Gambling on Extinction (2015) - full transcript

- There is a war against nature

raging in the Savannahs and jungles

of Africa and Asia in a greedy,

brutal battle over a limited resource.

- It's a war.

And we're losing it.

- Poaching
and wildlife trafficking

have reached unprecedented dimensions.

- I'll make a special deal for you.

- Ivory and rhino horn

have become lucrative commodities.



- Essentially this is the
dark side of globalization.

- Increasingly,

criminal networks and terrorist groups

use wildlife smuggling
to fund their activities.

- There's many people that
have a big interest in

investing in extinction
and we have to prevent

those people from wiping
those species out.

- This is Rukinga,

a wildlife sanctuary in southern Kenya.

An elephant was slaughtered five days ago.

Before we can see what has
happened here, we can smell it.

Three large bulls were all
killed in the same night.

- This area is visited

regularly by gangs of poachers.



- In 1900, 10 million elephants

lived all over Africa.

By 1989 the number dropped to 600,000

Now there are around 470,000
wild elephants left in Africa.

We are facing the greatest mass extinction

since the era of the dinosaurs.

In Kenya alone, 10 elephants are killed

every day, that we know of.

It's believed the total is much higher.

- Elephants really do represent

something about our greatness.

They are such a magnificent species.

Losing them is something that
very few people could imagine.

We take it for granted that
they will always be there.

The fact that elephants are being poached

at such a rapid rate, is a
surprise to many, many people.

- An average of 33,000 elephants

are killed each year in
Africa for their ivory.

That's one every 15 minutes.

Here in Cameroon, 400 hundred elephants

were killed in one night.

A band of Janjaweed rebels

from Sudan slaughtered these animals using

AK-47s and hand grenades.

Central Africa has lost 65%

of its elephant population
in the last decade.

Forest elephants are on
the brink of extinction.

If poaching continues at this pace,

elephants could be gone from the wild

in less than 15 years.

Kruger National Park is the biggest

wildlife reserve in South Africa.

Home to the largest rhino
population on earth.

Park rangers and forensics experts

are going out to inspect a kill.

A white rhino has been
hacked to death for his horn.

The rangers claim by
poachers from Mozambique.

- The front horn would
be here, the back horn here.

So they went in deep into the skull.

- The rhino has gunshot wounds.

It's very likely the
animal was still alive

when the poachers took his horn.

- What the people also did at the back,

they started to open it for the vultures

and those to come in,

to move into the carcass.

To destroy evidence.

- Kruger National
Park is a vast area,

almost as big as Israel
and hard to control.

Between one and two rhinos
are killed here every day.

Poaching has hit a crisis point.

Until 2007, fewer than 50
rhinos per year were poached.

Since then the numbers have exploded.

In 2013, over 1000.

The numbers continue to rise.

This has led the park authorities
to take drastic measures.

Rhinos are being relocated from

the Kruger Park to safer areas,

further away from the Mozambican border.

There's a ring of private
reserves around the park.

Like Kruger, Manyeleti is
being hit hard by poachers.

Loot Schultz runs a small bush
camp in Manyeleti Reserve.

- It's escalating on a monthly basis.

If you look at the figures,

it goes up 50 to 70%
every month, rhino deaths,

and we don't seem to get to grips with it.

It's a war.

And we're losing it.

That's the bottom line.

- The Manyeleti
rangers are constantly

on the look out for poachers.

It's not long until we find the remains

of a female white rhino.

- These were amateurs.

They damaged the whole horn.

You see there, where they hacked it here?

If you get professionals,
they take it off cleanly.

Really often what happens
is they cut it so deep,

it impairs the breathing of the rhino.

Then he might still be alive
and impairs the breathing

and he smothers to death,
can't breathe anymore.

It's a bad thing.

- The fence is
checked for signs of poachers.

- You see the poaching spot there?

They went out from here.

You see where they put
their footsteps there?

- The rangers' job has become

increasingly dangerous.

