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topic: Ivory Trade
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Wildlife trafficking gradually returns after pandemic lull, mostly by sea
- Bulk shipments by sea accounted for most of the illegal wildlife parts seized by authorities around the world in 2022.
- The data, from U.S.-based nonprofit C4ADS, also show that seizures of elephant ivory, rhino horn and pangolin scales haven’t yet returned to pre-pandemic levels.
- However, the decline isn’t uniform across all countries, with China’s late reopening from the pandemic this year indicating there might be an increase in trafficking in 2023, especially of ivory.
- C4ADS has called on law enforcement officials to focus on investigating wildlife seizures within their areas of authority and increase their efforts to detect more illegal shipments passing through known trafficking routes in the maritime transportation sector.
New protections for sharks, songbirds, frogs and more at CITES trade summit
- The 19th meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, or CITES, known as CoP19, ended Nov. 25 in Panama, after two weeks of negotiations.
- Member states agreed on new trade regulations for more than 600 animal and plant species, including the protection of sharks, glass frogs, turtles, songbirds and tropical timber species.
- Experts say that while these new regulations are essential, implementing and enforcing the rules will have the most significant conservation impact.
‘Unprecedented crisis’ for Nepal’s elephants: Q&A with conservationist Ashok Ram
- Conflict with humans is considered the biggest threat to Asian elephants in Nepal, says veteran conservationist Ashok Ram.
- Encounters between villagers and elephants typically occur when they stray into each other’s areas in search of food.
- Ram says there needs to be a landscape-level management approach to elephant conservation, given that the animals move freely between Nepal and India.
- In an interview with Mongabay, he explains the history of habitat fragmentation, why electric fences aren’t a solution to human-elephant conflict, and why mid-afternoon is the most dangerous time for encounters.
Twenty years since a massive ivory seizure, what lessons were learned? (commentary)
- In late June 2002, a container ship docked in Singapore with a massive shipment of ivory, which was seized.
- It was the largest seizure of its kind since an international ban on the ivory trade had come into force in 1989, and the lessons learned from it would change the way the illegal wildlife trade was investigated and tackled.
- But it’s unfortunate that some of the biggest lessons from that event still have not been put into practice, a new op-ed argues.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.
Cash-strapped Zimbabwe pushes to be allowed to sell its ivory stockpile
- Zimbabwe is continuing to push for international support for selling off its stockpile of elephant ivory and rhino horn, saying the revenue is needed to fund conservation efforts.
- Funding for the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Authority comes largely from tourism-related activity, which has virtually evaporated during the COVID-19 pandemic, leaving the authority with shortages of staff, equipment, and funds for communities living adjacent to wildlife.
- But critics say allowing the sale of the 136 metric tons of elephant ivory and rhino horn that Zimbabwe is holding (mostly from animals that died of natural causes) will only stoke demand and lead to a surge in poaching.
- They point to similar surges following other one-off sales in 1999 and 2008, but some observers say these were unusual circumstances (the latter sale coincided with the global recession), and that a poaching spike won’t necessarily follow this time around.
In Singapore, a forensics lab wields CSI-like tech against wildlife traffickers
- A wildlife forensics laboratory launched in Singapore last year is making breakthroughs in tracking down criminal syndicates trafficking in wildlife.
- Singapore is a major transit point for the illegal ivory trade; the nation impounded 8.8 metric tons of elephant ivory in July 2019 — evidence from which led to the arrest of 14 people in China.
- The researchers use the same method to capture poachers that authorities in California used to arrest the Golden State Killer.
- Elephant ivory and pangolin scales account for the bulk of the new lab’s workload; figuring out how traffickers accumulate this material from two species could uncover much of their methods.
Ivory from at least 150 poached elephants seized in the DRC raid
- A three-year investigation has led authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo to 2 metric tons of ivory hidden in a stash house in the southern city of Lubumbashi.
- The tusks are valued at $6 million on the international market and estimated to have come from more than 150 elephants.
- The three people arrested in the May 14 raid are allegedly members of a major wildlife trafficking ring in the Southern African region.
Can we plan for a future without trophy hunting? (commentary)
- Proposed legislation in Britain to ban the import of hunting trophies like horns, antlers, and tusks enjoys popular support.
- But in Africa, rural communities often rely on revenue from trophy hunting to support development and conservation projects.
- In response to a recent Mongabay commentary, “UK trophy hunting import ban not supported by rural Africans,” writer Merrill Sapp argues that it’s possible to have both development and healthy elephant populations, without hunting.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of Mongabay.
Cold case: Half-hearted prosecution lets ivory traffickers escape in Uganda
- More than three years since Ugandan authorities seized a shipment of nearly 4 tons of elephant ivory and pangolin scales, no one has been prosecuted for the trafficking attempt.
- Two Vietnamese nationals were arrested in the bust, but they vanished after being granted bail.
- Wildlife trade investigators have questioned the commitment of the Ugandan authorities to pursue the case, saying their efforts to find the suspects since then appear half-hearted at best.
- They add the failure to prosecute this case is a missed opportunity to break up a major trafficking network moving wildlife parts from East and Central Africa to Southeast Asia.
In Nigeria, a decade of payoffs boosted global wildlife trafficking hub
- An investigation by Nigeria’s Premium Times and Mongabay has found evidence of systematic failure by Nigerian law enforcement and the judicial system to hold wildlife poachers and traffickers accountable.
- Our analysis of official wildlife crimes data, supported by numerous interviews with prosecutors, environmental campaigners and traders at wildlife markets in Lagos, Cross River, Abuja, Ogun and Bauchi states, found a near-total reliance on minor out-of-court settlements in trafficking cases.
- Despite numerous high-profile, multimillion-dollar trafficking busts at Nigeria’s ports since 2010, no one has faced jail terms as a result.
- The reliance on informal payments to local officials encourages corruption, experts say, while sporadic crackdowns on wildlife markets have not stopped traders operating in the country’s commercial capital.
Links between terrorism and the ivory trade overblown, study says
- As killings of elephants in Africa spiked in the early 2010s, some conservation organizations claimed the ivory trade was financing armed groups like al-Shabaab and the Lord’s Resistance Army.
- According to a study published in Global Environmental Politics, those ties were overstated and strategically pushed by NGOs in order to attract funding for anti-poaching efforts.
- Despite shaky evidence for some of the claims, they helped frame wildlife trafficking as a global security issue and were subsequently repeated by policymakers from the U.S. and elsewhere.
- The study said the confluence of conservation and security policy has had “material outcomes for marginalized peoples living with wildlife, including militarization, human rights abuses, enhanced surveillance, and law enforcement.”
Wildlife trade hub Vietnam is also hub of impunity for traffickers, report says
- Only one in every seven wildlife seizures made in Vietnam in the past decade has resulted in convictions, a new report by the U.K.-based Environmental Investigation Agency has found.
- Low numbers of arrests and prosecutions highlight problems of weak enforcement and a lack of coordination between law enforcement agencies, the researchers said.
- Three-quarters of the shipments originated from African countries, they found, with numerous large-scale seizures indicating transnational organized crime.
- With pandemic-related restrictions easing, the worry is that the cross-border wildlife trade will come roaring back even as Vietnam struggles to follow up on investigations into past and current seizures.
In Mozambique, mystery of tuskless elephant points to poaching as the culprit
- The civil war that caused a steep drop in elephant numbers in Mozambique’s Gorongosa National Park also led to tusklessness becoming the norm among its female elephants, a recent study found.
- Only about 200 of an estimated 2,500 elephants living there survived the ravages of the 15-year-long war during which poachers targeted tusked elephants for ivory.
- After the civil war, the number of tuskless females tripled in Gorongosa.
- Scientists agree on the far-reaching consequences of this “artificial selection,” but how the genetic trait is passed on from one generation to the next is still being investigated.
As seizures of poached giant clams rise, links to ivory trade surface
- A new report released by the Wildlife Justice Commission identifies the giant clamshell trade as a “cause for concern.”
- It suggests the trade could have links with organized crime, and that it could also be endangering elephants since clamshells are a viable substitute for elephant ivory.
- China and Japan are noted as potential markets of concern in the giant clamshell trade.
- Very little is known about the giant clamshell trade, which has prompted experts to call for more investigations into the issue.
China’s efforts to accommodate ‘wandering elephants’ is overshadowed by its conflict with elephants elsewhere (commentary)
- William F. Laurance, distinguished research professor and Australian laureate at James Cook University, provides his take on a herd of 15 Asian elephants that is making headlines as it moves northward from China’s border with Myanmar and Laos.
- “No one knows exactly where the elephants are going, or why,” Laurance writes. “But two things are clear: the elephants were probably struggling to survive in their native habitat, and Chinese efforts to save the elephants clash with the nation’s aggressive strategies of investment and global development.”
- Laurance argues that while China’s efforts to accommodate this particular herd of elephants is notable, its activities beyond its borders are jeopardizing the continued survival of the species. He cites habitat destruction at home, large-scale infrastructure projects abroad, and fueling demand for the ivory trade as examples.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
Tanzania’s “Ivory Queen” denied release after appeal
- Judge sends case of trafficking ringleader Yang Fenglan back to trial court.
- Case is among Africa’s biggest wildlife trafficking convictions, involving 860 elephant tusks worth $6 million.
- Yang and two co-accused remain in jail but will have opportunity for new appeal.
- Tanzania’s Director of Public Prosecutions tells Mongabay the case is a message to the world.
Poaching declines in Tanzania following prosecution of ivory trafficking ringleaders
- Taskforce on Anti-Poaching says it penetrated 11 criminal syndicates in five years.
- Conservation groups say wildlife crime networks have moved from East to West Africa.
- Government says elephant populations have grown to 60,000 from 43,000 in 2014.
- Tanzania targets ‘zero-poaching’ after thousands of arrests.
Unregulated by U.S. at home, Facebook boosts wildlife trafficking abroad
- The world’s largest social media company, Facebook, regularly connects wildlife traffickers around the world, and advocates are stepping up the pressure to address the problem in the company’s home country.
- Proposed U.S. legislation targets a decades-old law that protects online companies’ content as free speech on their platform. Advocates say wildlife crime is not speech, and that online companies lack the regulation that other “real-life” companies must follow.
- Trafficking has increased since Facebook chose to self-regulate in 2019, researchers say. The company could cooperate with law enforcement or conservationists, but it has rarely chosen to do so.
- Meanwhile, researchers are gathering more and more evidence that wildlife trafficking is one of the biggest threats to global biodiversity.
Wildlife trafficking, like everything else, has gone online during COVID-19
- Regional and national reports show a decline in illegal wildlife trade activities in Southeast Asia in 2020, with operations down by more than 50% across the most-traded animals.
- Despite the decrease, experts say traders have shifted from face-to-face interactions and increased their presence on online platforms.
- Authorities also reported confiscating caches of stockpiled animal parts, indicating that the trade continues amid the pandemic. Traders may be waiting for looser border controls to carry on with business, experts say.
- While these trends suggest that the trade will bounce back in a post-COVID-19 era, experts suggest strengthening enforcement collaboration, improving wildlife laws, and increasing awareness of the health risks posed by illegally poached wildlife.
Tale of two traffickers is a rare spell of Congolese conservation convictions
- Serial elephant poacher Rombo Ngando Lunda was given a 20-year prison sentence and fined $25,000 in a landmark ruling in March.
- Wildlife trafficker Salomon Mpay sentenced to just two years and a $2,000 fine after being caught with 35 kilos of ivory and 2.5 metric tons of pangolin scales.
- Lawyers for conservation groups whose investigations led to Mpay’s arrest are appealing what they say is a lenient sentence.
