The true global scale of wildlife and forest crime doesn’t become apparent until you look at all these environmental abuses as a single whole. Wildlife and forest crime is a serious, transnational crime, alongside human trafficking, money laundering, arms trade and drug dealing. It’s worth at least US$17 billion a year
At EIA, we love to interact with future environmental champions as well as today’s environmental leaders. That’s why it’s always a great pleasure to host the students of Michigan State University’s course on Environmental Science, Policy and Criminology
The spectacle of magnificent, endangered creatures such as tigers, elephants and rhinos reduced to broken, bleeding carcasses, plundered for illegal trades in home decór, trinkets and fake ‘traditional’ medicines, can be all but impossible to view without provoking distress and fury in equal measure
As the gun slammed down on the table and I heard the chilling words “I can shoot you now and I may go to prison but I will still be alive, but you, you will be dead” I realised we were in serious trouble
Rhino populations are being hammered by poachers, pushing the species ever-closer to extinction to satisfy demand for rhino horn in Vietnam and elsewhere – yet despite 668 rhinos being slaughtered by poachers across South Africa in 2012, there are indications it is contemplating pushing for a legal trade in rhino horn
If 2012 has shown anything, it’s that we’re still small and that our concise reports anchored in hard documentary evidence – often obtained undercover in potentially dangerous circumstances – continue to give us the clout to punch well above our weight