I have been in Jakarta this week, on invitation from the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), to speak at the Forests Indonesia Conference it was hosting; not usually something to write home about, but something happened during the day that was quite extraordinary
People sometimes ask me how I can do my job. Actually, I don’t know how the folk at STE do theirs. EIA’s work is in many ways a one removed from the grim reality of poaching because we are focusing on the trade; so it’s rare for us to be present at the immediate aftermath of a poaching incident.
Iceland has dodged the bullet of US trade sanctions over its belligerent hunting of endangered fin whales. However it’s not unreasonable to expect diplomatic attention will be focused on its whaling activities in the coming months. Iceland is the only country to actually expand commercial whaling in recent years
The Nat Geo Wild film about our investigation into the trade in Icelandic fin whale in Japan aired in the US on Tuesday. The investigations we did in Iceland and Japan now feel like a distant memory; so much has happened since, although I believe as these things go the film was actually put together in record time
Iceland is the only country to actually expand commercial whaling in recent years, killing 273 endangered fin whales in 2009-10. More than 1,200 tonnes of fin whale meat and blubber, worth an estimated $17 million, has been shipped to Japan since 2008. Several thousand tonnes remain in Iceland, awaiting shipment
Our Lead Campaigner, Debbie Banks, reports on the recent CITES meeting where civil society was voted out of the room in a ploy for China and others to discuss our ivory investigation findings. China's lack of enforcement is alarming and we will continue to challenge it on its CITES commitments to tigers and elephants.