We are at a spot where the rangers had

a firefight with poachers,
just a couple of weeks ago.

- Our question
whether he regrets

having killed the poacher
seems rather strange to Sam.

- For these people that do the poaching,

the rhino means nothing to them.

It gives them no pleasure,
it gives them no benefit,

it gives them nothing.

They just see it, it's just an animal,

it's a white man's toy.

But if I take that horn from that rhino,

I can buy myself a cell phone,

I can buy myself a motor car,

I can buy some presents for my girlfriend.

That's what's important.

- Johannesburg
investigative journalist

Julian Rademeyer has made it his mission

to expose illegal trade in rhino horn.

- Suddenly you begin to see
this uptake from 2003 onwards

and all of that seems to
be traced back to Vietnam.

- One of the
reasons for the spike

is that South Africa is one of the few

countries in the world where you can

still get a permit to trophy hunt.

- You begin to see Vietnamese names

cropping up and again
and again and initially

it's a small blip and then by 2008, 2009,

it really picks up and
by the end of 2009, 2010,

the Vietnamese hunters dominate

the trade in rhino horn trophies.

So you have dozens and eventually hundreds

of horns going out from
South Africa as trophies,

arriving in Vietnam, not being declared

to Vietnamese customs and just vanishing.

Two years ago, the
Vietnamese government went

and did a snap survey of some

of the hunters that had shot rhinos

in South Africa and
taken the trophies out.

Very few of them still had the trophies.

You know, these were not trophy hunters,

these were people coming
in under the guise

of trophy hunting to try

and get as much rhino horn as possible.

- After decades of isolation,

Vietnam opened its
economic doors to the world

and has since experienced
an unprecedented boom

in prosperity and population.

It has also become ground zero

for the illegal international
trade in rhino horn.

Rhino horn was traditionally used

to treat fever or headaches.

Now it is being touted as a
miracle cure for fatal diseases.

- There was a myth that
started doing the rounds

in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh
City about an army general.

It's sometimes said,
sometimes a senior politician,

sometimes a former prime minister,

he was cured of cancer
by using rhino horn.

- Do Hoang is a
well-known journalist in Vietnam.

He has investigated the
illegal trade in rhino horn

and says demand and
prices are skyrocketing.

- Hoang promises to try

to arrange a meeting
with a rhino horn user.

Days later Do Hoai, who sells
telecommunication devices,

agrees to meet us at his house.

Hoai claims to have inherited
the piece from his father.

Owning rhino horn is
not illegal in Vietnam.

Trading it, is.

- Hoai admits that he also

uses the rhino horn for
himself and for friends.

- Hoai's father had cancer,

they believed drinking rhino
horned prolonged his life.

- But numerous
studies have proven that rhino

has no curative qualities.

Essentially, it's the same material

as your own fingernails, keratin.

- There has
been an international ban

on trading rhino horn
for the past 30 years.

And yet consumers still
manage to get hold of it.

We send in an experienced undercover

investigator posing as
a wealthy Chinese buyer.

She heads for Hanoi's medical street.

Rhino horn used to be sold openly here.

- Succumbing to
international pressure though,

authorities have been cracking
down on illegal traders,

making shopkeepers very wary.

The investigator tries another shop.

Here she makes some headway.

The owner says that he could get

a rhino horn from Singapore.

Our investigator moves on.

Finally she gets lucky.

- When we visit a store
and the store owner says

"Oh, we have, just have
a guy who come in and out

"quite frequently, bring the stuff to us."

So we ask him, can you arrange us to meet

this person because we want to see

if there's availability on rhino horn.

- Three days
later, she gets a call

and arranges to meet back at his shop.

She is asked to wait outside.

Obviously she's being checked out.

- We arrived and this dealer

guy came over to the store.

We meet in the back of the store

and he told us how they changed the color

so they can get past the customs

and bring it into the country.

- Making the horn look like wood

is a common trick used by smugglers.