Novelizing wildlife crime investigations: Q&A with author Bryan Christy
- Since his breakthrough book, The Lizard King, and his National Geographic feature on “The Kingpin”, Bryan Christy has established himself as one of the best-known wildlife crime writers.
- Christy’s newest project builds on his wildlife crime expertise, but takes it in a more dramatic direction: He’s written a novel titled In the Company of Killers, which tells the story of Tom Klay, an investigative reporter leading a double life as a CIA spy, who travels to the same places where Christy did his investigative work.
- “After years investigating wildlife crimes around the world, I realized environmental crimes were only part of criminal ecosystems too large to fit into any magazine article or documentary,” Christy told Mongabay. “When power and corruption feel too big to do anything about, it’s the job of storytellers to reframe things in a way that makes sense.”
- Christy spoke with Mongabay founder Rhett A. Butler in April 2021.
Logging company moves into intact Gabon forest as village fights to save it
- Transport Bois Négoce International (TBNI), a Chinese forestry company, has built new roads in preparation to cut timber in a concession which includes a previously unlogged forest in northeastern Gabon.
- Residents of the village of Massaha, on the northern edge of this forest, have been managing hunting and other use of this forest since 2019; they formally requested reclassification of the forest as a protected area in August 2020.
- Gabon’s forest code makes explicit provision for local communities to initiate reclassification of sensitive forest as a protected area, and villagers are anxious for the government to respond before TBNI advances any further.
Study highlights ‘terrible’ signs of species decline from wildlife trade
- A new study found that the wildlife trade has led to a near 62% decrease in species abundance, raising concerns about its impact on terrestrial biodiversity.
- The authors found there to be a paucity of literature on the subject, and were only able to identify 31 studies that compared species abundance in exploited habitats with species abundance in unexploited areas.
- The paper calls for increased protections for species and better management of protected areas.
Fake it till you save it? Synthetic animal parts pose a conservation conundrum
- Thanks to technological advancements, it’s now possible to make synthetic versions of animal parts like rhino horn, elephant ivory, and big cat fur, demand for which is contributing to the extinction crisis.
- Yet this practice is controversial, as some conservation groups assert that selling synthetic parts could actually promote more poaching.
- Proponents of the strategy say more conversations are needed around this possibility, including looking at the issue from an economic perspective.
Nigeria emerges as Africa’s primary export hub for ivory, pangolin scales
- Increased political buy-in for law enforcement and interdiction efforts at ports in East Africa have pushed wildlife smuggling westward to Nigeria.
- Between 1998 and 2014, the top two countries associated with ivory seizures were Tanzania and Kenya. Since 2014, Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo have overtaken them.
- Corruption at the ports, the involvement of influential politicians, and rural poverty make Nigeria an attractive waypoint for smugglers.
With a drastic decline in tropical fruit, Gabon’s rainforest mega-gardeners go hungry
- Climate change appears to be disrupting the yield of fruit trees, a critical food source for many large mammals in Central Africa.
- A new study warns that endangered forest elephants and other keystone species in Lopé National Park in central Gabon — such as western lowland gorillas, chimpanzees, and mandrills — could be facing famine.
- “The changes are drastic,” says Emma Bush, co-lead author of the study. “The massive collapse in fruiting may be due to missing the environmental cue to bear fruit.”
- Some tropical trees depend on a drop in temperature to trigger flowering, but since the 1980s, the region recorded less rainfall and a temperature increase of 1°C.
Is that ivory from an elephant or a nut? A new guide shows how to tell
- The guide was produced by WWF, TRAFFIC, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the CITES Secretariat.
- The last update was in 1999, with this version including high-resolution, detailed photographs that show the differences between various forms of ivory and other substitutes.
- A section examines online marketplaces and auctions, a growing branch of the illegal ivory trade.
- Translations will be made into English, Spanish, and French, with CITES-compliant governments tasked with distributing it to law enforcement and customs officials.
Podcast: Listening to elephants to protect Central Africa’s tropical forests
- On today’s episode of the Mongabay Newscast we take a look at a project that aims to preserve the rainforests of the Congo Basin in Central Africa and the biodiversity found in those forests by focusing on elephants and their calls.
- As a research analyst with the Elephant Listening Project, Ana Verahrami has completed two field seasons in the Central African Republic, where she helped collect the behavioral and acoustic data vital to the project. She joins the Mongabay Newscast to explain why forest elephants’ role as keystone species makes their survival crucial to the wellbeing of tropical forests and their other inhabitants, and to play some of the recordings informing the project’s work.
- One of the two existing African elephant species, forest elephants are native to the humid forests of West Africa and the Congo Basin. The forest habitat they rely on has also suffered steep declines in recent years, with one 2018 study concluding that at current rates of deforestation, all of the primary forest in the Congo Basin could be cleared by the end of the century. As Mongabay’s contributing editor for Africa, Terna Gyuse, tells us, the chief threats to the Congo Basin’s rainforests are human activities.
Expansion of a famous elephant park holds out hope for Africa’s big tuskers
- Eight of Africa’s remaining 30 “big tuskers” live in South Africa’s Tembe Elephant Park.
- The park is set to be expanded by up to 26,000 hectares, allowing its herd of 200 to grow.
- The park is owned and managed by local communities.
Study tracks first incursion of poachers into ‘pristine’ African forest
- Researchers logged the first evidence of elephant poaching in a remote, pristine section of Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park in the northern Republic of Congo.
- The study, published in the journal Frontiers in Forests and Global Change, also revealed unique behavior changes between gorillas and chimpanzees as a result of selective logging.
- The research highlights the need to incorporate the results of biodiversity surveys into plotting out the locations of areas set aside for conservation.
Bid to allow sale of ivory stockpiles rejected at wildlife trade summit
- A proposal by Botswana, Zimbabwe and Namibia that would have allowed them to sell their ivory stockpiles has been rejected by 101 votes to 23 at the CITES wildlife trade summit taking place in Geneva.
- Populations of elephants in Botswana, Namibia, Zimbabwe and South Africa are placed in Appendix II of CITES, which allows commercial trade in registered government-owned ivory stocks, with the necessary CITES permits in place.
- But such sales are severely restricted by a legally binding annotation to Appendix II, which Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe’s proposal sought to amend.
- Several other African countries opposed the proposal, saying that the one-off sales permitted under the annotation in 1997 and 2008 had failed and sparked a poaching frenzy, negating the argument that flooding the market with legal ivory would drown out the illegal trade.
Australia to ban domestic trade in elephant ivory and rhino horn
- Australia has formally announced a plan to ban its domestic trade in elephant ivory and rhino horn.
- Sussan Ley, the country’s environment minister, said she would meet with ministers in November to ensure that steps are taken to ban domestic trade in ivory and rhino horn all jurisdictions.
- At the ongoing CITES meeting, a coalition of 30 African elephant range countries tabled a proposal asking all domestic markets of ivory to be closed. But the proposal was voted down.
‘Let us trade’: Debate over ivory sales rages ahead of CITES summit
- Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe want to sell off their ivory stocks to raise money for conservation.
- Growing human and elephant populations in these southern African countries have provoked increased human-wildlife conflict, and the governments see legal ivory sales as a way to generate revenue for conservation and development funding.
- Other countries, most notably Kenya, oppose the proposal, on the grounds that previous legal sales stimulated demand for ivory and coincided with a sharp increase in poaching.
Audio: New CITES head on next COP, reining in online wildlife trafficking, and more
- On this episode of the Mongabay Newscast we speak with Ivonne Higuero, secretary general of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora — better known by its acronym, CITES.
- Signatories to CITES will meet later this summer for the eighteenth meeting of the Congress of the Parties (or COP). The meeting was originally to be held in Colombo, Sri Lanka last May, but a series of terrorist bombings in the South Asian country during Easter services in April forced CITES officials to postpone the meeting until August and move it to Geneva, Switzerland.
- On today’s episode of the Mongabay Newscast, Huigero, the first woman to ever serve as CITES secretary general, discusses how her background as an environmental economist informs her approach to the job, how CITES can tackle challenges like lack of enforcement of CITES statutes at the national level and the online wildlife trade, and what she expects to accomplish at the eighteenth congress of the parties to CITES.
Angola pledges $60m to fund landmine clearance in national parks
- The Angolan government has announced a $60 million commitment to clear landmines in Luengue-Luiana and Mavinga national parks in the country’s southeast.
- The region is part of the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area — home to incredible natural biodiversity, but also one of the most heavily mined regions of Angola.
- International funding for landmine clearance has fallen by 80 percent over the last 10 years, and without new funding Angola will miss its target of clearing all landmines by 2025.
- The HALO Trust, a demining NGO, and the Angolan government hope that clearance of landmines will stimulate conservation in southeastern Angola and provide alternative livelihoods such as ecotourism to alleviate poverty and diversify the country’s economy away from oil.
China seizes over 2,700 elephant tusks in massive bust
- In one of the biggest busts in recent years, Chinese officials have seized 2,748 elephant tusks weighing more than 7 tonnes, the General Administration of Customs announced earlier this week.
- The ivory was confiscated during a joint operation by customs authorities and police across six provinces on March 30.
- Customs authorities added that since the beginning of 2019, they had filed 182 cases of smuggling of endangered wild species, seized more than 500 tons of endangered wildlife and their products, and arrested 171 suspects, disrupting 27 criminal gangs.
- China instated a ban on the domestic trade in elephant ivory in 2018.
Kenya on the brink of acquitting ivory trafficker number four (commentary)
- On April 11, Chief Magistrate Francis Kyambia is set to make judgement in a Mombasa, Kenya court on the ivory trafficking prosecution against Ephantus Mbare Gitonga. A not-guilty verdict, if rendered, will be the fourth consecutive acquittal in a major ivory case in the last fifteen months.
- There will be many who find this hard to believe: Surely the only acquittal was that against Feisal Mohamed Ali in August 2018? He had originally been convicted in July 2017 for being in possession of 2.2 metric tons of ivory and sentenced to 20 years in jail with a $200,000 fine to boot. The widely celebrated finding was overturned in August of last year when Lady Justice D.O. Chepkwony of the Kenya High Court reached the decision that the initial ruling was flawed on multiple grounds.
- There are, however, two other acquittals in major ivory cases that quietly came and went with nary a whisper of surprise, dismay, or disillusionment. And now clearing agent Ephantus Mbare Gitonga is on the verge of yet another acquittal.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
Elephant in the room: Botswana deals with pachyderm population pressure
- The government of Botswana is considering measures to rein in its elephant population to address the problem of human-elephant conflicts.
- These proposed measures include a resumption of big-game hunting and culling of elephants, which number about 130,000 in Botswana — the biggest population of the pachyderm in Africa.
- An existing solution is a transboundary conservation area that straddles the borders between Botswana and Namibia, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Angola.
- Given that many of the elephants inside Botswana come from these other countries, officials say having wildlife corridors in the border areas could ease the population pressure inside the country.
Trouble in Botswana’s elephant paradise as poaching said to rise
- Botswana is home to 130,000 elephants, a third of Africa’s total elephant population, and has gained a reputation as a sanctuary for the threatened species.
- The country has a hunting ban and strict anti-poaching measures in place.
- But a report based on an aerial survey carried out last year appears to show an alarming increase in poaching, notably of male elephants for their typically larger tusks — a finding disputed by the government.
- The government is considering ending the hunting ban to allow the trophy shooting and culling of elephants to get their population under control.
Chinese ‘Queen of Ivory’ sentenced to 15 years in jail for tusk trafficking
- Tanzania has sentenced Yang Fenglan, a Chinese national dubbed the “Queen of Ivory,” to 15 years in prison for smuggling the tusks of more than 350 African elephants over several years.
