A dramatic rise in owning exotic pets in China is fuelling global demand for threatened species. The growing trade in alligators, snakes, monkeys, crocodiles and spiders is directly linked to species loss in some of the world’s most threatened ecosystems. Here: A fennec fox (Vulpes zerda) is groomed in a pet store in central Beijing. Native to the Sahara in North Africa, the species became a popular pet after being depicted as a character in Disney’s 2016 animated movie Zootopia. Individuals can cost between $2,000–$3,000. (Photo by Sean Gallagher/The Guardian)

A shop assistant creates a window display in a Next store in central London December 30, 2014. British clothing retailer Next's sales rose 2.9 percent in the run up to Christmas mostly due to online and catalogue purchases, hitting the upper end of its predictions and it said full-year profit would rise by about 11.5 percent. (Photo by Neil Hall/Reuters)

David Pena poses for a photograph with his Lada 2101 built in 1979 on a street in Havana February 9, 2015. Getting parts from the United States is cheaper than in Cuba, where state-run stores sell them at four times the cost, said Pena, a mechanic and president of the Russian Car Club in Havana who drives a souped-up, sporty red 1972 Lada 2101 that he fixed himself. His own Lada has a Fiat engine and an extra Alfa Romeo carburetor. (Photo by Enrique De La Osa/Reuters)

A group of women dance in a pool in Callao, Peru, Sunday, February 22, 2015. One of centers for the front-doorstep, pool-party phenomenon is Lima's port city of Callao. People hold parties in them and sometimes entire blocks chip in to buy a pool, which can be had in local department stores for a bit over $100. (Photo by Martin Mejia/AP Photo)

A woman (L) places flowers at a grave next to a mummified body during exhumation works at the General Cemetery in Guatemala City, April 15, 2015. If a lease on a grave has expired or not been paid, grave cleaners will break open the crypts to remove and rebury the bodies. Any remains that have not been claimed are packed into plastic bags, labeled and stored in mass graves. Bodies that have been stored in the upper crypt are exposed to dry and sunny conditions which means they do not decompose and instead become mummified. (Photo by Jorge Dan Lopez/Reuters)

Women are reflected on silver panels of the French luxury brand Louis Vuitton flagship store at the Central Business District in Beijing, Wednesday, March 6, 2019. China will bar government authorities from demanding overseas companies hand over technology secrets in exchange for market share, a top economic official said Wednesday, addressing a key complaint at the heart of the current China-U.S. trade dispute. (Photo by Andy Wong/AP Photo)

Women labourers work at the construction site of a road in Kolkata January 8, 2015. Across towns and cities in India, it is not uncommon to see women cleaning building sites, carrying bricks and or shoveling gravel – helping construct the infrastructure necessary for the country's economic and social development. They help build roads, railway tracks, airports, and offices. They lay pipes for clean water supplies, cables for telecommunications, and dig the drains for sewage systems. But although women make up at least 20 percent of India's 40 million construction workers, they are less recognized than male workers with lower pay and often prone to safety hazards and sexual harassment. They are often unaware of their rights or scared to complain, say activists now trying to campaign for better treatment of women in the construction industry. (Photo by Rupak De Chowdhuri/Reuters)

Some companies in Taiwan spend months building temples with bricks and cement, but Lin Fu-Chun's firm simply pours concrete into a giant mould and waits for it to dry. The 78-year-old Lin said his temple factory, Chuanso, needed just over six weeks to finish a building that normally took six months with conventional methods – and moulding was 40 percent cheaper. Here: An employee paints a ready-made Chinese traditional temple at the Chuanso factory that manufactures religious objects in Pingtung, Taiwan July 5, 2016. (Photo by Tyrone Siu/Reuters)