Protecting the environment with intelligence
“Everyone who makes films has to be an athlete to a certain degree because cinema does not come from abstract academic thinking; it comes from your knees and thighs” – film-maker and documentarian Werner Herzog. On Tuesday, September 6, three powerful new films chronicling EIA’s recent undercover investigations into timber smuggling, the ivory trade and [...]
Day 3 at the CITES Standing Committee… I was a bit late into the conference room in the morning, as I’d had a pre-meeting meeting (such is the nature of these events), with a government delegate who had recently visited Vietnam, and was horrified at the open sale of tiger meat and tiger bone products. [...]
A Burning Without the Warmth of Jubilation Almost 10 years ago, EIA investigated the case of more than six tonnes of illegal ivory – that’s at least 600 dead elephants – seized en route to Japan. It became known as the Singapore Seizure and our subsequent investigations showed it had been only one of 19 which [...]
China’s Premier Wen Jiabao is coming to town and will be meeting with Prime Minister David Cameron. It’s going to be a regular date – they will meet annually under an existing arrangement over international cooperation on important issues. We think tigers, and everything tigers represent, should be on their annual agenda, so let’s start [...]
“We always need connections…paperwork not important once you have connections, paperwork not important, they are only on paper…they can always be manipulated…” – Singapore ozone-depleting substances (ODS) dealer When it comes to getting insights into what criminals think, EIA and our partners are in a pretty enviable position. Our undercover investigators spend weeks at a [...]
The rhino is under siege – again*. Poaching and the smuggling of their horns has now been acknowledged as out of control. This is evidenced by the flurry of information from the field – particularly from South Africa (SA). Emails and text messages come in pretty much on a weekly basis. Last night I received [...]