Two tragic things happened in the last month, together they highlight the lack of courage global conservation organisations and academics have shown in both exposing, and trying to fix, the structural weaknesses of the system that regulates the global, industrial trade in over 40,000 endangered and exotic species. The first, in a submission document to CITES CoP20, the organisation’s leadership acknowledges, “The current mode of work is no longer viable”, continuing, “The time for action is now, to safeguard the Convention’s integrity and effectiveness”. The second is that well known global conservation organisations have lent their brands to help small, private sector entities step into the void created by decades of undermining the CITES regulator. Too [...]

Photo by Rafael Ishkhanyan on Unsplash The CITES, which came into force in July 1975, was born out of a set of assumptions and a geopolitical prospective that reflect the 1960s. As the world changed drastically from the late 1970s CITES didn’t, the articles of the convention have stayed the same. CITES has had only one strategic review in its 50-year history, back in 1994, which also didn’t result in any significant changes. This lack of evolution goes someway to explaining how ineffective the convention is today. Key to the staggering inertia is that the mindset of the academics, NGOs and IGOs, who could have lobbied the convention’s government signatories to evolve with a changing world, are also [...]

A key part of the marketing strategy of luxury apparel and accessories is that there is a “story behind” the item you buy, “it has a history”. Well, the story and history behind the luxury trade that uses endangered and exotic species as raw materials for bags, shoes, jackets, and accessories, is one of unchecked exploitation. This has only accelerated with the emergence of the superfake. Periodically, the scandal of superfakes hits the news. In 2023, a national fashion editor in Australia wrote, “The lump in my throat grew larger as I recalled my friend’s instructions. From the lift, count five shops to the left; if you hit the yum cha restaurant, you’ve gone too far. [...]

It seems like barely a day goes by without at least one article, somewhere in the world, highlighting the problems associated with the exotic pet trade (EPT). Live animals seized at airports, population decline of species popular in the trade, social media’s role, the torture of animals for followers, the staggering mortality rates in and trauma in the supply chains. This is a scandal on a global scale and a scandal that currently shows no signs of being stopped. Why? Because, as with all other forms of overextraction of wild species for profit, key suspects are taken out of the frame. Too few inroads have been made, and will be made, in dealing with the lack [...]

Over the years there have been examples of social behaviour change campaigns (SBCC) that have changed consumer purchasing decisions quickly. The most broadly recognisable are the anti-smoking campaigns. These graphic campaigns were mostly run on health anxiety, once the link between smoking and cancer had been firmly established both scientifically and in the public’s mind. From a wildlife conservation perspective, maybe the best known SBCC is the 1980s Lynx (now Respect for Animals) ‘Dumb Animal’ billboard and cinema advertising campaign, reducing consumer demand for fur. These campaigns also used graphic images, but they were based on status anxiety, not health anxiety. Key to their effectiveness is that they focus on the actual user of the product, the ‘rich [...]

The world has seen an exponential increase in the amount of data generated each day. This has happened because big data has the power to provide a competitive advantage in the globalised and hyper-competitive world of business. But this is only half the story. While big data is big business, and often called the new oil, some systems are left to languish in a pre-digital world, opaque to effective monitoring. Whilst the regulation of most industries has been undermined in the last four decades, one is a standout, namely the extraction of wild species for trade. This is maybe best illustrated with the example of Europe. Europe is the biggest profiteer from the trade in wild species. A [...]

In 2017, I wrote an article, Want To Know Why Conservation is Failing? Read On. In the article I quoted Vikram Mansharamani, a lecturer who teaches “students to use multiple perspectives in making tough decisions”. Mansharamani uses the analogy, if we think in terms of a forest, organisations around the world have come to value expertise and, in so doing, have created a collection of individuals studying bark. There are many who have deeply studied its nooks, grooves, colouration, and texture. Few have developed the understanding that the bark is merely the outermost layer of a tree. Fewer still understand the tree is embedded in a forest. This analogy regularly springs to mind as I read policy recommendation [...]

In 1871, Ferdinand V. Hayden published the Hayden Geological Survey of the region that would become Yellowstone National Park. He warned that if the park wasn’t created, there were those who would come and "make merchandise of [its] beautiful specimens", continuing, "the vandals who are now waiting to enter into this wonder-land, will in a single season despoil, beyond recovery, these remarkable curiosities”. While Yellowstone National Park was indeed created in 1872, other regions of the USA and the world weren’t so lucky. The 15th edition of WWF's Living Planet Report confirms a catastrophic 73% decline in the global average size of monitored wildlife populations over just 50 years (1970-2020); Latin America and the Caribbean, have recorded a [...]

In an excellent article by Amy Westervelt for Drilled media, about New York Climate Week, Amy calls out the pattern of what can now be expected at the merry-go-round of events on the climate crisis, “the focus on positivity to the exclusion of anything else felt completely surreal and, if I'm being honest, a little scary....seeing so many climate leaders demand positivity, and only positivity, was more than a little unnerving”. Ken Pucker, in a LinkedIn post, said of NY Climate Week, “Voluntary sustainability target setting leads to a bevy of self-congratulatory trivial achievements”, continuing, “As long as system structure, rules and incentives remain broken Climate Week will remain aspirational and inadequate”. Be it climate change or biodiversity [...]

Having followed the rhino horn trade debate since 2012 and been actively involved in demand reduction campaigns between 2013 and 2019, I have been struggling about how to recognise World Rhino Day 2024, or even if indeed I would. While Nature Needs More hasn’t completely shelved the idea of doing more rhino horn demand reduction adverts in the future, we would only re-launch the campaign if the push to legalise the international trade in horn is once and for all taken off the table. To do anything else would be futile, like Sisyphus for eternity rolling an immense boulder up a hill for it to roll back down every time it neared the top. Hence this is likely [...]