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 [...]

In August 2017, Nature Needs More facilitated our first Conservation Lab. We were delighted to be able to contribute to a project being driven by Donalea Patman, Founder of For the Love of Wildlife, in her work to close the Australian domestic trade in elephant ivory and rhino horn. Little did we know at the time that this would start Nature Needs More investigating the lack of transparency and monitoring in the legal trade of animals and their body parts. It appears that it is not only the illegal trade that is huge problem, but also the lack of proper regulation, traceability, transparency and enforcement in the legal trade in wildlife creates no end of problems for threatened or endangered [...]

Introduction For some years now, the Nature Needs More has been monitoring the evolution of automation and its future impact on the global workforce. We have been encouraged by the growing acceptance of a basic income model as a way to help manage the change to a new global economic paradigm, but remain concerned that it appears to be emerging in a very ‘human-centric’ way. At the heart of our many failures to create a sustainable civilisation is the mistaken belief that humans are ‘above’ nature, including other animals. Despite the dreams of sci-fi, and some billionaires, we cannot exist outside the biosphere of this planet; at least not for quite some time. We equally can’t solve our social problems [...]

As the people who have followed Breaking The Brand and, now, Nature Needs More know, we have always openly shared our thinking, research, insights and ideas. This post explains why we created the Style Icon Afternoon Tea, introduced in the last blog, to raise funds for our next RhiNo demand reduction campaign in Viet Nam. In the coming months and years, Nature Needs More will be exploring if we have a better chance of reducing the demand for (illegal) luxury wildlife ‘products’ if we work to embed demand reduction into the ethical and sustainable fashion industry strategy. While the conservation sector does much good work, from a biological perspective, I have seen too little evidence that it can get its [...]

Interesting Facts Given the need to scale up and roll out our demand reduction campaigns, I decided to investigate who already donates to wildlife conservation and where donations go. Culturally the USA has a strong tradition of private individuals making donations, so it seemed the obvious place to look at the statistics on giving (who, what, where etc.). My starting point was the information collected by Charity Navigator , I used their published information to do a ‘back of the envelope’ calculation. In 2016, the last year that the full statistics were available, 3% of all donations went to Environment/Animals. When you drill down in to this, the 3% covers 960 organisations, of which 99 are classified as Wildlife Conservation. So [...]

Antique & Auction House Industry Response To Total Trade Ban Of Elephant Ivory And Rhino Horn The call for a total ban of the elephant ivory and rhino horn (of any age) trade is growing in Australia.  On World Wildlife Day, 3rd March 2018, Australian charity For the Love Of Wildlife is hosting a #MelbourneCrush of ivory and rhino horn items, that many people want #Gone4Good. Donalea Patman, the founder of For The Love Of Wildlife, has highlighted numerous examples of why Australia needs a total domestic trade ban. Some are documented in a recent Nature Needs More Blog: 5 (Alternative) Actions To Make A Difference For Wildlife In 2018. Given the decimation of elephant and rhino populations in both Africa and [...]

As we are approaching the end of our current RhiNo demand reduction campaign, Nature Need More would like to provide an update and an insight in to our plans for 2018. The current demand reduction campaign, will be the last one run under the Breaking The Brand (BTB) project. The BTB project has now become part of Nature Needs More. Nature Needs More Ltd (NNM) has been incorporated as a non-profit, public company in Australia and we have applied for registration as a charity in Australia. Demand reduction campaigns are a key pillar of NNM; it is our objective to be able to scale these campaigns up in 2018 and also to roll them out more broadly; our focus will [...]