- Yang, 69, was arrested in 2015, along with two Tanzanian men, and charged with trafficking 860 ivory pieces, which according to authorities were worth at least $5.6 million.
- On Feb. 19, a court convicted the three of organizing a criminal syndicate and sentenced them to 15 years each. It also ordered them to pay a fine double the market value of the ivory they were accused of smuggling, or face an additional two years in prison for failing to do so.
- Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said in a press conference that China would support Tanzania’s investigation and handling of the case.
Audio: IUCN’s Inger Andersen: “Women represent 3.5 billion solutions”
- On today’s episode, we talk with the Director General of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), Inger Andersen.
- Founded in 1948 and headquartered in Switzerland, the IUCN is probably best known for its Red List of Threatened Species, a vital resource on the conservation statuses and extinction risks of tens of thousands of species with whom we share planet Earth. But the IUCN does much more than just maintain the Red List, as Inger Andersen, the organization’s director general, explains.
- Andersen also discusses how updates are made to the Red List (and what updates we can expect to the List in 2019), the importance of empowering women in conservation and sustainable development, the need to tackle unsustainable production and consumption patterns, and why the 2020 installment of the IUCN’s World Conservation Congress will be perhaps the most important yet.
China busts major ivory trafficking gang following EIA investigation
- In 2017, an undercover operation by the watchdog group Environmental Investigation Agency identified three men involved in smuggling elephant ivory from Africa to the little-known town of Shuidong in China, which, according to the trafficking syndicate, receives up to 80 percent of all illegal ivory from Africa.
- Following EIA’s report, Chinese enforcement authorities raided several places in Shuidong and surrounding areas and arrested one of the three men who received a jail term of 15 years. A second member of the gang voluntarily returned to face trial and was jailed for six years.
- The third identified member of the syndicate has also been repatriated to China from Nigeria under an INTERPOL Red Notice and will face trial in China.
- In addition to these three men, enforcement actions have also led to the conviction of 11 suspects by the local court, with jail terms ranging from six to 15 years.
Audio: Rhett Butler on how sound can save forests and top rainforest storylines to watch in 2019
- On today’s episode, we welcome Mongabay founder and CEO Rhett Butler to discuss the biggest rainforest news stories of 2018 and what storylines to watch in 2019. He also discusses a new peer-reviewed paper he co-authored that looks at how bioacoustics can help us monitor forests and the wildlife that call forests home.
- This year marks the 20th anniversary since Rhett Butler founded Mongabay. Subscribers to our new Insider Content Program already know the story of how he founded Mongabay.com two decades ago in his pajamas. At first, Mongabay was a labor of love that Rhett pursued in his spare time, after coming home from his day job.
- Mongabay has come a long way since then, with more than 350 contributors covering 50 countries and bureaus now open in India, Indonesia, and Latin America. Overseeing this global environmental news empire provides Rhett with a wealth of insight into the science and trends that are shaping conservation.
Vietnam’s illegal ivory market continues to thrive, report finds
- Over two surveys conducted between November 2016 and June 2017, TRAFFIC’s researchers found more than 10,000 ivory items being offered on sale across 852 physical outlets and 17 online platforms, suggesting an ivory market that has continued to thrive over the past few decades.
- Physical retail stores in Ho Chi Minh City and Buon Ma Thuot had the highest number of ivory items for sale, the surveys found, but two villages, Ban Don and Lak, had a disproportionately high number of items on sale compared to the number of stores. Among the online platforms, social media sites had the highest number of posts offering ivory for sale.
- The ivory markets in Vietnam are, however, changing constantly. TRAFFIC’s researchers not only found ivory for sale in places where previous studies had found none, they also observed shifts in markets within their two surveys, over just an eight-month period.
- The surveyors also found that the sellers were aware that selling ivory was illegal, but “it does not deter them from offering it openly for sale in Vietnam,” they said.
In the belly of the beast: journalist delves into wildlife trafficking
- Rachel Nuwer, who has written for Mongabay, Smithsonian, the New York Times and other publications, published a new book in September, “Poached,” which delves deeply into the global wildlife trafficking epidemic.
- Her book looks into the origins of the wildlife trade, its mechanisms, markets, and solutions. It covers charismatic mammals (elephants, rhinos and tigers), as well as the non-charismatic (pangolins and snakes).
- In this exclusive Mongabay Q&A, the author shares some of her most harrowing moments on the trail of global wildlife traffickers. The scariest thing of all: how accepting people can often be to the slaughter of millions of wild animals, and to the extermination of species, so as to be served a rare meat or a bogus cure.
- Still, Nuwer finds hope in the courageous individuals who fight the trade.
Singapore proposes total ivory ban, calls for public feedback
- Singapore’s Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority (AVA) has proposed a total ban on the sale and purchase of all forms of elephant ivory products in Singapore.
- Display of elephant ivory in public would also be banned, except when used for educational purposes, such as in museums or zoos.
- AVA has opened its proposal to public comments until Dec. 27 this year.
New research measures impacts of China’s elephant ivory trade ban
- Research released last month by WWF and TRAFFIC, the wildlife monitoring network, found that there has been a substantial decline in the number of Chinese consumers buying ivory since the ivory trade ban went into effect on December 31, 2017. But there is still work to be done to diminish both the supply and demand for elephant ivory in China.
- Of 2,000 Chinese consumers surveyed, 14 percent claimed to have bought ivory in the past year — significantly fewer than the 31 percent of respondents who said they’d recently purchased ivory during a pre-ban survey conducted in 2017. Some ivory sales have simply gone international, however: 18 percent of regular travelers reported buying ivory products while abroad, particularly in Thailand and Hong Kong.
- TRAFFIC reports that all of the formerly accredited (i.e. legal) ivory shops the group’s investigators visited in 2018 have stopped selling ivory. But the illegal ivory trade has not been so thoroughly shut down. TRAFFIC investigators also visited 157 markets in 23 cities and found 2,812 ivory products on offer in 345 separate stores.
Wildlife detectives link smuggled African elephant ivory to 3 major cartels
- By matching DNA from elephant tusks found in major illegal ivory shipments, and using information on the ports of origin of the shipments, researchers have pinpointed three major cartels that moved most of Africa’s large illegal ivory shipments between 2011 and 2014.
- These three cartels operated from Entebbe in Uganda, Mombasa in Kenya, and Lomé in Togo.
- The researchers hope that links established in the study will help tie ivory-trafficking kingpins to multiple large ivory seizures, and strengthen the case against them.
87 elephants found dead in Botswana, one of last safe havens for the species
- At least 87 elephants were killed by poachers in recent months, conservation nonprofit Elephants Without Borders said based on an ongoing aerial survey in northern Botswana.
- Given that the current aerial survey is only halfway through, conservationists worry the final number of poached elephants will be much higher.
- The government of Botswana, however, has refuted the organization’s claims and called the figures “unsubstantiated,” in a statement published on Twitter.
Two suspected poachers arrested for killing of Sumatran elephant
- Indonesian authorities have arrested two of four suspects alleged to have killed a rare Sumatran elephant and hacked off one of its tusks.
- The arrest took place about a month after the elephant was found dead in the Leuser Ecosystem in Sumatra’s Aceh province. News of the killing garnered widespread attention and calls to solve the case.
- There are only an estimated 2,400 Sumatran elephants left in the wild, scattered across 25 fragmented habitats on the island.
Fingerprinting technology gives investigators an edge against pangolin traffickers
- Researchers in the U.K. have modified the gelatin lifters used in criminal forensic investigations so they can pick up clues from pangolin scales and other illegally traded wildlife body parts.
- Wildlife guards in Kenya and Cameroon are using packs of the gelatin lifters in the field to gather evidence.
- The researchers say this new technology allows wildlife conservation officials to collect this evidence more quickly in remote areas, which in turn helps to ensure their safety.
Poachers blamed in second Sumatran elephant death this year
- Forest rangers in northern Sumatra have found one of their patrol elephants dead and missing a tusk inside a protected forest.
- Authorities have cited poisoning by poachers as the cause of death, making it the second such poaching-related elephant killing in Sumatra this year.
- The local conservation agency has called on law enforcers to bring the perpetrators to justice, but past cases suggest this will be slow in coming.
New technology leads to the arrest of eight people suspected of trafficking wildlife parts
- Eight men, including three government officials, all from African countries, have been arrested for allegedly trafficking wildlife body parts to Southeast Asia.
- Officers from the Lusaka Agreement Task Force, based in Nairobi, Kenya, used data analytics software to track down the alleged smugglers, who were arrested in the Republic of Congo and the Democratic Republic of Congo in May.
- The investigation linked the accused to shipments of pangolin scales and elephant tusks seized in Southeast Asia.
Owner of South African hunting company indicted by US prosecutors over illegal elephant hunt
- The owner of a trophy hunting business in South Africa has been indicted by prosecutors with the United States Department of Justice for violating the Endangered Species Act and the Lacey Act.
- Prosecutors in the US state of Colorado have alleged that Hanno van Rensburg, a South African national and owner of Authentic African Adventures, led an illegal hunt in Zimbabwe’s Gonarezhou National Park in 2015 and bribed Zimbabwean government officials with somewhere between $5,000 and $8,000 to look the other way. Van Rensburg is also accused of conspiring with a member of the hunting party from Colorado to illegally export elephant ivory to the US by falsifying documents to claim that the hunter was a South African resident and did not shoot the elephant inside the national park.
- While prosecutors did not name the Colorado hunter with whom van Rensburg conspired to illegally export the elephant trophies, he has been identified as Paul Ross Jackson of Evergreen, Colorado. Jackson, a former vice president of the Dallas Safari Club, pleaded guilty in April to violating the U.S. Endangered Species Act in connection to the same hunt.
Documenting the African elephant’s ‘last stand’: Q&A with filmmakers Cyril Christo and Marie Wilkinson
- “Walking Thunder,” a film by Cyril Christo and Marie Wilkinson, tracks elephants across Africa.
- The couple’s son, Lysander, guides viewers through his discovery, first of the elephants and peoples of Africa, and then of the threats they face.
- Christo calls the film a “prayer” for the species.
Will China’s new ban on the ivory trade help or hurt? (Commentary)
- At the end of 2017, China announced that it had closed down the domestic legal trade in ivory, to global acclaim.
- The new ban represents all the makings of excellent global public relations, but conservationist Karl Amman asks whether it will do more harm than good for elephants without effective enforcement.
- The post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
Black rhinos return to Zakouma National Park in Chad
- The NGO African Parks and its partners in South Africa and Chad reintroduced six black rhinos to Zakouma National Park on May 4.
- Chad’s oldest national park had not had rhinos since the early 1970s, when they were wiped out by hunting.
- After a brief acclimation period in transitional bomas, or enclosures, the rhinos will be released into a protected sanctuary in the park.
- Around 5,000 black rhinos remain on the African continent, and poaching for their horns, used in traditional Asian medicine, continues to be a threat to their survival as a species.
Conservationist known as a caretaker for Kenya’s orphaned elephants dies at 83
- Conservationist Daphne Sheldrick died of breast cancer on April 12, according to the conservation organization she founded.
- Born in Kenya, she spent her life working to care for orphaned elephants in Kenya and fighting to save the species through her advocacy.
- She started the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, named for her husband, in 1977.
- The organization runs an orphan elephant project, as well as de-snaring and veterinary care teams.
U.K. ban relegates legal ivory trade to ‘a thing of the past’
- The United Kingdom says it will ban, with a few exceptions, the sale of all ivory in the country.
