"But until we somehow eradicate the two evils of Poverty and Ignorance from developing countries..."

This crisis goes way beyond developing countries, and is not necessarily of their own making. The developed world is no position to preach to anyone after the mass extinctions they're responsible for and still pursue with the sort of vigour only the truly dim-witted seem to muster when it comes to killing things. We can't look down from our ivory towers and condemn those struggling in a world that seems so far beyond their control. Look closer, and our ivory towers are actually made from the bones of millions upon millions of dead wild animals, and the reek of our hypocrisy given off from the decaying flesh still clinging to the countless skeletons we stand so proudly on makes the air unbreathable.

Here in the UK our tribe of toffs and those self-appointed 'guardians of the countryside' the farmers are about to unleash a new wave of slaughter on the badger population, whilst in the US it's open season on the country's wolves (again). Both of these appalling acts are the result of ignorance and utter idiocy, a rejection of science and reason in favour of allowing those who think they know but actually don't to dictate policy over those who would attempt to make genuine progress into solving these issues on the ground. Progress that doesn't include slaughtering everything we share the environment with, especially our beleaguered mega-fauna.

The trade in wild animals is a response to a demand, once again this demand is fuelled by ignorance and lack of reason (i.e. the belief in homeopathic remedies such as powdered rhino horn or tiger paws etc), or sheer greed (as in the ivory trade). The fact is these trades could be stifled if agreements were made to stop the transport, export and import of wild animals and parts of them, but there is no political will to do so. Why? The free market of course.

It doesn't take a genius to conclude that a complete lack of regulation and the myopic adherence to free-market economics means that the only value put on anything is a market value and that means these problems are inevitable; they are a natural consequence of a totally free market. So our countries are hardly in a position to sneer at the Africans as they decimate their own heritage; it's only what we're doing in our own backyards by extirpating any animal that's seen as a threat to food production (regardless of the consequences), and the seas surrounding us that we're stripping of any living thing with unthinkably massive collateral damage.

The sorry truth is, our forefathers blazed a bloody trail for future generations to follow when it comes to how we treat the beings and ecosystems we share our planet with, and it would be a good start if we could take a moment as we stand waist-deep in the blood and gore to consider whether the best way to feed our population is to learn and understand how the world works and work with it, instead of killing as much as possible and wondering why the birds have stopped singing. However, it seems we are incapable of true progress, and so we're all royally stuffed. And we sort of deserve it.