September 21, 2016
My latest investigation with photographer Brent Stirton appears in the October 2016 issue of National Geographic. You can catch an advance view here on NationalGeographic.com.
Posted in Blog Post, CITES, Organized Crime, rhino, rhino horn, Wildlife Trade | No Comments
November 6, 2015
Last week the New York Times ran a shameful Op-Ed entitled, “The Ivory-Funded Terrorism Myth,” which falsely claimed that ivory is not funding terrorist activity in Africa, and suggested that even if there is ivory-funded terrorism (let’s just call it “regional militias,” he suggests), what happens in Africa when it comes to terrorism is okay as long as it stays in Africa.
The author, Tristan McConnell, who wrote a nearly identical piece for USA Today a year ago, bases his argument on a single 2011 report linking Somalia’s Shabab to the ivory trade. For him to criticize a Shabab-ivory link–amplified by politicians and in Kathryn Bigelow’s film, “Last Days of Ivory”–is one thing (I did not find a Shabab link during my reporting either, though the Times has), but to paint the brutality going on in central Africa as not terrorist activity, or not “international” unless it crosses the Atlantic Ocean, is absurd, and worse. These groups are operating across multiple states, ivory is part of their funding, and park rangers on the ground are being killed for standing between terrorists and their human victims, too.
Below is my letter to the Times editors, submitted the following day.
I am writing in response to the op-ed, “The Ivory-Funded Terrorism Myth,” (10/29/2015, NYT) which shamefully trots out one specific, and already widely-criticized story to grossly mischaracterize the ivory-terrorism issue.
Joseph Kony, the Janjaweed, Seleka in CAR, and Hutu FDLR in the Congo are all terrorists killing for ivory in central Africa. Your own reporting has spoken to the connection, including even to the Shabab link questioned by your writer.
In many places in central Africa where terrorist groups kidnap children, rape women, steal food and medicine, and disrupt community, park rangers are the only law enforcement on the ground to confront them. To support these rangers is to support the fight against terrorism itself.
As National Geographic has pointed out in a recent documentary and story, the ivory-for-arms trade in central Africa runs separately from, and parallel to, the organized crime form of ivory trafficking taking place in East Africa. It’s wrong to play the terrorism card to bring attention to a problem, and it’s wrong to play the terrorism card to ignore a problem, too.
Posted in Blog Post | 3 Comments
October 29, 2015
National Geographic film director JJ Kelley has put together a collection of outtake videos from behind Warlords Of Ivory. Though they didn’t make the cut, they include some of my favorite adventures. Here’s a link.
Posted in Blog Post, Ivory, Organized Crime, Terrorism | No Comments
September 17, 2015
George Dante, of Wildlife Preservations and maestro taxidermist, recently gave this wonderful interview to New Hampshire Public Radio on the challenges of making fake elephant tusks to track illegal wildlife traffickers.
Posted in Blog Post, Ivory, Taxidermy, Terrorism | No Comments
September 16, 2015
Here is my all-time favorite out-take from our work on Warlords of Ivory. Here orphaned baby elephants walk me into a gathering of adult, wild elephants, a potentially dangerous experience. My thanks to the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust for hosting me and my team.
Posted in Blog Post, Ivory, Terrorism | 4 Comments