- Conservation groups have welcomed the move and pointed out that poaching to fuel the global ivory trade leads to the deaths of 55 elephants a day, or around 20,000 per year.
- The closure of domestic markets in the U.K., along with similar moves in China, Hong Kong and the U.S., will close the loopholes that allow illegal traders to launder their illicitly acquired ivory, proponents of the measure say.
Five-year sentences for elephant poachers in Republic of Congo
- A court in the Republic of Congo has convicted three men of killing elephants for their tusks. They were handed five-year prison sentences and fined $10,000 each.
- The three men were part of a six-member poaching gang that managed to escape an ambush set up by park authorities, but not before leaving behind some 70 kilograms of ivory as well as an AK-47 rifle, according to the WCS.
- The gang is believed to have links to some of northern Congo’s most notorious elephant poachers and ivory traffickers, including two who were jailed in the last two years.
Hong Kong votes to ban ivory trade by 2021
- Hong Kong, one of the world’s largest ivory markets, has overwhelmingly voted to ban its domestic ivory trade.
- This ban comes just a month after China shut down all of its ivory markets on the mainland.
- The ban will be implemented in a three-step plan over the next three years.
Poachers blamed as body of Sumatran elephant, missing tusks, found in protected forest
- Farmers in southern Sumatra found the body of a young male elephant inside a protected forest and missing its tusks.
- No external injuries were found that could point to a cause of death, leading wildlife activists to suspect it was killed by poisoning, a common tactic used by poachers.
- The discovery comes less than a month after a pregnant elephant was found poisoned to death in northern Sumatra — although in that case the tuskless female appeared more likely to have been killed for encroaching on farms than by poachers.
Audio: Lessons from indigenous peoples about coping with climate change, plus the call of the night parrot
- Happy new year to all our listeners out there! On our first episode of 2018, we speak with the author of a book about the resilience of indigenous peoples in the face of climate change, and we’ll hear some recordings of the elusive night parrot in Australia!
- Our first guest today is Gleb Raygorodetsky, the author of The Archipelago of Hope: Wisdom and Resilience from the Edge of Climate Change, which details the author’s experiences with a number of Indigenous cultures and the ways their lives on their traditional territories are being reshaped by the impacts of global warming.
- Our second guest is Nick Leseberg, a PhD student at the University of Queensland in Australia whose work focuses solely on the night parrot, a species endemic to Australia that scientists have only recently been able to study. Just four years ago, nobody knew what a night parrot sounded like — but now Leseberg is here to play us some of the calls he’s recorded in this Field Notes segment.
Ivory trade in China is now banned
- China has shut its legal, domestic ivory markets and banned all commercial ivory trade.
- Conservationists have welcomed this ban, calling it “one of the most important days in the history of elephant conservation”.
- But for China’s ivory ban to work, neighboring countries must follow suit, conservationists say.
The curious case of the phantom hippo teeth
- Hippo ivory is an affordable alternative to elephant ivory, whose international trade is prohibited by many countries.
- The reported export and import numbers of legal wildlife trade in the CITES database are dramatically mismatched for some species, including the numbers for hippo teeth.
- An updated population estimate for hippos could indicate how much illegal poaching for their ivory is threatening them.
Ivory is out in the UK, as government moves to shutter legal trade
- The British government began a 12-week consultation period on Oct. 6 to sort out the details for a near-total ban on its domestic ivory trade.
- Conservation groups have long worried that even a legal trade can mask the illicit movement of ivory and stimulate further demand for ivory from poached elephants.
- The conservation groups WCS and Stop Ivory applauded the announcement and pledged to work with the government to put the ban in place.
Audio: Legendary musician Bruce Cockburn on music, activism, and hope
- Music has a unique ability to inspire awareness and action about important issues — and we’re excited to welcome a living legend onto the program to discuss that very topic.
- Bruce Cockburn, well known for his outspoken support of environmental and humanitarian causes, appears on this episode of the Mongabay Newscast.
- Our second guest is Amanda Lollar, founder and president of Bat World Sanctuary, a wildlife rehabilitation center in Texas.
- All that plus the top news!
Central Africa’s ivory trade shifts underground, according to new report
- A series of undercover investigations by the NGO TRAFFIC over several years in five Central African countries has revealed a shift in the region from local markets for ivory to an ‘underground’ international trade.
- The resulting report, published Sept. 7, finds that organized crime outfits, aided by high-level corruption, are moving ivory out of Central African to markets abroad, especially in China and other parts of Asia.
- A 2013 study found that elephant numbers in Central Africa’s forests dropped by 62 percent between 2002 and 2011.
Audio: A rare earth mine in Madagascar triggers concerns for locals and lemurs
- Our first guest on this episode of the Mongabay Newscast is Eddie Carver, a Mongabay contributor based in Madagascar who recently wrote a report about a troubled company that is hoping to mine rare earth elements in a forest on the Ampasindava peninsula, a highly biodiverse region that is home to numerous endangered lemur species.
- Carver speaks about the risks of mining for rare earth elements, how the mine might impact wildlife like endangered lemur species found nowhere else on Earth, the complicated history of the company and its ownership of the mine, and how villagers in nearby communities have already been impacted by exploratory mining efforts.
- Our second guest is Jo Wood, an Environmental Water Project Officer in Victoria, Australia, who plays for us the calls of a number of indicator species whose presence helps her assess the success of her wetland rewetting work.
Leading ivory trade investigator slain in Tanzania
- One of Africa’s top ivory trade investigators has been shot dead by gunmen in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
- Wayne Lotter was the co-founder and President of PAMS Foundation, which set up and supported the elite unit behind more than 2,000 arrests since November 2014.
- He was killed late on Wednesday, while traveling in a taxi from the airport to his rented flat in the quiet suburb of Masaki.
On World Elephant Day, troubling times for African elephants
- August 12 is World Elephant Day
- World Elephant Day was founded in 2012 by Patricia Sims and the Elephant Reintroduction Foundation.
High volumes of ivory continue to be sold online in Japan
- A new report by TRAFFIC has found that thousands of jewelry, seals, scrolls and other items made of elephant ivory continue to be sold online in Japan every week.
- Over a four-week survey, ivory items worth over JPY 45.2 million ($407,000) were sold across various websites, the team found.
- The sheer scale of the trade warrants scrutiny to prevent illicit activities, the team says.
U.K. is the world’s biggest exporter of legal ivory, data analysis shows
- The United Kingdom legally exported more than 36,000 pieces of ivory between 2010 and 2015, 370 percent more than the United States, the next biggest exporter.
- Over the same time period, the U.K. has been the major supplier for markets in China and Hong Kong.
- EIA and other environmental groups fear that the trade of legal ivory encourages the continued poaching of elephants by perpetuating demand and masking the trade of illegally harvested ivory.
New research provides baseline for evaluating effectiveness of US ban on ivory trade
- The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS) announced a “near-total ban” on the commercial trade of elephant ivory last year.
- Now, new research led by wildlife trade monitoring NGO TRAFFIC released last week provides a baseline for the state of the ivory market in the U.S. at the time the ban went into effect — which future monitoring efforts will rely on in order to determine the impacts of the legislative and regulatory changes made by the FWS a year ago.
- Researchers found that a total of 1,589 elephant ivory items, including figurines (780 items), jewelry (417), and household goods (261), were being sold by 227 different vendors in six major American cities from May to July 2016.
- They also also found that some 2,056 elephant ivory items were available on six major online auction sites and marketplaces between June and August 2016.
Watch: $8 million worth elephant ivory crushed in New York City
- The ivory, weighing nearly two tons, is believed to represent more than 100 slaughtered elephants.
- By destroying the illegally obtained ivory, authorities hope to send a message to poachers, traffickers and dealers that the slaughter of elephants will not be tolerated.
- All of the ivory that was crushed on Thursday came from seizures over the past three years, mostly from New York City.
Investigation finds ‘thriving’ rhino horn trade in Asia
- Over 11 months, EAL investigators posed as potential buyers and identified 55 ‘persons of interest’ involved in the trade of rhino horn.
- The group mapped out the routes by which rhino horn – valued at tens of thousands of dollars per kilogram – arrives in China.
- Recorded conversations during the investigation allude to the fact that dealers and traders understand that rhinos face the threat of extinction.
Audio: DJ remixes the sounds of birds, lemurs, and more to inspire conservation
- Our first guest is Ben Mirin, aka DJ Ecotone, an explorer, wildlife DJ, educator, and television presenter who creates music from the sounds of nature to help inspire conservation efforts.
- In this very special Field Notes segment, Mirin discusses his craft and some of the challenges of capturing wildlife sounds in the field — including why it can be so difficult to record dolphins when all they want to do is take a bow ride on your boat.
- We also speak with Cleve Hicks, author of a children’s book called A Rhino to the Rescue: A Tale of Conservation and Adventure, not only to express his love of nature but to help raise awareness of the poaching crisis decimating Africa’s rhino population.
- All that plus the top news on this episode of the Mongabay Newscast!
Hong Kong officials seize ‘largest ever’ ivory shipment worth $9 million
- The customs authorities discovered the tusks inside a 40-feet Malaysian consignment declared as “frozen fish”.
- Following an initial investigation, the authorities have arrested the owner and two staff members of a trading company in Tuen Mun, Hong Kong.
- In December last year, Hong Kong government announced a three-step plan to phase out domestic ivory trade by the end of 2021.
The Chinese town at the epicenter of the global illegal ivory trade
- According to a report released yesterday by the London-based Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), Shuidong is “the world’s largest hub for ivory trafficking,” home to a network of criminal syndicates that have come to dominate the trade in illegal ivory poached from elephants in East and West Africa.
- One illegal ivory trafficker told EIA’s undercover investigators that he estimated as much as 80 percent of all poached ivory smuggled out of Africa and into China goes through Shuidong.
- The illegal trade in ivory is contributing to precipitous declines in African elephant populations.
Conservation group African Parks to look after West African wildlife
- The 10-year agreement includes funding of $26 million.
- African Parks and the government of Benin aim to double wildlife populations in the park by training guards and shoring up protections from poaching.
- The effort will create some 400 jobs and benefit the overall economy, say representatives of the government and the NGO.
Hong Kong Ivory traders encouraging buyers to smuggle ivory: TRAFFIC
- Exporting ivory bought in Hong Kong to mainland China would involve crossing an international border, which is illegal and in violation of CITES regulations.
- But 27 of the 74 traders that TRAFFIC surveyed encouraged buyers to take ivory out of Hong Kong without obtaining CITES permits.
- While some shopkeepers suggested hiding small ivory trinkets in bags and luggage, others offered more detailed strategies to conceal purchased ivory.
Notorious elephant poacher, ‘The Devil’, sentenced to 12 years in jail
- Mariango was arrested in October 2015 with his brothers Lucas Mathayo Malyango and Abdallah Ally Chaoga while attempting to smuggle 118 tusks worth over $863,000.
- Aged 47, Mariango was one of the poachers featured in the Netflix documentary film, The Ivory Game, produced by Hollywood actor Leonardo DiCaprio.
- He also stands accused of supplying ivory to Yang Feng Glan, a Chinese national nicknamed “Queen of Ivory,” who is on trial in Tanzania for smuggling ivory worth $2.5 million.
More than 25,000 elephants were killed in a Gabon national park in one decade
- A decline of somewhere between 78 and 81 percent in the park’s forest elephant (Loxodonta cyclotis) population over the span of just one decade was largely driven by poachers who crossed the border into Gabon from its neighbor to the north, Cameroon, according to a new study led by researchers with Duke University and published in the journal Current Biology this week.
