Many spoke all across the world yesterday in support of lions. What a day it was! I would love someone more clever than me to put all the speeches together - what a wonderful read that would be! Here is what LionAid said: Welcome Lion marchers! We are here because we are saying enough is enough. We cannot stand complacently by any longer to see our global wildlife heritage destroyed by those who see it as a commodity rather than a treasure. We are marching together for lions in over 60 cities all over the world. Never before has this happened in such numbers for any species, and you are part of history. Last month, some representatives from about 40 countries came together in this city to sign papers to “promise” an end to the illegal wildlife trade. Today, tens of thousands march with strong purpose in 20 countries across the world, and that is the more powerful statement! And we march because we are committed. Enough is enough. Complacency is in our crosshairs. For far too long we have misplaced trust in big organizations to save our wildlife. Now we are taking individual action. You are the first to take the steps on the road, and please stay on this journey until we achieve our goals. Every journey starts with the first step, so keep walking with us! And what wonderful steps have been taken. We have an elderly lady amongst us who could not afford the train fare to London. So she came by coach, and her journey will have taken 12 hours before she is home. We received an e-mail from a seven year old girl who loves lions so much that she donated her pocket money to the march. We have someone here who flew from Kenya to London to be with us to march. We have those who have undergone recent surgery who wanted to march! I was asked a while ago “do you have any celebrities or VIPs attending the march?” My answer was yes, we have hundreds! All movements start small. The American Revolution began with no more than 30 people called the Sons of Liberty who threw tea into Boston harbour. Women in this country received the vote because of the dedicated determination of a small group of activists. In 2010, one man, Mohamed Bouazizi immolated himself in Algeria resulting not only in the overthrow of the dictator in his country but the beginning of the Arab Spring. Never forget how powerful our voices can be. We have hundreds here and thousands across the world. United in one message – enough is enough. We refuse to accept the slaughter and misuse of wildlife for commercial gain. It was people like us that stopped the commercial slaughter of whales. It was people like us that stopped the imports of seal skins from Canada and Namibia into the EU. If there were people like us around at the time we could have prevented the extinction of the dodo, the passenger pigeon, the ivory billed woodpecker, the Stellers sea cow and the Quagga. It must be people like us who stop this whole sordid killing of lions for pleasure. And while we are at it we can also make a big difference for the slaughter of rhinos in Africa for bogus potions and the slaughter of elephants for trinkets. We are sick and tired of complacency. We march because we say enough is enough. And we are very powerful. We cannot be ignored. Tomorrow every one of you here is going to write to their MPs and their MEPs to tell them to stop, right now, the import of any lion trophy from South Africa. It is a sordid industry based on animal cruelty and nobody in the EU should profit the merchants. If those hunters do not have their own ethics, we shall make the laws to halt them in their tracks. We shall write to the volunteer organizations to tell them to cease sending innocent gap year students to cynical lion breeders in South Africa. We will tell everyone we know through social media, newspapers, e-mails, tweets, phone calls and letters to never, ever, ever pet lion cubs and walk with lions in South Africa. We shall call our media to tell them to pay much more attention to this issue. If big teams of reporters can be sent to South Africa to cover a murder trial involving the girlfriend of an athlete, why cannot they pay equal attention to the murder of 880 lions per year for pleasure? They think we don’t care to know because we do not speak out. No longer! If Dylan Thomas was here he would have adapted his poem like this today: Do not go gentle into the bad night, Wisdom should burn and rage at close of day; Rage, rage against the killing of wildlife. Thank you, thank you, thank you for marching today. Be the seed, be the Wildlife Spring, be the change.
Posted on: Sun, 16 Mar 2014 23:17:09 +0000
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