The Last Animals is a story about an extraordinary group of people who go to all lengths to save the planet’s last animals. The documentary follows the conservationists, scientists and activists battling poachers and criminal networks to protect elephants and rhinos. From Africa’s front lines to behind the scenes of Asian markets to the United States, the film takes an intense look at the global response to this slaughter and the desperate measures to genetically rescue the Northern White rhinos who are on the edge of extinction.
Chair
Humphrey Hawksley is a best selling author and leading correspondent for the BBC and has reported on key conflicts and crises around the world for more than thirty years. His work includes award-winning investigations into animal abuse in China and films on human rights violations against children in international supply chains. His investigations into the global chocolate industry and brick-making in India led to the setting up of international campaigns calling for action. His latest thriller is Man on Ice set on the US-Russian border and his next non-fiction Asian Waters, The Struggle Over the South China Sea and the Strategy of Chinese Expansion will be published in June.
Speakers
Kate Brooks began working as a photographer in Russia at the age of 20 while documenting daily life in the years just after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Following September 11th, Brooks moved to Pakistan to photograph the impact of foreign policy in the region and daily life in Afgahaistan. In 2003, she covered the American invasion of Iraq and the beginning of the insurgency for TIME. For more than a decade she proceeded to work across the greater Middle East, photographing the unfolding of history, the imapact of conflict on civilian populations, alongside every day moments in the lives of ordinary people. Kate then turned her eye to the man-made animal mass extinction in this latest project.
Mary Rice has been with EIA since 1996, joining as a volunteer before holding positions including Head of Communications & Projects, Head of Development and Head of Campaigns. She has been Executive Director since 2008 and is responsible for directing the long-term strategic management of EIA as well as working on specific projects and leading the Elephant Campaign.
Will Travers is CEO and President of the Born Free Foundation. The Born Free Foundation is an international conservation and animal rights organisation founded by Virginia McKenna and her husband Bill Travers along with their son Will Travers and four associates.
]]>In 2016, Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) embarked on a yearlong undercover investigation into the murky world of ivory trafficking in Mozambique in Africa. These investigations revealed a Chinese-led criminal syndicate which for over two decades has been trafficking ivory from Africa to Shuidong, their hometown in southern China. The traffickers claimed that up to 80 per cent of all African elephant tusks were destined for Shuidong town.
This panel discussion and Q&A will focus on the connections between corruption, criminality and the illegal ivory trade, the impacts of EIA’s investigations in China and Africa, and the responses so far from the Chinese government. Voices from the frontline will give a unique insight into how EIA uncovered this ivory trafficking syndicate and the risks this entailed.
You can read the report online here.
Chair
Dr Sam Geall
Dr Sam Geall is executive editor of chinadialogue.net and an associate fellow at Chatham House. His research focuses on low-carbon innovation, environmental governance, media and civil society in China. He edited China and the Environment: The Green Revolution (Zed Books, 2013). Sam’s writing has appeared in many leading publications, including BBC Chinese, the Guardian, Foreign Policy, Index on Censorship and Nikkei Asian Review. Sam was formerly departmental lecturer in Human Geography of China at the University of Oxford.
Speakers
Julian Newman
Julian joined EIA in July 1997 as an investigator after working as a journalist for six years. He has carried out field investigations into illegal logging in Indonesia, China, Malaysia, Vietnam and Laos, and wildlife crime investigations in Tanzania, Zambia, Singapore and China. He has also been involved in training local NGOs in Indonesia and Tanzania. Since 2008 he has been Campaigns Director.
Mary Rice
Mary has been with EIA since 1996, joining as a volunteer before holding positions including Head of Communications & Projects, Head of Development and Head of Campaigns. She has been Executive Director since 2008 and is responsible for directing the long-term strategic management of EIA as well as working on specific projects and leading the Elephant Campaign.
Deborah Davies
Deborah Davies is part of the award winning Al Jazeera Investigative Unit. Their 2016 film, The Poacher’s Pipeline, used undercover filming to infiltrate the illegal supply chain of rhino horn from South Africa to China. The film caused a massive political storm when one of the Chinese criminals showed photographs of “his good friend”, South Africa’s Minister of State Security, David Mahlobo. As an investigative reporter, Deborah has a long track record of breaking exclusives including the first ever film about Osama bin Laden, exposing Iraqi death squads and the 1997 film naming top level football coaches who had sexually abused young players, a story which exploded back into the headlines last year.
