With a high level Heads of State meeting in Nanyuki, The Giants Club Summit, followed by the largest ever public burning of stockpiled ivory, presided over by Kenya’s president Uhuru Kenyatta, the wires were buzzing with speculation and discussion as to what these events might mean for the future of Africa’s elephants
Our global map of elephant ivory seizures and thefts of ivory from stockpiles has travelled far and wide. We focused on large ivory consignments because the operations behind these bear all the hallmarks of serious organised crime
China’s experimental trade in the skins of captive-bred tigers has done nothing to relieve pressure on wild tigers – quite the opposite, it has perpetuated the desirability of tiger products and kept the poachers in business acquiring cheaper parts and derivatives from the wild
The map is intended as a regularly updated resource for use by anybody working in pangolin conservation as well as for general interest and is based on a subset of poaching and seizure incidents from 2000-15, derived from publicly available records, from primarily English and Chinese language sources
For the past three years or so, a handful of scientific entrepreneurs have increasingly championed a possible solution to the current appalling levels of rhino poaching. Specifically, several companies have been advocating the use of biotechnology to artificially create rhino horn and then ‘flood’ the market with it
EIA campaigners participated in an important meeting of the Standing Committee of the UN Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) in Geneva and addressed a range of issues involving wildlife and timber trade