The weight of both pieces
is nearly 500 grams,

that's worth approximately
25,000 US Dollars.

The dealer believes our investigator

is a serious buyer so
he fetches a catalog,

full of illegal wildlife products,

worth millions of dollars.

- I think he's part of the big network

and all these things are
very expensive at this moment

in the market and he
took such a great risk

so he play quite an
important role in this group,

and I think the group
has access to smuggling

directly from both Asia and Africa.

- At 50,000 US dollars per kilo,

it would seem to be a commodity
only for the super rich.

However, according to our undercover

investigator that is not so.

She was told this story by a shop owner

whose mother was interested in selling

a small piece of rhino
horn she had acquired.

- She just say her mother

be invited to this party.

Everyone put in like 2,000 dollars,

and when there is a rhino horn available,

and they would inviting
everyone to the party.

So in front of everybody's very eyes,

and they cut the rhino horn to pieces,

to give it to everyone.

- These buying
parties are providing

affordable prices and thus wider

access to the illegal trade.

Poaching has spread all over Africa.

Despite thousands of
poachers having been killed,

the profits keep luring them in.

In this area of Northern Kenya,

constant patrols are made by this special

ranger anti-poaching unit.

This remote area is traditionally troubled

by tribal conflict, drought and poaching.

The border with Somalia is not far away.

One of these rangers used
to be a poacher himself.

Two years ago Lotak changed sides.

He claims to have killed 150 elephants.

- Lotak used to
be the leader of the group.

His job was to shoot the elephant.

The others had to remove the tusks.

- 15,000
Kenyan shilling is about

160 US dollars for a kilo of ivory.

Since Lotak dropped out, that
price gone up to 500 dollars.

The value of a single
tusk is worth 10 times

the average annual income
in some African countries.

- So long as the price of
ivory continues to rise,

then the incentive for
those people in rural areas

to poach elephants will remain high.

- Poachers like Lotak

don't have to search long for buyers.

Thanks to globalization
and investments in roads

and infrastructure by foreign nationals,

once isolated regions in Africa

have become easily accessible.

- We see Chinese people in Africa

who come over for construction work,

working on roads and buildings and bridges

and they go back to
China with just one tusk.

You know, three kilos.

And in Africa it might cost them $100.

And they know that when they get

to China it's already worth, you know,

$6,000 and if they hang on to that tusk

for another two years, it
could be worth $12,000.

- The highway
between Nairobi and Mombasa

is one of the major
arteries of Eastern Africa.

It is a well-known route
for trafficking networks,

shifting contraband into this busy port.

Numerous studies indicate that poachers

rarely operate on their own anymore.

Organized crime, attracted
by the huge profit margins

in wildlife trafficking, has taken over.

About 2,500 containers are
being shipped in and out

of here each day to
destinations all over the world.

Many contain illegal wildlife products.

In Kenyan ports like Mombasa,

large shipments totalling nearly 10 tons

of ivory were confiscated last year alone.

But the confiscated ivory is
only the tip of the iceberg.

Interpol estimates the actual amount

of smuggled ivory to be 10 times higher.

More than half of all seized ivory loads

were destined for China.

China's 1.3 billion
citizens have experienced

an unequaled economic
rise in the last decade.

Guangzhou is the boomtown of China.

The city of 12 million
has the country's highest

per capita number of millionaires
and multimillionaires.

Guangzhou has a long
tradition of trading ivory.

Today the demand comes from the newly rich

who want to show off their wealth.

After the global economic crisis in 2008,

many rich Chinese
decided to invest heavily

in more traditional things,

things like artwork and wildlife products.

Ivory and rhino horn have become

popular investment instruments.

After months of investigation,

we finally meet one of the buyers.

Frank An curates the art collection

of one of the new rich in Chinese society.

He likes to spend it on beautiful things.

- It's the old ivory.

It's done in Beijing from the master.

