Wildlife - Illegal wildlife trade

Grant Miller is the head of the National CITES Team within the UK Border Force. Based at Heathrow airport, this team play a vital role in tackling illegal wildlife trade by stopping and seizing CITES-listed products being trafficked through UK borders. “With the 40th anniversary of CITES and the recent meeting of nations in Thailand [...]

Dragon’s Den investor and WWF Ambassador Deborah Meaden is on a mission – a mission to raise awareness about the illegal trade of wildlife. She recently visited the UK Border Force to see the sheer quantity of illegal wildlife products that are being seized here in the UK.

Policy work can sometimes be disappointing. Hours of talking, ‘working the room’ (as my good friend and roommate here in Thailand likes to say) to meet delegates, and staying up late to work on the development of policy text – and the outcome can still go the wrong way. Not today though! Today was the [...]

Stay tuned for the latest updates from the CITES conference in Bangkok, Thailand. As things develop, we’ll update you with the latest news and blogs via Storify. [View the story "We want to give CITES teeth" on Storify]

Throughout this week we’ve brought you updates from the field, courtesy of Rotiken Denis – head of the Masai Mara Rhino Monitoring Team. Read through all of the updates, or have a look at what happened yesterday. — Rhino: Meshuko Sighting: The rhino was browsing on open ground. Details: Animal is very social. About the [...]

Hope you enjoyed my last post about the amazing work of wildlife crime officers in the UK. But now they need your support. Wildlife crime officers are supported by the incredibly effective National Wildlife Crime Unit (NWCU), which was created in 2006. Based in Scotland, the unit gathers intelligence on wildlife crime, and provides analytical [...]

WWF works internationally to help protect species and their habitats, but my work on illegal wildlife trade also addresses what happens here in the UK and on our own borders. This brought me to the 24th National Wildlife Crime Conference in Hampshire a couple of weekends ago. It’s here that wildlife specialists from police, border [...]

Saturday 22 September is World Rhino Day. Yes we know, it seems like there are lots of official ‘days’ for all kinds of causes every year, but let me tell you why this one really deserves your urgent attention – this year of all years… Back in 2007, poachers killed 13 rhinos in South Africa. [...]

When I was in Nepal a few years back I had the privilege of meeting members of a community-led anti-poaching operation. These heroic people included a man who’d effectively lost half his face in a tiger attack, and a tiny woman who looked as if a gust of wind would knock her over. But people [...]

Over 300 elephants killed by poachers in just a few weeks. That’s a shocking statistic in itself. But it gets a whole lot worse when you realise that this happened in just one national park. I guess you can imagine how I felt when I first heard from colleagues in Cameroon – how a gang [...]