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 [...]

In 2019, the IPBES confirmed that under the present socio-economic model one million species are threatened with extinction in the near future. Overexploitation for trade is one of the two key drivers of the current extinction crisis. As yet there is no evidence that the dual desires, to ‘supply for profit’ and ‘consume for status’, can be curbed. Groundhog Day on just one iconic species, elephants, shows how stuck human mindsets are. One of the most contentious wildlife trades, debated over many decades, is trophy hunting. Earlier this year Botswana’s President Masisi was interviewed over his comment to send 20,000 elephants to Germany. The reason for the ‘offer/threat’ was that Germany’s environment ministry raised the possibility of stricter [...]

There is a difference between climate scientists and conservation scientists. The vast majority of actively publishing climate scientists – 97% – agree that humans are causing global warming and climate change. Even for those among us who, after decades, challenge the 97% claim, and undertake their own ‘fact check’, they found the consensus is “shared by 90%–100% of publishing climate scientists” in one survey, while another found it to be 84%. So, let’s say the ‘overwhelming majority’ of climate scientist agree that humans are causing global warming and climate change and as such they challenge the fossil fuel industry. The biodiversity equivalent to ‘climate scientists and the fossil fuel industry’ is ‘conservation scientists and the industrial extraction of [...]

In a book published recently, Future of Denial, the author Tad DeLay explores the question, “Why do we continue to squander the short time we have left to deal with climate change?” DeLay isn’t the first to lay bare that “capitalism is an ecocidal engine constantly regenerating climate change denial”. Interviewed by The Guardian, he says, “You can’t admit, as a capitalist subject, that there’s little you as an individual can do, and neither can you imagine the end of capitalism”. If you can’t imagine the end of capitalism the options are either deny reality or accept it but deny personal moral culpability – namely reject the science or commit to pseudo-solutions, gimmicks and greenwashing. Supporting pseudo/phantom solutions [...]

Anyone reading about Australia’s bungled Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act) reform will no doubt have seen the well-worn phrase ‘once in a generation’. The EPBC Act is stated to be Australia’s central piece of national environmental law, covering the Commonwealth’s role in environmental protection matters of national significance. After a scathing statutory review of the EPBC Act’s effectiveness, undertaken in 2019/20, Australia supposedly has a ‘once in a generation’ opportunity to ensure the country’s environment laws are working and this ‘once in a generation’ reform can’t be rushed. This ‘once in a generation’ statement is music to the ears of the stakeholders who want to maintain the status quo. They can lobby hard to [...]

This week saw Nancy González, a Colombian designer whose customers are the likes of Victoria Beckham and whose products have been featured in The Devil Wears Prada, receive an 18-month prison sentence in the USA for smuggling.  The maximum sentence available for González for illegally importing designer handbags made from caiman and python skin was 25 years. The indictment charged Gonzalez, her company Gzuniga Ltd and two employees with one count of conspiracy and two counts of illegally importing reptile skin handbags between February 2016 to April 2019. Gzuniga was ordered to forfeit all handbags and other previously seized product and banned for three years from any activities involving commercial trade in wildlife. The indictment detailed that the [...]

For World Wildlife Day, 2024, CITES hosted an event with the theme, “Connecting People and Planet: Exploring Digital Innovation in Wildlife Conservation". The event profiled some of the latest applications of digital technologies in wildlife conservation and ecosystems mapping and monitoring. Just over an hour into the event, Ivonne Higuero, CITES Secretary-General, introduced the ASYCUDA eCITES system, saying, “In our next segment we are going to look into the future. I would like to introduce you to yet another one of CITES digital efforts. The electronic CITES permitting system or eCITES. Something close to my heart. When I started working with CITES some six years ago, I thought we need to move into the future, and [...]

In 2019, I attended CITES CoP18 in Geneva, two weeks of watching how decisions are made about which endangered and exotic species can be legally traded. During the mid-conference break, my colleagues and I took the 4-hour drive to Milan, to take a look at what was on sale in one of the top fashion destinations in the world. After seafood, fashion and furniture are the are the two biggest users of wild species. The first thing we noted from Milan’s luxury retail sector was how difficult it was to pass a store that didn’t contain fur, exotic leathers or feathers. Posing as a customer who wanted to take something ‘special’ back to Australia from her Italian holiday [...]