The lotus is a kind of symbol in Buddhism

because it grow up from
the mud under the water,

that when it comes out, it very clean,

it's very purifying.

- This collection
is worth millions of dollars.

- It's the rhino's horn.

- Yeah, how would you drink it?

Oh, okay. - Like this.

It's for drinking.

The head of the tribes,
what we need to show off

to other competitors, I'm powerful.

Why people want to marry a beautiful woman

but not an ugly girl?

It's a trophy also.

People always kill
those dangerous animals.

They never feel proud to kill a chicken.

We are very lucky.

Our ancestors wins in the long trip.

If you win, you take everything.

So we have the right to do
something unfair to the animals.

- Mr An's views
may be offensive to many

but he is acting perfectly legally.

The Chinese government
controls the legal trade

in ivory from stockpiles it owns.

All ivory products should come with

an ID card confirming the legal origin.

The government also runs and supplies

the commercial carving industry.

37 industrialized carving factories share

the five tons dispersed by
the authorities each year.

78-year-old Pan Chuju is the master

carver at Daixin factory.

- He's worried that

ivory will be completely banned.

- In fact,
there was a prohibition

of ivory products 25 years ago.

In 1989, after a dramatic
rise in poaching,

all international trade
in ivory trade was banned.

The effect was striking.

- When the ivory trade was banned,

the price of ivory collapsed
from about $200 per kilogram

down to, I don't know,
about $50 per kilogram.

And poaching more or less
disappeared all across Africa.

- Elephant populations
immediately recovered.

But then Japan and
later China were granted

singular purchases of
ivory from the stockpiles

of several African countries.

150 tons of ivory
flooded on to the market.

The appetite for ivory was revived

and the carving industry flourished again.

But this time it was different.

- In the old days it
would take several masters

a few years to carve one
you know, elaborate carving,

but today in the carving
factories it's dental drills.

People use dental drills.

This type of industrialization
of ivory carving,

this is what's going to kill elephants.

- Carving
factories claim that all

of their ivory is legal,

but if the government only
supplies five tons a year,

the numbers just don't add up.

- If it's equally distributed
among 37 carving factories,

each carving factory gets a
couple of hundred kilograms.

And if you look at the size and the skill,

how many people working
in the carving factory,

you'll figure out that, you know,

how much this carving factory
had to use illegal ivory.

- Again we rig our investigator

with a hidden camera and send
her out to speak with carvers

to find out where they're
getting their ivory.

Her target area is a mall in Guangzhou,

well known for its ivory retailers.

As cover, the investigator
tells the shop owners

that she has a piece
she'd like to have carved.

Finally a carver agrees
to see her at his home.

The carver has learned his craft

from a master carver in Hong Kong.

Now he has 20 apprentices in his workshop.

His business is approved
by the government.

The investigator manages to win his trust.

He is proud of his
craft and frankly admits

that he specializes in
making fake antiques.

- The carver also says that

controls on these products are tight,

but he knows people in Fujian province

who traffic illegal ivory and rhino horn.

- Our investigator also asks

about carved rhino horn.

- It is estimated that 90% ivory

trade in China is illegal.

The legal trade however,
provides the perfect cover.

- So currently China
allows five tons of ivory

to be sold legally every year.

The government's estimate for
demand is 200 tons a year.

So this isn't meeting the supply,

it's not meeting that demand,

but what it's doing is it's giving

the public a very confused message.

Nobody knows what's legal,
nobody knows what's illegal.

And the big thing we found
previously was that the traders

use the legal trade to
launder illegal ivory.

- The Forestry Police

are charged with the increasingly

impossible task of controlling
the illegal market.

We have the rare opportunity
to film a raid with them.

This is a market in Beijing.

Many wildlife products
are sold and bought here.

But it is small pickings by any

standard of the illegal trade.

- This dealer
tries to explain his products

are carved from mammoth, not ivory.

But the officers don't believe him.

The dealer shows his ID
cards to the police officers.

They confiscate his goods

and take him in for further questioning.

