Prince William urges Chinese to stop buying illegally traded wildlife products, hours before Xi’s visit

Prince William has told Chinese citizens to stop buying illegally traded wildlife products such as ivory and horn to save Africa’s rhino and elephants, hours before a state visit to the UK by China’s president.

He said: “We have to accept the truth: that consumers are driving the demand for animal body parts, for art, for trinkets, or for medicine. Only we as consumers can put the wildlife traffickers out of business.”

The Duke of Cambridge made the comment in a speech to a small audience at King’s College London that included the broadcasters Sir David Attenborough and Bear Grylls. It will later be shown to millions on Chinese television station CCTV1.

“It is time to talk about the growing human demand for illegal wildlife products that drives the trade and makes it profitable.”

He said the rate of killing – three rhino and more than 50 elephants a day in South Africa – meant that children born this year, such as his daughter Charlotte, would see the last elephants and rhino die before their 25th birthday.

“The good news is that we are far from powerless in this struggle. We can turn the tide of extinction,” he said, adding that the “killing fields” of poachers and their supply chains were already known.

He praised the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, for saying recently that he would take steps to stop the country’s domestic ivory trade. Conservationists say the trade enables the laundering of illegally imported ivory.