such as domestic elephants and tigers. Furthermore, the government is in the process of amending laws to increase fines for wildlife crimes. It is an international agreement between governments that aims to monitor the international trade of specimens to ensure the survival of animals and plants in the wild.
Global crimes related to wildlife are growing rapidly and have reached crisis level at the moment. At the present rate, many experts predicted that some species such as rhinoceros, elephants and tigers will disappear from the planet in the next decade. The illegal trade of wildlife species has grown transnational, threatening national security and creating conditions for the spread of infectious diseases.
