news reports, seizures, policy, development, conservation

Yaoundé, Cameroon, 17th June 2013—Elephant populations in Central Africa fell by around half between 1995 and 2007 due to poaching and illegal wildlife trade and the speed of the massacre is increasing: 2011 was a record year for large-scale ivory seizures and the highest number of elephants were killed since the 1980s. read full story >

Cambridge, UK, 14th June 2013—Wild plants and animals important to people’s livelihoods in East Africa’s Albertine Rift region are at risk from climate change, finds a new joint TRAFFIC/IUCN study. read full story >

Ruili, China, 10th June 2013—China is all set to begin using detector dogs to assist enforcement officers to locate wildlife contraband, the first time the technique has been used in the country.  read full story >

Update (October 2013): On Borrowed Time wins BBVA Foundation Award for Best Short Film Educational Scientific title at the Donana Science and Wildlife Film Festival in Spain. Abbeville, France, 4th June 2013—‘On Borrowed Time’, a documentary on the poaching crisis in the Belum-Temengor Forest Complex of northern Peninsular Malaysia produced by TRAFFIC and WWF-Malaysia, has bagged a second major film award, this time in France.  read full story >

Tokyo, Japan 4th June 2013—Nine months after its launch in the UK the Peppermint & FairWild-certified Licorice Tea produced by Pukka Herbs Ltd is now being retailed through WWF’s Panda Shop in Japan.  read full story >

Guangxi, China, 3rd June 2013—Wildlife law enforcement agencies in Guangxi Province met last month to review their efforts to crack-down on smuggling of endangered wildlife in 2012, as well as to align their collaboration in 2013.  read full story >

Yaoundé, Cameroon, 30th May 2013—The elephants of Central Africa are about to disappear. A recent study shows that forest elephant populations have fallen by almost two-thirds - or 62 percent - over the past decade, as a result of widespread poaching for their ivory. In the forested areas of southeastern Cameroon, this represents several thousand forest elephants since 2002. read full story >

Lima, Peru, 29th May 2013—Two indigenous communities within the Peruvian Amazon have formed a “Veeduría Forestal” or Forestry Oversight in a bid to curb the pillage of their forests by outsiders, to secure fair prices for their timber resources and to increase transparency in the management of incomes derived from it. read full story >

New York, USA, 29th May 2013—The United Nations Security Council will be briefed today on the severe and escalating threat to peace and security posed by Central Africa’s heavily-armed elephant poaching gangs. read full story >

Gland, Switzerland, 28th May 2013—With more than 20,000 of the species assessed on The IUCN Red List threatened with extinction, IUCN and other organizations, including TRAFFIC, have come together to support the achievement of a global biodiversity target to prevent further species loss. read full story >

Fujian Province, China, 24th May 2013—The sentencing of three men in Fujian Province for their role in smuggling ivory to China from Africa has provided new insights into the scale and nature of the global illicit ivory trade in 2011, already the worst year on record. read full story >

Manchester, UK, 23rd May 2013—A man has been jailed for attempting to smuggle more than 750 kg of rare and endangered corals and clams through the UK’s Manchester Airport from Ho Chi Minh City in Viet Nam. read full story >