On November 8, U.S. Department of Interior (DOI) Secretary Ryan Zinke announced the creation of an International Wildlife Conservation Council that will advise him. As a recent Science Policy Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science assigned to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) Division of International Conservation, I’ve watched the...
By Katarzyna Nowak and Keith Lindsay The European Union (EU) – a regional economic integration organization of 28 member states – became the 181st party to the major wildlife treaty, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), in July 2015. This month became the first time the EU votes...
The 70th meeting of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) opened on September 15 amid an ongoing humanitarian crisis of refugees and migrants escaping various conflicts. The world’s heads of state are expected to discuss not only their fate but also what exacerbates the violence they flee. According to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP),...
South Africa’s Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA) has formally acknowledged the receipt of an open letter that voices concerns over a possible proposal to reopen international trade in rhino horn. Rhinos are in decline from high rates of poaching for their horns. Six percent of South Africa’s rhinos (more than 1,200 individuals) were poached last...
It’s entirely possible, even likely, that we humans will not coexist very much longer with ancient, thick-skinned megafauna weighing thousands of pounds. How to save them is a matter of ever greater urgency—and dispute. For African elephants—whose numbers may not exceed 400,000 and are falling yearly by some 30,000 to satisfy human lust for ornamental...
By Katarzyna Nowak, Lauren McCall, and Isabel Behncke Izquierdo What unique skills do women hold for the future of our species and the ecosystems we have come to dominate? What can we learn from elephants as human societies become more out of balance with nature? They and Us Elephants and humans are prominent forces in nature....
By Phyllis Lee, Keith Lindsay, and Katarzyna Nowak The Elephant and the Pauper: The Ivory Debacle is a recently released 50-minute video by the Hunter Proud Foundation, a 501(c)(3) non-profit charitable public foundation and lobbying organization based in Houston, Texas. The video was circulated in the first half of January 2015 to members of the...
The Global March for Elephants and Rhinos brought together people in 130 cities worldwide (90 more cities than last year) on Saturday, October 4, 2014. The march in Washington, D.C., assembled at the Lincoln Memorial and set off at noon, along Constitution Avenue, swinging left on 15th street. At E Street, we struck up a...
Compiled and edited by Katarzyna Nowak PREAMBLE I present comments from 24 authorities who lay out the flaws in pro-trade thinking, as recently elocuted in Daniel Stiles’s essay “Can Elephants Survive a Continued Trade Ban?” written in response to Christina Russo’s article “Can Elephants Survive a Legal Ivory Trade? Debate Is Shifting Against It.”...
By Katarzyna Nowak On August 21, Zambia was reported to have “lifted its hunting ban,” announcing that a ban on hunting big cats—leopards and lions—would remain. One week later, an addendum was issued by the Zambian Wildlife Authority (ZAWA), clarifying that the hunting ban would remain in effect for elephants too. However, confusion endures in...
By Katarzyna Nowak While positive steps have been taken by governments to protect elephants and their ecosystems, private hunting companies are working hard to undermine the potential gains. Recent regulatory controls include a U.S. ban on the import of elephant trophies from Tanzania and Zimbabwe. These two African elephant range states (the former officially in...
By Katarzyna Nowak Is the new U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service policy of a blanket domestic ivory ban a “declaration of political war” that “criminalizes American citizens and kills elephants”? This is the extreme view expressed by Doug Bandow in Forbes magazine in March 2014 and taken up again in yesterday’s post here by Andrew Wyatt...
By Trevor Jones and Katarzyna Nowak Earlier this month, international media ran with a major prediction released by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) that “one-fifth of Africa’s elephants could be wiped out in the next ten years, at current poaching levels.” This is a damaging underestimate that undercuts the seriousness of...
By Trevor Jones and Katarzyna Nowak Earlier this month, international media ran with a major prediction released by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) that “one-fifth of Africa’s elephants could be wiped out in the next ten years, at current poaching levels.” This is a damaging underestimate that undercuts the seriousness of...
By Katarzyna Nowak and Trevor Jones The idea that we can save elephants by selling their teeth is a flawed vision that will accelerate elephants down their current road toward near extinction. In fact, the tide is turning, in favor of destroying ivory stocks and enacting moratoria on domestic trade. Over the past year, nations...