- The fact that Cameroon’s national road is so close to the park makes it relatively easy for poachers to slip into the park, make their illegal kills, and then transport elephant tusks back to Cameroon’s largest city, Douala, which has become a major hub of the international ivory trade.
- Nearly half of Central Africa’s estimated 100,000 forest elephants are thought to live in Gabon, making the loss of 25,000 elephants from a key sanctuary a considerable setback for the preservation of the species, according to John Poulsen, assistant professor of tropical ecology at Duke’s Nicholas School of the Environment and the lead author of the study.
Seven ‘most wanted’ elephant poachers arrested in Malaysia
- The poachers were caught in a joint operation between the Department of Wildlife and National Parks (Perhilitan) and Malaysia’s Armed Forces on February 10.
- During the raid, the authorities seized animal parts worth about $112,300, as well as hunting gear and firearms, including shotguns, machetes, knives, bullets, explosives and firecrackers.
- During subsequent raids on February 11 and 12, Perhilitan officers seized two elephant tusks, elephant meat, and more weapons and equipment.
Newscast #9: Joel Berger on overlooked ‘edge species’ that deserve conservation
- We’re also joined by Andrew Whitworth, a conservation and biodiversity scientist with the University of Glasgow, who shares with us some of the recordings he’s made in the field of a critically endangered bird called the Sira Curassow.
- Plus: China to close its domestic ivory markets, Cheetah population numbers crash, and more in the top news.
- Happy New Year to all of our faithful listeners!
Elephants in Borneo slaughtered for ivory (WARNING: graphic photos)
- The carcass of the first elephant was discovered on December 27, and that of the second elephant — a sabre-tusked bull named Sabre — was found on New Year’s Eve.
- Both elephants had their tusks removed.
- According to Sabre’s satellite collar, the elephant was likely killed on 21 November 2016.
China to ban its elephant ivory trade within a year
- The Chinese government today announced it will close its domestic commercial ivory market by the end of 2017.
- Conservationists are applauding the move, calling it a “game-changer” for elephants, which are being rapidly driven toward extinction due to ivory poaching.
- Momentum has been building for such action. Earlier this year the United States enacted a law to close its ivory market and both the IUCN and member states at CITES COP17 passed resolutions to close domestic elephant ivory markets.
Top 10 HAPPY environmental stories of 2016
- Some animal species showed signs of recovery after years of decline.
- In 2016, the world became serious about protecting our oceans by establishing some of the largest marine protected areas ever.
- Countries moved towards ending domestic ivory trade, and researchers discovered the world’s tallest tree.
Hong Kong to ban ivory trade by 2021
- The government’s three-step plan aims to completely phase out domestic ivory trade by the end of 2021.
- The final phase will come into force from December 31, 2021, when all licenses will expire.
- The government has ruled out compensating the traders, and said that five years was a sufficiently long grace time.
Most illegal ivory comes from recently killed elephants: new study
- The multi-billion-dollar illegal ivory trade is almost entirely being fueled by African elephants killed within the last three years, a new study has found.
- This indicates that it is new ivory that is moving rapidly into the illegal market, and not old ivory from stockpiles that was previously thought to be leaking into the market, researchers say.
- The results of the study can help law enforcement focus their efforts on the regions worst hit by poaching and can also provide information on the killing rate of elephants, researchers add.
Elephant poaching costs African nations $25 million a year in lost tourism revenue
- The elephant poaching crisis does not harm elephants alone, it is bad for the economy too, according to a new study.
- The loss of elephants to wildlife trafficking is costing African countries about $25 million a year in lost tourism revenue, the study found.
- The tourism revenue lost due to declining elephants exceeds the anti-poaching costs necessary to stop the decline of elephants in east, west and southern Africa, the researchers found.
Poaching in Africa becomes increasingly militarized
- Due to skyrocketing consumer demand, particularly from Asia, today’s wildlife traffickers have the resources to outfit their henchmen with weaponry and equipment that often outmatches that of the local park rangers.
- The poachers doing the most damage in Africa today are employed by professional trafficking syndicates, and they enjoy a level of support and financial backing unimaginable during earlier poaching crises.
- The poachers’ arsenal includes the expanding use of military-grade equipment like helicopters, machine guns, infrared scopes, and heavy armored vehicles.
Countries at IUCN Congress vote to ban domestic ivory markets
- At the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) World Conservation Congress in Hawaii last week, delegates passed a motion to ban all domestic ivory markets.
- The ban is not legally binding, but urges governments with legal domestic markets for elephant ivory to close them down.
- Countries like Namibia, Japan and South Africa opposed the motion arguing that domestic markets should be regulated but kept open.
Malaysia is a major transit point for ivory smugglers
- Between January 2003 and May 2014, about 66 ivory seizures, totaling 63,419 kilograms (~140,000 pounds) of ivory, were made either within Malaysia or outside the country, but with Malaysia identified as part of the trade chain.
- Most of the ivory — about 96 percent — came from just 26 large-scale seizures, each with more than 500 kilograms of ivory, suggesting that organized crime groups with “high levels of financial, organizational and networking resources,” are involved.
- Most ivory seizures originated from Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, the team found, which are the three most important exit points in Africa for illegal trade in elephant ivory.
African elephant population declining at 8% per year
- Elephant populations across Africa’s savannas are plummeting reveals the most comprehensive elephant survey ever conducted.
- Backed by philanthropist and Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, the two-year Great Elephant Census counted 352,271 elephants in 18 elephant range countries.
- That tally represented a drop of 144,000 elephants relative to 2007.
- The data-gathering effort was unprecedented, involving 90 scientists, dozens of NGOs and agencies, and scores of aerial surveys.
World Elephant Day: Poaching remains ‘unacceptably high’ for African elephants
- The two CITES monitoring programs — the Elephant Trade Information System (ETIS) and Monitoring the Illegal Killing of Elephants (MIKE) — will present their reports at the 17th meeting of the Conference of the Parties (CoP) to the CITES in September.
- According to the ETIS report, levels of illegal ivory trade reached their highest levels in 2012 and 2013. In 2014, the only subsequent year with sufficient seizure data for analysis, illegal trade in ivory was lower.
- The MIKE report indicates that levels of illegal elephant killings peaked in 2011, and appear to have slowed or stabilized since then. But levels of poaching still remain far too high to allow elephant populations to recover, the statement said.
Two businessmen arrested for ivory trafficking
- The two detainees own shipping companies based in the Republic of the Congo.
- The shipping companies are allegedly involved in covertly moving large consignments of elephant tusks out of West Africa to Asia.
- Investigations into the dealings of the two businessmen began in 2014 after 1,493 kilograms of ivory were seized by Vietnamese officers, followed by several other ivory seizures by Thai, Vietnamese, and Singaporean authorities in 2015.
Ivory poaching kingpin gets 20 years in jail
- Feisal Ali Mohamed was found guilty of dealing in ivory worth $433,000, which involved the killing of at least 120 elephants.
- Principal magistrate Diane Mochache found Mohamed guilty and sentenced him to to 20 years in jail and fined him $200,000.
- “This is the first time that Kenya has prosecuted a large ivory seizure to conclusion,” conservation group says.
Vietnam is one of world’s biggest illegal ivory markets
- The sale of ivory products has increased by over six times from 2008 to 2015, according to a new report by Save the Elephants.
- The number of ivory carvers have increased at least 10-fold, the researchers estimate, while the number of shops selling ivory have risen by nearly three times.
- The primary change, the report found, was the expansion of the ivory trade in villages south of Hanoi, which have lower labor and machine production costs, making ivory items cheaper in Vietnam and more attractive to the Chinese.
Top 10 stories you should be aware of this World Oceans Day, according to Carl Safina
- Safina’s latest book, Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel, came out in 2015, and is due for a paperback release on July 12 via Picador.
- “It’s about the thought and emotional range of non-human animals, but including humans,” Safina told Mongabay.
- Safina’s list of stand-out stories includes several oceans and marine life stories, a couple that just show how similar to humans animals can really be, and a few that will interest anyone concerned with the plight of the natural world.
U.S. to enforce strict elephant ivory ban
- The United States will enforce a “near-total ban” on the commercial trade of elephant ivory.
- The move, announced today by the Fish & Wildlife Service, comes after years of campaigning by environmental and conservation groups over the large-scale slaughter of elephants across Africa and Asia.
- The finalized rule – a revision of the Endangered Species Act – limits the legal trade in elephant ivory to antiques that are over a century old and certain pre-existing manufactured products that contain less than 200 grams of ivory.
5 wildlife rangers shot – 3 killed – by poachers in Congo park
- Elephant poachers killed three wildlife rangers and wounded two more in a shootout yesterday in Garamba National Park.
- All five victims were members of African Parks.
- Garamba – once a stronghold for elephants and other wildlife – has been hard hit by poaching and violence against conservation workers.
Two Chinese ivory smugglers sentenced to 35 years each in jail
- A court in Tanzania has sentenced two Chinese men to 30 years each in jail for smuggling ivory, and an additional five years of jail for attempting to bribe police and wildlife officers, according to local media reports.
- This is believed to be one of the heaviest sentences handed out to poachers in the region.
- The men reportedly entered Tanzania posing as garlic importers and marine product exporters in 2010, and were arrested in Dar es Salaam in 2013.
‘Exploitation crisis’: Civil war fueling ‘sharp rise’ in poaching and trafficking of South Sudan’s wildlife
- Before the war broke out, South Sudan’s forests and savannah were home to about 2,500 elephants, several hundred giraffe, the endemic Nile Lechwe and white-eared kob, tiang, Mongalla antelope migration, wild dog, chimpanzee, and bongo populations, WCS’s scientists say.
- But ever since the outbreak of the war, there has been an “alarming” expansion of illegal activities across the country.
- Both local and international actors, especially the armed forces, have become involved in ivory poaching and trafficking, commercial bushmeat poaching and trafficking, illegal logging, gold mining, and charcoal production, WCS added.
Elephant poachers kill British helicopter pilot, 5 suspects arrested
- On January 29, elephant poachers shot and killed Roger Gower, a British helicopter pilot in Tanzania.
- Gower managed to land the helicopter, but died before rescuers could reach him, according to media reports.
- Government officials have arrested five suspects, media reports say.
Sri Lanka crushes and destroys over 350 ivory tusks
- Today, Sri Lanka crushed and destroyed its biggest-ever haul of 359 ivory tusks, the country’s entire stockpile, at the Galle Face Green in Colombo.
- This is the first time a South Asian country is destroying its illegal ivory stockpile, an act that is meant to demonstrate the country’s intolerance for wildlife crime.
- Today’s ivory crush began with a religious ceremony performed by Buddhist monks, and Hindu, Muslim and Christian representatives, who prayed for the elephants that have lost their lives.
Most wanted elephant poacher and ivory trafficker in Tanzania arrested
- Tanzania has been widely criticized by conservationists and environmentalists for failing to reign in the illicit ivory trade, but recent high-profile arrests have raised hopes for the future of the African elephant.
- Mariango had evaded arrest numerous times in the past and was finally apprehended by Tanzania’s National and Transnational Serious Crimes Investigation Unit (NTSCIU) on the outskirts of Dar es Salaam.
- “The Devil” was captured just weeks after a Chinese national, Yang Feng Glan, known as the “Queen of Ivory,” was arrested and charged with smuggling 706 elephant tusks with a street value of $2.5 million.
In landslide vote, Washington says yes to anti-wildlife trafficking measure
- I-1401 makes it a crime to sell, purchase, trade, or distribute parts and products of any wildlife species covered under the initiative.
- Endangered animals covered by this initiative include elephants, lions, tigers, rhinos, leopards, cheetahs, marine turtles, pangolins, sharks and rays.
- Violations are punishable either as a gross misdemeanor, or a Class-C felony.
