By Abhijit Mohanty - Down to Earth More than 630 flora and fauna species in Cameroon are listed as threatened on the IUCN Red List. Cameroon ranks fifth for fauna diversity and fourth for flora in Africa. But mushrooming bushmeat and international wildlife trade has...
By Gail Thomson - Conservation Namibia The recent decision by the Namibian government to sell 170 elephants has been met with public outcries, media articles full of unsubstantiated accusations and considerable confusion. In order to judge why this decision was taken...
By Steve Galster - The Independent The Independent’s Stop the Illegal Wildlife Trade campaign illuminates a criminal underworld that’s as dirty and dangerous as it gets. The slaughter, corruption, and profits of wildlife crime are staggering...
By Dr Adam Cruise The established reaction to widespread ecosystem destruction and species extinction is dominated by the notion of sustainable utilisation of the natural world. This is an influential Western-based paradigm in that preservation of ecosystems and wild...
By Colonel-Major Bourama Niagate (retired) In Africa, and particularly in Mali, elephants have always been of fundamental cultural and traditional importance. The protection of this majestic pachyderm is therefore not new: the Malian population has been taking...
On 28th January, the European Commission published its draft proposals to further tighten the rules on ivory trade and reduce the risk of the EU market contributing to illegal ivory trading. These legislative provisions are supplemented by a draft revised guidance on...
By Ben Travato Dear Carl Knight, When I got wind of your courageous exploits, I felt I had to congratulate you. For a start, you are British. We adore the British – they are our second favourite colonialists. The first, obviously, are the Dutch. They gave us the...
By Tracy Keeling - The Canary The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) is one of the most important international bodies in the world right now. Its actions and choices have immense bearing on what the future holds....
By Dr Pieter Kat Elephants first. Dead elephants that is The most recent 'mysterious' deaths of at least a dozen elephants falling over dead in the Mombo area of northwestern Botswana, deep in the Okavango Delta. Pre-COVID, a major tourism destination populated with...
By Andreas Wilson-Spath - Daily Maverick Conservationists have demonstrated that legalised trade and commercial breeding of wild animals stimulates demand, encourages poachers and smugglers and ultimately pushes species towards extinction in the wild. A new study...