Part 3 of 3PART 1: Overview of the CITES 16th Conference of Parties in Bangkok | PART 2: Elephant and Rhino issues to be debated This interview is an excerpt…
Forest elephants in the Mbeli River, Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park, Congo. Photo by: Thomas Breuer. Yesterday, Thailand's Prime Minister, Yingluck Shinawatra, committed to ending the ivory trade in her country. Her…
Part 2 of 3PART 1: Overview | PART 2: Reflections of CITES Secretary-General John Scanlon This interview is an excerpt from The WildLife with Laurel Neme, a program that explores…
Part 1 of 3PART 2: Elephant and Rhino issues to be debated at CITES 16th Conference of Parties This interview is an excerpt from The WildLife with Laurel Neme, a…
The Sri Dalada Maligawa Buddhist Temple, which may soon receive 359 elephant tusks. The Sri Lankan government is planning to give 359 elephant tusks to a Buddhist temple, a move…
Illegally traded lizards (left to right): black tree monitor (Varanus beccarii), Reisinger's tree monitor (Varanus reisingeri), emerald monitor (Varanus prasinus), and the blue-spotted tree monitor (Varanus macraei). Photo courtesy of…
Malayan tiger. Photo by Rhett A. Butler. While founded with good intentions, wildlife trade bans may in some cases be worsening the plight of some endangered species, argues a commentary…
Over 68,000 birds listed on CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) were exported from the Solomon Islands during 2000-2010 according to a recent…
Cambodian and Thai officials have agreed to work together to combat illegal logging of rosewood and resulting violence between Cambodian loggers and Thai rangers, reports MCOT online news. Officials with…
Logged wood off the Ucayali River in Peru. Photo by Toby Smith/EIA. The next time you buy wood, you may want to make sure it's not from Peru. According to…
Ivory stored in Malawi. Photo by: EIA. Although the international ivory trade has been banned since 1989, last year was the worst ever for elephant poaching, and this year has…
Rainforest in Sumatra. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Less than a week after Greenpeace released evidence that protected tree species were being illegally logged and pulped at an Asia Pulp…
Pot-bellied seahorse: adult and baby. Babies, or fry, are brown black but turn yellow over time. Photo by: Julie Larsen Maher. The Wildlife Conservation Society's (WCS) New York Aquarium has…
Sumatra rainforest canopy seen from the base of a compass tree . Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. UPDATE: Greenpeace has stated that it has handed over evidence of illegal logging…
In order to save its remaining forests, Thailand must list rosewood under CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species) this year, according to a new report from the…
Following a logging crisis in 2009 where a number of Madagascar's remaining forests were illegally cut, the African nation has turned to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species…
Forest elephant in Gabon. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. The Republic of the Congo sentenced an ivory smuggler to an unprecedented four years in prison, proving the government's rising willingness…
The Standing Committee of CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) tossed conservations NGOs out of the room during a debate on the rise…
Wild cat furs on sale in market in China, 2006. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. The Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) has warned the US, the UK, and all tiger-range nations…
Focused conservation efforts, including reintroduction of captive individuals into the wild, have saved the golden lion tamarin from extinction. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Don't despair: that's the message of…
Elepahnts in Botswana. Photo by: Tiffany Roufs. Yesterday the president of Kenya, Mwai Kibaki, sent a fiery signal to illegal wildlife traffickers worldwide. Kibaki lit up five tons of elephant…
This male Panther Chameleon, originating from Nosy Mangabe, Madagascar, was observed at a dealer’s house in Saraburi city, Thailand, January 2010. © M Todd/TRAFFIC. Conservation group TRAFFIC uncovered nearly 600…
Surveying 13 nations and territories in Asia, the wildlife trade organization TRAFFIC found that the bear bile trade remains practically ubiquitous in the region. In many cases the trade, which…
A judge sentenced Pascal Vieillard, CEO of A-440 Pianos Inc., to 3 years probation for illegally smuggling elephant ivory into the US, while the Georgia-based company has been fined $17,500.…
Since the 1980s, Liberia has lost 19,000 elephants to illegal poaching, according to Patrick Omondi of the Kenya Wildlife Service speaking in Monrovia, the capital of Liberia. The poaching of…
A vicious cycle: as species becomes rarer, price will continue to rise On Tuesday, a 752-pound Pacific bluefin tuna was sold at Japanese auction for the highest price ever received…
Malaysia contains an amazing array of plants and animals, including this water monitor. Photo taken in Sabah by Rhett A. Butler Malaysia ended 2010 with the confiscation of 4.3 metric…
Two studies investigated the scale and potential threat of continued trade in red pandas and found that while reports are low, the occurrence of isolated incidents may be enough to…
The world's coral reefs are in trouble. Due to a variety of factors—including ocean acidification, warming temperatures from climate change, overfishing, and pollution—coral cover has decline by approximately 125,000 square…
Notebooks confiscated by the Sabah Wildlife Department (SWD) reveal that 22,000 Sunda pangolins (Manis javanica) were illegally poached from May 2007 to January 2009 in the Malaysian state in northern…