Protecting pangolins IRL, not just on paper: Interview with conservationist Kumar Paudel

KATHMANDU — Of the eight known species of pangolins found in Asia and Africa, three are listed as critically endangered on the Red List that’s maintained by the IUCN, the global wildlife conservation authority. Two of those three species of scaly anteaters are found in Nepal, where they’re officially accorded the highest level of protection for wildlife. “It’s on a par with tigers and rhinos, but this legal status hasn’t translated into conservation investment or priority,” says Kumar Paudel, a pangolin researcher and founder of Greenhood Nepal, a conservation NGO. That’s left Nepal’s pangolins, and indeed pangolins everywhere, highly threatened by the illegal trade for their meat and, in particular, their scales — prized in East Asia for their purported medicinal properties. Today, pangol