HANOI: A Vietnamese conservationist working to save pangolins from the devastating multi-billion-dollar wildlife trade won a prestigious award on Tuesday for his role in rescuing over a thousand of one of the world’s most endangered creatures.

Highly prized in China and southeast Asia for their flesh, pangolins are seen as a delicacy for the mistaken belief that they can cure anything from impotence to cancer.

Nguyen Van Thai, director of Save Vietnam’s Wildlife (SVW), has been at the forefront of efforts to raise the alarm internationally about the serious problems Vietnam faces as a major hub for wildlife trafficking.

He was awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize — known colloquially as the “Green Nobel” — which honours grassroots environmental leaders who have made “sustained and significant efforts” to protect and enhance the natural world.

“Helping people to understand these problems will be an opportunity to attract young people and the Vietnamese community to join the work in protecting the forest, wildlife and the environment,” Thai, 39, said in an interview ahead of the announcement of the six winners of the prize.

Pangolins — often described as “scaly anteaters” — are defenceless in the wild, curling up into a ball when they are frightened, allowing poachers to easily gather them up.

“Based on figures from investigations and images from camera traps, we can say that pangolins in the wild in Vietnam have decreased more than 90 percent in the last 15 years,” Thai said.

At SVW’s rescue centre in Vietnam, a team of staff and volunteers work long hours nursing pangolins back to health, before releasing them back into the wild. They have now saved nearly 1,600 of the vulnerable creatures.

Published in Dawn, June 16th, 2021