Prince William has continued his crusade to stamp out poaching and the destruction of wildlife during his visit to Vietnam.
The father-of-two appeared on a local chat show to discuss his love of animals and to ask viewers to help him in his cause.
He also made a similar plea to delegates at an international wildlife conference, where he called on the British government to ban imported ivory.
The royal said that even though the world was making progress in its endeavour to eradicate the illegal wildlife trade, it wasn’t happening fast enough.
“The truth is we are still falling behind,” he explained. “A betting man would still bet on extinction.”
Prince William explained his stance on saving our wildlife.
He continued: “We know now what previous generations did not – ivory treated as a commodity is the fuel of extinction.
“Ivory is not something to be desired and when removed from an elephant it is not beautiful,” he told the delegates.
“So, the question is, why are we still trading it? We need governments to send a clear signal that trading in ivory is abhorrent.”
Wills continued his conservation efforts at a delegates conference.
He took the opportunity to praise the Vietnamese government for carrying out it’s first burning of illegally traded ivory last week.
He said he was proud of how far the movement had come.
“Since then we have seen unprecedented partnership between African governments to work together to fight poaching through the Elephant Protection Initiative,” the patron of Tusk Trust said.
Prince William tries to keep a straight face.
“There is much to be proud of and I want to make sure we take confidence from what has been achieved. We are on the right side of history.”
But even the Duke of Cambridge acknowledged action wasn’t being taken fast enough.
“Here is the problem: we know that we aren’t moving fast enough to keep up with the crisis. Rhinos, elephants, pangolin, lions — they are all still being killed in horrifying numbers,” he explained.
“The Great Elephant Census published this summer confirmed our worst fears about the shocking 30 per cent decline in the African elephant population in just seven years.”
The Prince also visited schoolkids to educate them on conservation.
Bend it like Buckingham!
This marks the Prince’s second day of wildlife campaigning in Vietnam.
The previous day, Wills had attended a school to teach children about the importance of saving rhinos.
He then took some time out to play a round of soccer with the students.
See Prince William’s previous pleas for poachers to stop harming majestic elephants in the video below.
