Heather Sohl's latest posts

On Monday 6 February, MPs will debate the UK’s ivory market in Westminster Hall. Here are 10 things you need to know about the global ivory trade and the role of the UK. On average one African elephant is killed by poachers every 25 minutes It is estimated that around 20,000 African elephants are killed […]

On the 17-18 November, the Vietnamese government will host an international conference on illegal wildlife trade.  It’s been reported that 54 countries will be represented at this meeting to discuss what they can do to tackle this devastating trade. This is a trade that last year drove the killing of around 20,000 elephants and nearly […]

Yesterday the world’s biggest wildlife trade meeting finished, early.  The 17th meeting of the Conference of the Parties (CoP) to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of wild fauna and flora (CITES) was scheduled to close tomorrow.  But yesterday’s business was quickly dispatched, with the plenary session quickly confirming the decisions made in […]

I am one of over 2,500 people in Johannesburg, South Africa, meeting to discuss the biggest issues around the illegal trade in wildlife. The 17th meeting of the Conference of the Parties (CoP) of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of wild fauna and flora (CITES) has begun. It will be a busy […]

On Saturday 30 April, the world’s largest ever ivory destruction will take place. Kenya will be burning 105 tonnes of ivory, along with 1.5 tonnes of rhino horn, in Nairobi National Park. This will be a strong symbolic gesture that Kenya will not tolerate the illegal wildlife trade that is killing so many of its […]

I remember as a young child thinking how appalling it was that people would buy and sell wildlife into extinction. It seemed so senseless and unnecessary. I thought when I grew up I had to do something about it. It’s illegal and wrong, I reasoned, so it couldn’t be that complicated to fix could it? […]

WWF-UK’s species conservation work is almost exclusively focused on protecting species abroad. This means I work from our base at the Living Planet Centre in Woking focused mostly on activities happening thousands of miles away. However, this week the global attention on one of our priority issues – the illegal wildlife trade – was focused […]

On 12 and 13 February the London Conference on Illegal Wildlife Trade will seek to inject a new level of political momentum into global efforts to tackle the illegal wildlife trade. I’ve been working alongside colleagues from TRAFFIC (the joint wildlife trade programme of WWF and the International Union for Conservation of Nature – IUCN) […]

Sometimes when people think policy, they think boring – talking about document wording, and who’s saying what on which issues. For me it’s exciting – there’s a rush when a delegate repeats on the floor what you’ve said in the lunch break – and highly important, because without the right policies in place you can’t […]

It’s been an unusual CITES Conference of the Parties (CoP) so far. A big debate on secret voting earlier on delayed the main agenda, so we’ve only today gotten on to some of the higher profile agenda items we’re here to discuss. Elephant discussions began and a number of Parties, including the EU member states, […]