Uncovered: How Hong Kong’s ‘legal’ ivory markets fuel elephant poaching
- Hong Kong’s system of keeping track of “legal” ivory is full of loopholes, report has found.
- Pre-1989 ivory stocks in Hong Kong should have run out by 2004, report estimates, but over 111 tonnes of ivory remain in markets as of 2014.
- “The profits are too high and the system is too easy to game,” conservationist says.
Queen of elephant ivory trafficking arrested in Tanzania
- A Chinese national dubbed the “Queen of Ivory” has been arrested in Tanzania.
- Yang Feng Glan, 66, has been charged with smuggling 706 elephant tusks with a street value of $2.5 million
- Tanzania has been widely criticized by conservationists and environmentalists for its failures to reign in the ivory trade, which has decimated elephant populations both inside its borders and in neighboring countries.
California bans ivory
- The state of California has officially banned the sale of virtually all elephant ivory and rhino horn.
- On Sunday California governor Jerry Brown signed state assembly bill AB 96 into law.
- Owners can sell ivory and rhino horn up until July 1, 2016. After that, penalties reach up to a $50,000 fine and a year in prison.
China and U.S. commit to end ivory trade
- In a joint statement, China and the United States announced their commitment to end domestic commercial ivory sales.
- The two countries will cooperate in “joint training, technical exchanges, information sharing, and public education on combating wildlife trafficking, and enhance international law enforcement cooperation in this field,” according to the statement.
- This announcement marks Chinese President Xi Jinping’s first public commitment to end ivory sales in China.
California takes step toward banning elephant ivory, rhino horn trades
- Today the California Senate approved legislation that would ban the ivory and rhinoceros horn across the state.
- AB 96 passed 26-13, reflecting widespread support for the measure.
- But some critics say the bill’s exemption for “antique ivory” will make the legislation difficult to enforce.
Scientists unite on World Elephant Day calling for ban on ivory trade in the U.S.
On August 11, the eve of World Elephant Day, a group of 250 scientists from varied backgrounds, disciplines and organizations around the world sent a letter to Barack Obama urging for the closure of commercial ivory trade in the United States. The letter, according to Wildlife Conservation Society, was conceived and circulated by the Association […]
U.S. to strengthen restrictions elephant ivory
- Today President Obama announced new rules to curb the elephant ivory trade.
- The regulation would ban the sale of ‘virtually all ivory across state lines.’
- An estimated 100,000 African elephants were killed between 2010-2012, according to scientists.
Elephant poaching gets center stage in NYC ivory crush
Ivory crush in New York Times Square. Photo Credit: Kelsey Williams/FWS Public awareness of the global elephant ivory poaching crisis got a high profile boost today with the crush of 2,000 pounds (907 kg) of confiscated ivory in New York City’s Times Square. The event was coordinated by the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), […]
The ivory trade and the war on wildlife (rangers) [commentary]
In this commentary, Fred Bercovitch, wildlife conservation biologist at Kyoto University, confronts the conservation community with an unconventional approach to stopping the ivory trade and illegal elephant killing. The views expressed are his own. Orphaned elephants in Kenya. “Nothing creates a greater surprise among the negroes [sic] on the sea-coast than the eagerness displayed by […]
Elephants rejoice: China to end ivory trade
Elephant in South Africa. Photos by Rhett A. Butler. The Chinese government announced today that it will “eventually” shut down its legal domestic ivory market. The move, which surprised conservationists, could provide a major boost in efforts to stop the mass killing of elephants for their ivory. The announcement came during a public event where […]
Weapons trafficking experts target criminal wildlife trade networks
. An outfit usually associated with investigating arms dealers and weapons traffickers is applying its advanced network mapping capabilities to criminal wildlife trafficking syndicates. This week Washington D.C.-based C4ADS unveiled the Environmental Crimes Fusion Cell, a unit which consists of a team of analysts, network mapping technology provided by software company Palantir, and a network […]
China bans carved ivory imports
Elephant in South Africa.. Photo by Rhett A. Butler. China has established a one-year ban on imports of carved African elephant ivory. Conservationists say the move, effective immediately, sends an important signal, but alone won’t be enough to slow elephant poaching. “This announcement is an encouraging signal that the Chinese government is ratcheting down the […]
California introduces bill to close ivory loophole
Baby elephant in South Africa. California congresswoman, Toni G. Atkins, introduced a bill yesterday (AB 96) that would close a major loophole allowing ivory to be sold all over the state. Thousands of miles away, across Africa, poachers are decimating elephants for their ivory tusks. A recent study estimated that one fifth of the continent’s […]
Meet the world’s most wanted environmental criminals
Most wanted environmental fugitives. Top row left to right: Adriano Giacobone, Sudiman Sunoto, Bhekumusa Mawillis Shiba and Ben Simasiku. Bottom row left to right: Nicolaas Antonius Cornelis Maria Duindam, Ariel Bustamante Sanchez, Sergey Darminov and Feisal Mohamed Ali Photo by: Interpol. In keeping with recent efforts to ramp up action against environmental crime, INTERPOL has […]
Corruption in Tanzania facilitates ivory trade
Elephants in Tanzania. All photos by Rhett A. Butler Corruption in Tanzania is enabling large volumes of illegal elephant ivory to be smuggled out of the country, alleges a new report from the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) The report, titled Vanishing Point, says that high ranking officials are involved in the illicit trade, which have […]
INTERPOL launches African environmental crime unit
White rhino in South Africa. Photo by Rhett A. Butler To help fight illegal poaching and trafficking, INTERPOL, the world’s largest international police organization, has launched an environmental crimes unit in Africa. In a statement released Tuesday, INTERPOL said the new team is based in Nairobi and will focus on wildlife crime, including the elephant […]
Elephants worth much, much more alive than dead, says new report
A living African elephant has 76 times the value of one poached for ivory, according to report Elephants are worth 76 times more when they’re alive than dead, according to a new analysis released this past weekend. The report follows on the heels of findings by WWF that the world has lost 50 percent of […]
WCS-led raids lead to six arrests near Mozambique’s largest reserve
WARNING: Graphic photos below. 35,000 elephants killed in Africa in 2012 for black market ivory trade A joint force of the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and government authorities are in the midst of carrying out a series of raids against poachers in Mozambique aimed at halting the illegal killing of elephants in Niassa National Reserve, […]
20 percent of Africa’s elephants killed in three years
Around 100,000 elephants were killed by poachers for their ivory on the African continent in just three years, according to a new paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Between 2010 and 2012 an average of 6.8 percent of the elephant population was killed annually, equaling just over 20 percent of the […]
Elephant poaching soars as Sumatran forests turn into plantations
Reported kills for 2014 in Riau Province reached 22 by June, surpassing 2013 numbers by 63 percent There has been a spike in elephant deaths in Sumatra this year, and conversion of rainforest to plantations is one of the main causes, according to the Indonesian Elephant Conservation Forum, or FKGI. The number of Sumatran elephants […]
Jane Goodall: how many elephants will be killed on World Elephant Day?
Elephants in Namibia. Photos by Rhett A. Butler. Marking World Elephant Day, a designation intended to raise awareness about the plight of elephants that are being widely poached for the ivory trade, primatologist Jane Goodall urged people to have greater compassion for Earth’s largest land animals. “I wake, on this World Elephant Day, thinking of […]
New Jersey bans elephant ivory trade
Elephant in Namibia. Photo by Rhett A. Butler. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has signed into law a ban on elephant ivory sales, reports NorthJersey.com. The measure, passed earlier by the New Jersey State Senate and Assembly, establishes fines for first-time offenders caught buying or selling ivory products. Repeat offenders face stiffer fines. “These stricter […]
Poachers target elephants, tigers in Sumatran park
Decomposing carcass of an adult orangutan in the forest of Southwest Aceh. Photos by Leuser Conservation Forum. The Leuser Ecosystem in Aceh, Indonesia is gaining the attention of international animal traffickers, according to the Leuser Conservation Forum (FKL). From the beginning of 2013, FKL patrols have dismantled 282 makeshift traps targeting high value threatened species, […]
Billy Joel welcomes New York Senate’s approval of ivory ban
Elephants in Namibia. Photos by Rhett Butler Musician Billy Joel has weighed in on the ivory bill making its way through the New York State legislature. On Thursday, the legendary hitmaker voiced support for the bill, which would bar the purchase and sale of most elephant ivory in the state. “I wholeheartedly support the ivory […]
Too tempting, too easy: poachers kill Kenya’s biggest elephant
Report estimates more than 20,000 elephants poached in Africa in 2013 In the first week of June, a huge elephant carcass was found in a swamp in Tsavo East National Park. Its face was mutilated and its tusks were gone, but many who worked in the park thought they knew exactly which elephant it was. […]
Grenades, helicopters, and scooping out brains: poachers decimate elephant population in park
WARNING: GRAPHIC IMAGES BELOW. Poached elephant skull shows bullet hole from above, likely from a helicopter. The elephant’s face was cut off by a chainsaw to remove the tusks. In addition, its brain was taken. Photo by: African Parks. Over the last two months, poachers have killed 68 African elephants in Garamba National Park representing […]
Chelsea, Hillary Clinton urge action to save elephants
Hillary and Chelsea Clinton on stage at the WCS event at the Central Park Zoo June 12, 2014. Photo © Julie Larsen Maher / WCS. Former secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton and her daughter Chelsea are urging for further action to protect elephants from the devastating ivory trade. Speaking last night at a fundraiser […]
New York State Assembly approves bill banning ivory trade
Baby elephant in South Africa. The New York State Assembly has passed a bill that would ban the purchase and sale of elephant ivory and rhino horn, reports the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), which played a key role in pushing the legislation. The bill, which passed nearly unanimously, would bar nearly all ivory sales. For […]
Hong Kong begins destroying 131,000 pounds of elephant ivory
Elephant in South Africa. Hong Kong has begun destroying its 29.6-metric-ton stockpile of confiscated ivory. On Thursday authorities in the semi-autonomous Chinese city crushed and incinerated a ton of seized ivory in an action they hope will send a message to poachers and traffickers. “Today is not a celebration, but a solemn reminder of the […]
Leonardo DiCaprio donates $1M toward ending elephant poaching crisis
Desert elephants in Namibia. Photos by Rhett Butler. Actor Leonardo DiCaprio has stepped up with a $1 million donation to the Elephant Crisis Fund, an initiative that aims to stop the ivory poaching crisis. At a benefit held over the weekend in Malibu, the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation awarded $1 million to the fund, which is […]
Ivory trade’s shocking toll: 65% of world’s forest elephants killed in 12 years (warning: graphic image)
Forest elephants have suffered unprecedented butchery for their ivory tusks over the past decade, according to new numbers released by conservationists today in London. Sixty-five percent of the world’s forest elephants have been slaughtered by poachers over the last dozen years, with poachers killing an astounding nine percent of the population annually. Lesser-known than their […]
Obama announces new strategy to tackle wildlife trafficking, including toughening ivory ban
Yesterday, the Obama administration announced an ambitious new strategy to help tackle the global illegal wildlife trade, including a near-complete ban on commercial ivory. The new strategy will not only push over a dozen federal agencies to make fighting wildlife trafficking a new priority, but will also focus on reducing demand for wildlife parts and […]
Hong Kong to destroy 4,000 dead elephants’ worth of ivory
Elephants in Namibia. Photo by Rhett A. Butler The government of Hong Kong will destroy 28 tons of ivory confiscated from traffickers, reports CNN. The announcement, which comes just weeks after China destroyed six tons of seized ivory, suggests that the leaders of the world’s largest market for ivory may be getting more serious about […]
China destroys 6 tons of elephant ivory
Elephant in South Africa. China authorities destroyed 6.1 tons of illegal ivory during a public event held in Guangzhou on Monday. The ivory was part of a stockpile of product that had been seized during raids and customs confiscations. While the crush represents only a fraction of China’s ivory, the action was immediately welcomed by […]
China to destroy ivory stockpile
Elephant in Namibia. The Chinese government plans to destroy a stockpile of contraband elephant ivory and other seized wildlife products next week during a public ceremony in Guangzhou, reports the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). The volume of ivory to be destroyed wasn’t immediately clear. The ivory destruction will take place January 6, less than two […]
Rainforest news review for 2013
- 2013 was full of major developments in efforts to understand and protect the world’s tropical rainforests.