]]>On Wednesday 27 April 2016, in front of a packed audience of wildlife conservationists and advocates, the Frontline Club played host to an impassioned discussion on the dark links between organised crime, terrorist groups and illegal wildlife trafficking – the latest in a series of events in partnership with the Scientific Exploration Society (SES).
@SES_explore kicking off tonight's discussion #ExplorationAtTheFrontline @frontlineclub on Illegal Wildlife Trade! pic.twitter.com/qzNSqCO8Vo
— Peter Kohler (@PeterKohlerPK) April 26, 2016
Chaired by Andrew Mitchell, founder of the Global Canopy Program and chairman of the SES, the discussion sought to debate the causes and possible solutions to one of the greatest concerns of our time. Joined by an esteemed panel of explorers, scientists and experts, Mitchell began proceedings by opening the floor to the panel to share their experiences.
Dr Susan Canney, who has been involved in the WILD Foundation’s Mali Elephant Project since 2003, began by explaining the importance of attitudinal shifts among communities towards endangered species. Discussing one successful instance, she said: “The elders made a sanction which would be transmitted far and wide, including to the leaders of armed groups, that anybody who kills elephants is a thief – something very shameful to be labelled in those cultures.”
For three years this contained the poaching problem, with only about 20 elephants killed the intervening period. But then early last year, something suddenly changed. Dr Canney said: “People in the elephant range were being phoned up by trafficking networks. Somebody who was a very good shot began behaving very strangely… eventually we lost 63 elephants in just six months.”
While the introduction of the Malian army has stemmed the tide, Dr Canney conceded that it was impossible to know when there would be a resurgence in the criminal activities.
#China the villain behind wildlife trade? China doing enough?big antipoachin advertising @frontlineclub @SES_explore https://t.co/klKRKdHyBa
— Peter Kohler (@PeterKohlerPK) April 26, 2016
Richard Madden of The Daily Telegraph, who recently returned from two years spent living on safari reserves in countries across Africa, concurred with Dr Canney’s assessment. He said: “Wildlife has to have value for the people, and if they do not feel that they have a stake in all these extraordinary animals who are on the brink of being exterminated – if they feel that they’re worth more to them dead than alive – then we’re absolutely lost.”
Madden then went on to discuss the links between illegal trade and terrorist activities, suggesting that in Namibia, South Africa, Botswana and Kenya illegal trade is not funding terrorism. However, he said: “In central and western Africa it is a very different issue… it’s the unstable countries like Angola and Mozambique which are funding huge amounts of terrorist activities – and they are stockpiling and burying ivory.”
Ian Redmond, the renowned explorer and conservationist, went on to liken the demand from countries such as China to a vacuum sucking up ivory and horn throughout the whole continent. He said: “Only the animals that are protected, sometimes 24/7, can be held down. The rest are sucked up into the vacuum and they’re into the international trade for someone’s mantlepiece, or into somebody else’s medicine.”
“Only the animals that are protected, sometimes 24/7, can be held down”
Julian Newman, the campaigns director for London-based NGO Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), argued that the legislation needed to reduce these crimes already exists. He said: “Based on our recent work on trade in tiger bones, rhino horns and elephant ivory, what we’re talking about is serious transnational organised crime – these are criminals breaking the law.”
Highlighting that wildlife crime is now the fourth largest form of organised crime in the world, according to the UN, Newman urged: “The response that governments put in place is not appropriate to tackle organised crime. These groups span countries and continents, are very well organised and make lots of money – meaning they can bribe and corrupt.
“There’s too much focus on either the poaching or the market,” he continued. “Time is short. We have to look at these criminal syndicates who are making money, disrupt them in the middle and put them in jail. We have the tools to do that but we’re not using them against wildlife criminals. We have to look at anti-corruption, anti money-laundering laws and we have to get serious about this.”
In conclusion, Newman added: “This fight will not be won in the bush, it will be won in the court.”
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