But he was telling the truth
and was later released.

This woman also claimed
to sell mammoth ivory.

But the texture of the material
tells the officer otherwise.

- It also makes it very
difficult to enforce.

Forestry police and customs
officers sometimes complain

that the system makes it
very difficult for them to

distinguish what's
illegal and what's legal.

- This small
shopkeeper was later

charged with selling illegal ivory

and now faces five to 10 years in jail.

The overwhelming amount of carved ivory

for sale in shops or markets,

whether illegal or not,
is still only a fraction

of the vast amount of raw ivory estimated

to reach China week after week.

- If literally, 10s and
10s of tons of ivory

is reaching China, where is it going?

Those tusks are going
somewhere in either China

or neighboring countries and
they're just sitting there

and they're waiting for the time

when they will be worth
literally a fortune.

- Where it's going is to
people that are investing

in the extinction of Africa's elephants

and they think that's a
very smart investment,

because they believe there'll
never be any more elephants

or any more rhinos than there are now.

Which will mean their investments
will increase in value.

- The grim
realty is that elephants

and rhinos are trapped in a deadly spiral

driven by the merciless
laws of the free market.

Wildlife trade has become big
business for organized crime.

Only they can provide the money

and logistics to shift hundreds

and thousands of tons of
contraband around the globe.

- Some of the networks that
exist are highly specialized.

But there are, you know,
existing, well established,

long established criminal
networks and groups

that simply turn to a particular activity

because it is profitable.

- In fact, after
the trade in drugs and weapons,

wildlife trafficking has become

the most lucrative black-market business.

It's estimated to be worth
20 billion dollars annually.

- Wildlife crime is the attractive one,

because the risks of getting
caught are pretty small.

And then if you do get caught,

then in many countries in the world,

the penalty is going to be small.

But the profits, depending
on what you're dealing in,

you're gonna get more from them

than you are smuggling cocaine or heroin.

- Low risks and high profits.

It's no surprise then that
wildlife trafficking has

caught the attention of
other groups as well.

African rebel groups including
Uganda's Lords Resistance

Army are known to finance their activities

in part by trafficking ivory.

- Somalia's al Shabaab militia

also dabbles in ivory trafficking,

especially in neighboring Kenya.

- Al Shabaab definitely plays
a role in the ivory trade.

We know certainly that Al
Shabaab taxes elephant ivory

that comes across the border into Somalia,

and then goes into Somali ports,

Mogadishu, Kishmaayo, and Barawa.

- Ivory profits are said to fund

as much as 40% of Al Shabaab's activities.

If true that means that during

its attack on Nairobi's
Westgate Mall two years ago,

27 of the 67 people killed,

were killed by blood ivory money.

- If I'm a rebel, if I'm a terrorist,

and I'm located in Eastern
Africa or Central Africa,

and I look around me and I say right,

I need money to go out
and buy more AK‐47s,

or to buy Semtex or whatever.

It's not long before
my focus is gonna drop

upon this large creature
with big gray ears

and these two white things that stick

out the front of his face,

which apparently people in Asia

are willing to pay a lot of money for.

- It's not
only criminal cartels,

terrorist groups and rebel militia that

are making millions from
wildlife trafficking.

Kenya is fourth on the
worldwide corruption ladder.

- There is no way a container
load of ivory can pass through

Kenya's international border with Uganda,

come down the Kenyan highways
and reach the port of Mombasa

and get onto a ship and go to China.

It cannot happen unless
there is corruption

down that entire chain.

The people who are at the
highest level of these cartels

in Kenya are very well connected,

politically, economically,
with the police,

maybe with the customs authorities
or the ports authorities.

And so they are probably involved

in many other illicit activities.

It's not just ivory.

Ivory's just one of the
things that they're doing.

And so they have people who protect them.

- Worldwide, many
poachers and smaller dealers

have been arrested.

- We're picking off the small fry,

we're not getting the big fish.