- The following is a review of some of the major tropical forest-related news stories for the year.
- As a review, this post will not cover everything that transpired during 2013 in the world of tropical forests. Please feel free to highlight anything this post missed via the comments section at the bottom.
Anti-elephant poaching story goes viral in China
Elephant in South Africa. Photo by Rhett A. Butler. A newspaper story about the impact of the ivory trade has gone viral in China, raising awareness among millions of Chinese, reports the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). The story, published November 15 in Southern Weekly, has been shared widely across Chinese web sites and social media, […]
22,000 elephants slaughtered for their ivory in 2012
As the African Elephant Summit open in Botswana today, conservationists released a new estimate of the number of African elephants lost to the guns of poachers last year: 22,000. Some 15,000 elephants killed in 42 sites across 27 countries on the continent, according to newly released data from the CITES program, Monitoring the Illegal Killing […]
Illegal timber, rhino horn, elephant ivory seized in raids across Africa
Illegal elephant ivory. Courtesy of Interpol Raids in southern and eastern Africa yielded a stash of contraband linked to poaching and illegal logging, reports Interpol, which coordinated the operation. The month-long operation, which took place from late September to late October, was conducted under Interpol’s Project Wisdom and Project Leaf programs, which aim to combat […]
Remote sensor captures sound of ivory poacher shooting an elephant
A sensor used by researchers to capture low-frequency communication between elephants inadvertently recorded the audio of an elephant being gunned down by a poacher in Gabon, reports the Wildlife Conservation Society, which used the sound byte in a video highlighting the carnage of the ivory trade. The video was released today as part of WCS’s […]
The mystery of the disappearing elephant tusk
Give it a few thousand years, and tusks could completely disappear from the Asian elephant (Elephas maximus). The beautifully smooth, elongated ivory incisors neatly bordering a long trunk are iconic in the public mind. The reigning hypothesis is that tusks evolved to help male elephants fight one another, as demonstrated when males compete over females […]
New campaign: hey China, stop killing the ‘pandas of Africa’
A new public-service campaign in China will ask potential ivory and rhino horn buyers to see the victims of these illicit trades in a new light: as the “pandas of Africa.” The posters are a part of WildAid’s “Say No to Ivory and Rhino Horn” campaign, which was launched earlier in the year. “These new […]
Advertising campaign changing minds in China on ivory trade
70 percent of Chinese did not know that ivory came from dead elephants. For three years, the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) has been running advertizing campaigns in Chinese cities to raise awareness on the true source of ivory: slaughtered elephants. A recent evaluation of the campaign by Rapid Asia found that 66 percent […]
Tanzania should implement shoot-to-kill policy for poachers, says government minister
A government minister in Tanzania has called for a “shoot-to-kill” policy against poachers in a radical measure to curb the mass slaughter of elephants. Khamis Kagasheki’s proposal for perpetrators of the illicit ivory trade to be executed “on the spot” divided opinion, with some conservationists backing it as a necessary deterrent but others warning that […]
Clinton Global Initiative pledges $80 million to combat elephant poaching
Hillary and Chelsea Clinton on Thursday deployed their mother-daughter star power to help the effort to save African elephants, brokering an $80m effort to stop the ivory poaching which threatens the animals with extinction. The crackdown on 50 poaching hot spots in Africa involves several conservation groups and African governments. But conservation leaders, unveiling the […]
Butchering nature’s titans: without the elephant ‘we lose an essential pillar in the ability to wonder’
The world’s largest land animal looms small in the distance. Photo by: Cyril Christo and Marie Wilkinson. Africa’s elephant poaching crisis doesn’t just threaten a species, but imperils one of humanity’s most important links to the natural world and even our collective sanity, according to acclaimed photographers and film-makers, Cyril Christo and Marie Wilkinson. Authors […]
600 vultures killed by elephant poachers in Namibia
As the illegal poaching of African elephants and rhinos reaches epidemic levels, other species are also suffering catastrophic losses as a direct result of poachers’ behavior. A recent incident in July, where a poisoned elephant carcass led to the death of 600 vultures near Namibia’s Bwabwata National Park, has highlighted how poachers’ use of poison […]
U.S. to crush its six ton ivory stockpile
On October 8th, the Obama administration will publicly destroy its ivory stockpile, totaling some six tons, according to a White House forum yesterday on the illegal wildlife trade. The destruction of the stockpile—via crushing—is meant to send a message that the U.S. is taking a tougher stand on illegal the wildlife trade, which is decimating […]
Elephant killer gets five years in prison in the Republic of Congo
The Congolese Supreme Court has ordered Ghislain Ngondjo (known as Pepito) to five years in prison for slaughtering dozens of elephants for their ivory tusks. The five year sentence is the maximum in the Republic of Congo for poaching. Ngondjo was considered the “kingpin” of an elephant poaching group; in addition to killing pachyderms, Ngondjo […]
Zoos call on governments to take urgent action against illegal wildlife trade (photos)
Warning: some photos may be disturbing or graphic. In a single night in March, a band of heavily-armed, horse-riding poachers slaughtered 89 elephants in southern Chad, thirty of which were pregnant females. The carnage was the worst poaching incident of the year, but even this slaughter paled in comparison to the 650 elephants killed in […]
Obama to take on elephant and rhino poaching in Africa
Barack Obama launched a new initiative against wildlife trafficking on Monday, using his executive authority to take action against an illegal trade that is fueling rebel wars and now threatens the survival of elephants and rhinoceroses. The initiative, announced as the president visited Tanzania on the final stop of his African tour, was the second […]
New forensic method tells the difference between poached and legal ivory
Forensic-dating could end a major loophole in the current global ban on ivory, according to a new paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). Scientists have developed a method to determine the age of ivory, allowing traders to tell the difference between ivory taken before the ban in 1989, which is […]
African militias trading elephant ivory for weapons
The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) is using lucrative elephant poaching for ivory to fund its activities, according to a report published on Tuesday. Eyewitness accounts from park rangers, Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) escapees and recent senior defectors report that the fugitive warlord Joseph Kony, who is wanted by the international criminal court for war crimes […]
Gabon steps in to help protect elephants from ivory poaching at Central African Republic site
Gabon has agreed to help battle poaching in protected areas in the Central African Republic following an elephant massacre at a renowned World Heritage site, reports the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). According to the conservation group, Michel Djotodia, acting president of the Central African Republic (CAR) transitional government, and Gabon President Ali Bongo Ondimba met […]
Elephants massacred for ivory in Central African Republic
As anticipated earlier in the week by conservationists, poachers enter Dzanga Bai and slaughter dozens elephants for ivory. Dozens of elephants have been slaughtered in the Dzanga Bai World Heritage Site in the Central African Republic just days after conservationists warned about an impending threat from the movement of 17 heavily armed poachers. The massacre […]
17 poachers allegedly enter elephant stronghold in Congo, conservationists fear massacre
WWF urges Central Africa Republic government to act. Local researchers and wildlife guards say 17 armed elephant poachers have gained access to Dzanga Bai, a famous large clearing and waterfole where up to 200 forest elephants visit daily in the Central African Republic (CAR)’s Dzanga-Ndoki National Park. WWF, which works in the region but has […]
A Tale of Two Elephants: celebrating the lives and mourning the deaths of Cirrocumulus and Ngampit
On March 21st, the organization Save the Elephants posted on their Facebook page that two African elephants had been poached inside a nearby reserve: “Sad news from the north of Kenya. Usually the national reserves are safe havens for elephants, and they know it. But in the last two weeks two of our study animals […]
Emergency: large number of elephants being poached in the Central African Republic (warning: graphic image)
WWF and the Wildlife Conversation Society (WCS) are issuing an immediate call for action as they report that poachers are killing sizable numbers of forest elephants near the Dzanga-Sangha protected areas in the Central African Republic (CAR). The two large conservation groups have evacuated their staff from the area after a government coup, but local […]
Infamous elephant poacher turns cannibal in the Congo
Early on a Sunday morning last summer, the villagers of Epulu awoke to the sounds of shots and screaming. In the eastern reaches of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, that can often mean another round of violence and ethnic murder is under way. In this case, however, something even more horrific was afoot. The […]
Poachers enlisting impoverished wildlife rangers as accomplices in elephant, rhino killing
Defensive elephants in Tanzania, where experts say corrupt wildlife rangers have helped poachers decimate the nation’s elephants for the black market ivory trade. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Corruption among wildlife rangers is becoming a serious impediment in the fight against poaching, fuelled by soaring levels of cash offered by criminal poacher syndicates, senior conservation […]
A thousand soldiers sent after marauding elephant poachers [warning: graphic photos]
A scene of terror: the bodies of 89 elephants were found in Chad earlier in the month following a massacre by poachers. Photo courtesy of SOS Elephants in Chad. Eight Central African nations have announced they will send a thousand soldiers after poachers responsible for slaughtering 89 elephants, including over 30 pregnant mothers, in Chad […]
Poachers slaughter 89 elephants in Chad, including over 30 pregnant mothers [warning: graphic photos]
A scene of terror: the bodies of 89 elephants were found in Chad following a massacre by poachers. Photo courtesy of SOS Elephants in Chad. In what is being called the worst elephant massacre in Africa this year, poachers have recently killed as many as 89 elephants in Chad. Stephanie Vergniault, the Chairman of SOS […]
Elephant woes: conservationists mixed on elephant actions at CITES
Eleventh century horn made of ivory in Louvre. Today ivory is often used to make religious items for Catholics and Buddhists, among other decorative luxury-goods. To get ivory, poachers shoot elephants and then cut off their tusks, sometimes with chainsaws and sometimes while still alive. Conservationists couldn’t agree if the glass was half-full or half-empty […]
Prayers for dying elephants: Buddhists hold prayer ceremony for elephants decimated by poachers
A monk at Wat That Thong temple in Bangkok During a Buddhist merit-making ceremony to pray for the tens of thousands of elephants poached annually. Photo by: © WWF Thailand. Buddhist leaders prayed for slaughtered African elephants in Bangkok, Thailand last week, reports WWF. During a special merit-making ceremony, often reserved for the recently deceased, […]
Seeing the forest through the elephants: slaughtered elephants taking rainforest trees with them
Forest elephants in the Mbeli River, Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park, Congo. Photo by: Thomas Breuer. Elephants are vanishing. The booming illegal ivory trade is decimating the world’s largest land animal, but no place has been harder hit than the Congo basin and its forest elephants (Loxodonta cyclotis). The numbers are staggering: a single park in Gabon, […]
What happened to the elephants of Bouba Ndjida? [warning: graphic photos]
‘And also, they were alive when the poachers started to cut off their faces’—Celine Sissler-Bienvenu. Poached elephant on its knees with another lying dead behind it. Last year poachers killed an estimated 650 elephants in Cameroon’s Bouba Ndjida National Park. Photo courtesy of IFAW. A new report released by the Wildlife Conservation Society says that […]
62% of all Africa’s forest elephants killed in 10 years (warning: graphic images)
Forest elephant in Gabon More than 60 percent of Africa’s forest elephants have been killed in the past decade due to the ivory trade, reports a new study published in the online journal PLOS ONE. The study warns that the diminutive elephant species — genetically distinct from the better-known savanna elephant — is rapidly heading […]
