While much of 2019 has been dedicated to the research and works on the need for CITES modernisation project, with just 2 days to go before heading to CITES CoP18, I would like to update our supporters on another Nature Needs More project, Extinction: The Vulgarity of Desire. In an October 2018 blog, I introduced an event Rhinoceros: Luxury’s Fragile Frontier, a collaboration of academics, conservationists, artists and business, organised and curated by Dr Catherine Kovesi of the University of Melbourne, to present a symposium and exhibition highlighting the need to tackle the destructive pseudo-luxury market.This unrestrained luxury consumption is not only impacting the worlds endangered species but also its unique history, as a growing consumer class desire [...]

In April 2019, tragically a fire broke out gutting the magnificent Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. As people locally and internationally watched in sadness at this grand old lady's demise, within hours and days of the event pledges to support the rebuilt were flooding in.  Just three of the world’s largest luxury conglomerates – Kering, LVMH and L’Oréal – pledged a combined €500 million to the rebuilding of the cathedral. Whilst in no way criticising the pledge to support Notre Dame, Nature Needs More has to ask, if these three luxury conglomerates alone can pledge a combined €500 million in a matter of days, why haven’t they pledged the €27.5 million (US$30million) to roll out [...]

In September 2018, Nature Needs More Ltd and For the Love of Wildlife Ltd wrote to the Acting CITES Secretary-General outlining why we felt that the modernisation of the CITES permit and trade monitoring system was long overdue. This letter, published in the September 2018 blog Ensuring CITES is Relevant and Effective requests that the reverse listing system (first proposed by the Australian Government in 1981 at CoP3) is revisited. At the time it wasn’t adopted because, at 700, there were considered too few species listed; it is now 36,000. So the CITES system was left to expand and to grow unrestrained, to the point where there are too many species, not enough control and too few resources. Everything [...]

In 2014 I realised I was incredibly naïve, which came as a shock. After all I have spent 20 years coaching executives from some the most hated sectors including banking, petrochemical and government. I thought I had seen all aspects of both stupid and ruthless behaviour, but I was wrong. The source of my naivety was realising that while everyone wanted to stop rhino poaching, not everyone wanted to collapse the demand for rhino horn; these are two very different things. In addition, there are some people who have demonstrated that if the price of stopping the poaching is to fully collapse the desire for rhino horn, then they prefer to live with some (significant) level of rhino poaching activity. [...]

As many of Nature Needs More’s supporters know, we are concerned about the systemic flaws in the CITES trade permit and monitoring system and, together with For the Love of Wildlife we have suggested a reverse-listing and legal trade levy solution to fix these longstanding flaws and provide the necessary level of resourcing to ensure the system is fit for purpose.   But while we work for the CITES system to be fixed, other groups push for loosening of trade restrictions in animal body parts. As they continue their lobbying to further liberalise trade, in recent times they have moved towards using the plight of impoverished communities that border key wildlife populations. I would like to explore this latest ‘argument’ [...]

While Nature Needs More would prefer that the natural world was protected by the precautionary principle and a conservation-based convention, the reality is that CITES is a trade convention and since the 1970s the trade approach has taken precedent. It is pretty apparent that most signatory countries believe trade is the way and will not be persuaded otherwise, at least in the short term. Challenging this from a basis of ideological opposition simply ensures that nothing changes. If the strategy doesn’t work, you change the strategy. If we have to acknowledge that trade will be used for the foreseeable future, then at least the governments, agencies and organisations supporting and driving trade must demonstrate that the system administering and monitoring [...]

A great-and-greater number of people around the world are turning their backs on mainstream conservation organisations. People and activist groups, such as Extinction Rebellion, are stepping in to the leadership and innovation void left by the well know names, who are stuck in their business as usual approach and are acting as if they have all the time in the world. Here is a perfect example of why many people have walked away from these organisations over the last 10-20 years. A November 2018 article on a Vietnamese news site highlights Wildlife in danger as demand from restaurants rises, stating that encouraged by profits, restaurant owners are hunting for precious wildlife and serving dishes made from animals listed in the [...]

In one of the last blogs I wrote under the Breaking The Brand banner, in June 2017, I covered the topic of The Power of One, highlighting the stories of two individuals, Nicholas Duncan and Donalea Patman, who have invested of themselves to make a significant difference for wildlife. Now I want to tell another story, that of Dr Catherine Kovesi, a historian at the University of Melbourne. One of Catherine’s specialist research areas is the history of luxury consumption and has recently been appointed a General Editor of the forthcoming Bloomsbury series a Cultural History of Luxury. As many of our long-term supporters know, I have believed for some time that we need global influencers in both business and economics involved [...]

The South African Government announced on September 21, 2018 that rhino poaching for this year to-date is down 26%. While some people have voiced disbelief regarding the scale of the decline published, it does come in conjunction with both anecdotal and quantitative evidence from a number of conservation NGOs monitoring the demand for rhino horn in Viet Nam, that the demand for rhino horn has declined and it is less fashionable than it once was. We have decided to reflect this positive development in our new (interim) campaign. For those who have been supporting Nature Needs More for some time, you will know that we had planned for our next Breaking The Brand  RhiNo campaign to be a collaboration with [...]

In early September, Nature Needs More wrote a blog regarding the scale and value of the international wildlife trade. This and other recent NNM blogs also highlighted the inadequate levels of resourcing for monitoring of the wildlife trade and significant flaws in the CITES permit system and trade monitoring database. Currently 35,000 species of both flora and fauna are listed for either exclusion from trade or have trade restrictions. So, in theory at least, customs officials in every CITES signatory country have the responsibility to monitor the export and import of these 35,000 species to ensure proper regulation, traceability, transparency and enforcement of trade. Even in a wealthy country, such as Australia that could invest in strong border protection to [...]