That's because we're not
taking the time to try

and identify who the big fish are.

If you think of the number
of specific agencies,

or police customs officials,

drug squads that are dedicated every day

to try to combat drug trafficking

around the world, you know,

the numbers must run into the 10s,

if not hundreds of thousands.

How many officers around the
world are dedicated to try

to combat or identify
wildlife traffickers?

Very, very few.

- We're not dealing with
dismantling the networks

on an international level.

And even international agencies
like Interpol, like CITES,

they don't have the
powers to deal with that.

Interpol is reliant on local
police in Interpol offices

in the countries where they're based.

And time and time again any
efforts they make to crack

down on crime bosses in places
like Vietnam get scuppered

because of leaks from the police force.

- It's
journalist Julian Rademeyer,

who has succeeded where organizations

like Interpol have so far failed,

dismantling a major trafficking network.

This video, obtained by Rademeyer,

was shot by Chumlong
Lemthongthai, a Thai national,

who was identified as a major setup-man

for an illegal Vietnamese trophy hunter.

- Eventually you had criminal
syndicates with links

to Laos who were trying to line up hunters

to take part in legal hunts
and they found a pliant

South African game farm
owner and hunting outfitter

and they then went around to brothels

and strip clubs around Johannesburg

and Pretoria and started
recruiting young women who'd been

trafficked to South Africa
to work in the sex trade,

young Thai women, and suddenly
you have large numbers

of Vietnamese and Thai
women shooting rhinos.

- Lemthongthai is now serving

a 30-year sentence in
a South African jail.

Rademeyer also traced
him back to his client.

- He was the lieutenant
for the so‐called kingpin,

a man called Vixay Keosavang.

The U.S. State Department has put

a one million dollar bounty
for Keosavang's arrest.

But he's still in business

and completely and utterly untouchable.

The Laotian government won't touch him.

No‐one else has ever
been able to nail him.

- In South Africa,

rhino farmers are lobbying hard

for the legalization of
the rhino horn trade.

This property belongs
to one of the biggest

rhino farmers in South Africa.

John Hume, who made a fortune in tourism,

turned to breeding rhinos.

He has over 1,000 on his farms.

Not surprisingly he is one of the

strongest advocates for legalization.

To protect his herd he
employs a private ranger army,

still poachers find their way in.

- She was a young cow, pregnant,

but all of her breeding
life still ahead of her.

And when you lose an
adult female like this,

it's devastating for the
species into the future.

It's exactly what we don't want,

and it's exactly what our
policies are creating.

- In John Hume's view,

animal conservationists
who oppose a legalization

of trade are as bad as poachers.

- They may as well be pulling
the trigger themselves,

because the anti-traders are stopping

us fighting this effectively.

Therefore, they are just
the same as the poachers.

They're the killers of my rhino.

- Although Hume's black

and white rhinos roam in a vast area,

they are being partially domesticated

with medical care and additional feeding.

Hume considers himself
not only a businessman,

but also a conservationist.

- Unfortunately, I am labeled as being

in it only for the money.

But I breed rhinos and if
I were to make money out

of breeding rhinos, which I do not,

but if I was selling the horn

and I was to make money
out of breeding rhinos,

there will be hundreds of other people

who want to breed rhinos.

- To protect his rhinos,

Hume regularly de-horns them.

But he doesn't destroy the pieces.

He stores them in a high security vault.

- The legalization of trade will not

stop the poaching as such.

But at the moment we've closed our doors.

We have said to the demand,

never mind what you want to call them,

syndicates, users, whatever.

We've said to the demand,

"We will not sell you
one kilo of rhino horn,

"not one, go away."

So what do they do?

They say, "Okay, we'll go away,
we'll deal with a poacher."

Now if you have legalization,

then that'll be different.

At least we will compete
against the poacher.

So to me it's really, it's a
stupid thing and it's similar

to the bootlegging we had in America.

The banning of booze in America

only made certain people rich,

and it didn't work, as we know.