CITES 40th Anniversary: Reflections of CITES Secretary-General John Scanlon
Part 3 of 3PART 1: Overview of the CITES 16th Conference of Parties in Bangkok | PART 2: Elephant and Rhino issues to be debated This interview is an excerpt from The WildLife with Laurel Neme, a program that explores the mysteries of the animal world through interviews with scientists and other wildlife investigators. “The […]
Thailand’s Prime Minister commits to ending ivory trade
Forest elephants in the Mbeli River, Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park, Congo. Photo by: Thomas Breuer. Yesterday, Thailand’s Prime Minister, Yingluck Shinawatra, committed to ending the ivory trade in her country. Her announcement came during the opening of the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species of Fauna and Flora (CITES) in Bangkok, which seeks to […]
Elephant and Rhino issues to be debated at CITES 16th Conference of Parties
Part 2 of 3PART 1: Overview | PART 2: Reflections of CITES Secretary-General John Scanlon This interview is an excerpt from The WildLife with Laurel Neme, a program that explores the mysteries of the animal world through interviews with scientists and other wildlife investigators. “The WildLife” airs every Monday from 1-2 pm EST on WOMM-LP, […]
A lifetime with elephants: an interview with Iain Douglas-Hamilton
This interview is an excerpt from The WildLife with Laurel Neme, a program that explores the mysteries of the animal world through interviews with scientists and other wildlife investigators. “The WildLife” airs every Monday from 1-2 pm EST on WOMM-LP, 105.9 FM in Burlington, Vermont. You can livestream it at theradiator.org or download the podcast […]
Over 11,000 elephants killed by poachers in a single park [warning: graphic photo]
A butchered forest elephant head in Minkebe National Park. Photo by: Mike Fay. Surveys in Gabon’s Minkebe National Park have revealed rare and hard data on the scale of the illegal ivory trade over the last eight years: 11,100 forest elephants have been slaughtered for their tusks in this remote protected area since 2004. In […]
Sri Lanka to give poached ivory to Buddhist temple, flouting international agreements
The Sri Dalada Maligawa Buddhist Temple, which may soon receive 359 elephant tusks. The Sri Lankan government is planning to give 359 elephant tusks to a Buddhist temple, a move that critics say is flouting the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). The illegal tusks were seized in Sri Lanka last May en […]
Vatican condemns elephant poaching, pledges steps
Elephant herd in Kenya. It’s estimated that around 25,000 elephants were killed by poachers in 2011, though the number could be even higher. Photo by: Rob Roy. Responding to an investigative report by National Geographic, the Vatican has condemned elephant poaching for ivory and pledged three steps to help in the battle to save the […]
Religion, Chinese government drive global elephant slaughter
The 3rd Annual New York Wildlife Conservation Film Festival (WFCC.org) runs from January 30 – February 2, 2013. Ahead of the event, Mongabay.com is running a series of Q&As with filmmakers and presenters. For more interviews, please see our WCFF feed. Elephant in Kenya. Photo by Rhett A. Butler. By some estimates, more than 30,000 […]
How a text message could save an elephant or a rhino from a poacher
Soon a text message may save an elephant’s or rhino’s life. The Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) is implementing a new alarm system in some protected areas that will alert rangers of intruders via a text message, reports the Guardian. Elephants and rhinos have been killed in record numbers across Africa as demand for illegal rhino […]
Kenya suffers it worst elephant poaching incident yet
Infant elephants at the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust in Kenya. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Over the weekend Kenya suffered its single worst elephant poaching incident when poachers killed an entire family of elephants. In all, eleven elephants were gunned down and had their tusks removed. Among the dead was a two-month-old calf. The elephants […]
‘The ivory trade is like drug trafficking’ (warning graphic images)
Confiscated elephant parts from poachers. Photo by: Nuria Ortega. For the past five years, Spanish biologist Luis Arranz has been the director of Garamba National Park, in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Arranz and a team of nearly 240 people, 140 guards among them, work to protect a vast area of about 5,000 square […]
Authorities confiscate 600 dead elephants’ worth of ivory in Hong Kong
Hong Kong and Guangdong Customs confiscate two shipments of illegal elephant tusks, weighing around 3,813 kilogrammes (8,388 pounds). Photo courtesy of Hong Kong and Guangdong Customs. Hong Kong authorities have confiscated two massive shipments of elephant tusks, totaling 1,209 tusks, stemming from Kenya and Tanzania. Representing over 600 poached elephants, the shipments are estimated to […]
Picture of the day: Yao Ming with baby elephant orphaned by ivory trade
Yao Ming walks with Kinango, an infant elephant whose mother was killed by poachers at the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust in Kenya. Photo by: Kristian Schmidt/WildAid. Former NBA Basketball player and Olympian, Yao Ming is taking his first trip through Africa in order to see the on-the-ground impacts of the black-market ivory and rhino trades […]
A new tool for taking on elephant poaching: DNA forensics
Forest elephant in Gabon. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. One of the difficulties plaguing law enforcement and authorities when it comes to tackling elephant poaching is determining where the ivory originates. Now, research published in the journal Evolutionary Applications, has found a new way of tracking ivory back to wild elephants populations: forensic genetic studies. […]
Elephant slaughter continues in Chad, another baby rescued
‘Toto’, a 3-week-old male elephant rescued by SOS Elephants. Photo courtesy of SOS Elephants Elephant poaching persists in southwestern Chad as poachers slaughtered more elephants on August 3, the second time in less than two weeks. In the first attack, the week of July 23, poachers killed 34 elephants, including 29 in Chari Baguirmi near […]
President of Chad sends troops after elephant poachers
Dr. Laurel A. Neme is the author of ANIMAL INVESTIGATORS: How the World’s First Wildlife Forensics Lab is Solving Crimes and Saving Endangered Species. Neme also hosts The WildLife with Laurel Neme, a program that explores the mysteries of the animal world through interviews with scientists and other wildlife investigators. Photo by Rhett A. Butler […]
Gabon torches their ivory stock as poachers attack okapi reserve
Last week, the west African nation of Gabon committed over 1,200 ivory tusks and carvings to the fire. The act, which was meant to send a strong signal to illegal wildlife poachers across Africa, came only a few days after militia poachers stormed the Okapi Wildlife Reserve in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). […]
Gabon to burn ivory stockpiles
Forest elephant (Loxodonta cyclotis) in Gabon. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. The government of Gabon has announced it will burn its stockpiles of ivory later this year in a bid to undercut illegal elephant poaching, which is decimating populations in central Africa. “The burning of a country’s entire ivory stockpile will be an historic conservation […]
Banning ivory sales to China could save elephants
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Ivory stored in Malawi. Photo by: EIA. Although the international ivory trade has been banned since 1989, last year was the worst ever for elephant poaching, and this year has begun little better as reports come out of Cameroon of hundreds of elephants slaughtered in a single park. What went wrong? According to a new […]
New reports from inside Cameroon confirm grisly mass killing of elephants (warning: graphic photos)
The International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) has recently returned from Bouba Ndjida National Park in northern Cameroon, where at least 400 elephants have been slaughtered since mid-January. IFAW is the only international organization that has assessed the situation within the park. According to the organization, the violence against the elephants was extreme. It appeared […]
Military called in to stop Cameroon elephant slaughter – but may be too late
Cameroon’s military has been called in to Bouba Ndjida National Park to take on foreign poachers that have slaughtered hundreds of elephants for their ivory, according to the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). Reports vary, but between 200-480 elephants have been killed in recent weeks in the park by what is widely assumed to […]
Elephant death-toll rises to almost 500 in one park in Cameroon (warning: graphic photo)
Wildlife officials have found 458 dead elephants in Cameroon’s embattled Bouba Ndjida National Park, reports the AFP. However officials fear the actual number is even higher around 480. Over the last six weeks a well-organized group of poachers has run free in the park, slaughtering elephants for their ivory tusks which will make their way […]
Busted: 1,835 elephant tusks confiscated in two seizures connected by Malaysia
Two massive seizures in the last week—one in Zanzibar and the other in Hong Kong—have confiscated nearly two thousand ivory tusks as elephant poaching continues to rise. Both seizures have connections to Malaysia, highlighting the growing role of a new intermediate player in the illegal ivory trade. One thousand forty-one tusks were seized in Zanzibar, […]
Tough sentence for ivory smuggler may spell way forward in elephant poaching crisis
Forest elephant in Gabon. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. The Republic of the Congo sentenced an ivory smuggler to an unprecedented four years in prison, proving the government’s rising willingness to crack down on poachers. The wildlife trade has been decimating elephant populations in the Congo, while a recent report from the Wildlife Conservation Society […]
Conservation groups kicked out of CITES debate on elephants
The Standing Committee of CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) tossed conservations NGOs out of the room during a debate on the rise in elephant poaching for illegal ivory. A vote of seven to six sent conservation groups making up the Species Survival Network (SSN) packing, however the […]
CEO sentenced for smuggling elephant ivory into US
A judge sentenced Pascal Vieillard, CEO of A-440 Pianos Inc., to 3 years probation for illegally smuggling elephant ivory into the US, while the Georgia-based company has been fined $17,500. Vieillard had earlier pleaded guilty to importing pianos with ivory parts. “A-440 Pianos and its CEO deliberately violated laws that govern the importation of elephant […]
Rebuttal: Slaughtering farmed-raised tigers won’t save tigers
An interview with Alasdair Cameron of the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA). A recent interview with Kirsten Conrad on how legalizing the tiger trade could possibly save wild tigers sparked off some heated reactions, ranging from well-thought out to deeply emotional. While, we at mongabay.com were not at all surprised by this, we felt it was […]
A nation of tragedies: the unseen elephant wars of Chad
Chad’s few remaining elephants are “survivors of a ‘holocaust'”. [warning: graphic images of killed elephants] Stephanie Vergniault, head of SOS Elephants in Chad, says she has seen more beheaded corpses of elephants in her life than living animals. In the central African nation, against the backdrop of a vast human tragedy—poverty, hunger, violence, and hundreds […]
Rise in poaching pushes CITES to vote ‘no’ to ivory sales
The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) has pleased conservationists with its decision to not allow the one-off sales of ivory from government stockpiles in Tanzania and Zambia given the recent rise in elephants poaching in Africa. “It’s victory for conservationists world wide as CITES today voted no the proposal presented by Tanzania […]
UN official: Zimbabwe security forces poached 200 rhinos
Last week the secretary of the UN Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), Willem Wijnstekers, announced that security forces in Zimbabwe had poached approximately 200 rhinos in a two year period. He did say how many elephants were poached by security forces. The revelation means that Zimbabwe will have to explain the poaching […]
Huge cache of smuggled ivory represents up to 40 elephants
On April 25th two men were pursued by wildlife rangers from the Amboseli-Tsavo Game Scouts Association in Tanzania. The men escaped across the border to southern Kenya where they were caught by police, who had been tipped off by the wildlife scouts. The two men’s SUV contained 1,550 lbs (703 kilograms) of elephant tusks, representing […]
High ivory prices in Vietnam drive killing of elephants in Laos, Cambodia
Chad’s elephant population falls by two-thirds in two years
Chad’s elephant population falls by two-thirds in two years Chad’s elephant population falls by two-thirds in two years mongabay.com December 11, 2008
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