It didn't work.

- However, most
wildlife trade experts agree,

there is no sound economic
model for legalization

and that it is simply too
much of a risk to test it.

- You know there's 1.3 billion Chinese.

10% of them are now middle class.

Now a hundred million
people now want rhino horns.

How the hell are you
going to supply the demand

for 100 million people?

You have, you don't have
enough rhinos to breed

fast enough to supply
all those rhino horns.

Not in a million years
can you meet that demand.

Never, ever.

They live in coo coo world if they think

they're going to by supplying the demand,

they're going to stop rhino poaching.

- That experiment has been done
and that experiment failed.

So why on earth would we
take a risk with an animal,

which is on the brink of extinction?

Why would we take that risk?

So that what, a few people
can make some money?

It doesn't make sense,
any sense whatsoever.

- Flooding the
market with illegal wildlife

products is no option for
most conservationists.

Instead they are turning
to consumers with a strong

message to be part of the
solution, not the problem.

Chinese celebrities like actor Jackie Chan

are raising their voices
in an effort to change

the hearts and minds of their countrymen

and stop them buying wildlife products.

- If you're buying rhino horn,

you may be paying for more than just horn.

You're paying for guns, bullets,

poisoned arrows, and chainsaws,

axes and machetes to hack
off the face of the rhino.

And you are paying for the
life of a beautiful creature.

So please tell your friends and relatives.

Never buy products made from rhino horn.

When the buying stops,
the killing can too.

- Well there are definitely some people

out there whose interest
is purely commercial

and they're looking to
effectively invest in extinction.

They're looking to get
the value of this product.

I think that's, that's some people.

But there are other people who are buying

these products out of ignorance.

People have to understand
that their action

of purchasing this prize is
actually driving the poaching.

I think most of them dissociate
themselves from the killing

of the animals and I think
that's the connection

that needs to be made to persuade people,

it's not a good thing to buy ivory.

- Non-profit groups working

in China know that when people
have information, they care.

So it is particularly
important to communicate that

elephants actually have to
be killed to get the tusks.

Since the Chinese word for ivory is tooth,

many Chinese still believe
that tusks fall out naturally.

- We will never change
things in China, for example,

but the Chinese can change it

if they have the right information.

- Changing the
minds of consumers is crucial

but the tide cannot change fast enough.

Conservationists agree
that what is needed now

to send a clear message to consumers,

is to immediately ban all trade,

in all endangered wildlife, worldwide.

Surveys indicate that this
strategy could be successful,

especially in China where people look

to their leaders for moral guidance.

- We asked previous ivory buyers,

what would make you not
buy ivory in the future?

The answer that got the most points, 60%,

was for a government to ban,

to make ivory buying illegal
in all circumstances.

- Years of
campaigning are taking effect.

10 countries have destroyed
their ivory stockpiles

in a stand against illegal ivory trade.

Last year the United
States and even Hong Kong

and China joined in.

- Destruction of ivory is telling people,

ivory consumption is immoral.

And this is something that we really need

to build in consumers everywhere.

There are things that money shouldn't buy.

- Changing
the minds of consumers

and pressing governments
to take action is crucial

in the race to save these iconic animals.

But what has become
increasingly evident is that

it is just as important
to engage the people

in the places where poaching is happening.

Many poachers are still being recruited

from villages around
the wildlife reserves.

- The communities that
live with this wildlife

are not supported
adequately in this country,

so that it makes sense for
them to protect that wildlife.

- Changing the
economic conditions in villages

around wildlife reserves
would make a big difference.

- At the moment, conservation
is seen as a white man's game.

There's only one way to
deal with the problem,

you've got to get the
community on your side.

And believe me, nobody comes
into any of these villages,

what we call front line villages, nobody.

Not a strange car, not a
strange people will drive

down the streets of a village
without not being recognized.

- The Northern Rangeland Trust

in northern Kenya was
set up to do just that.

The idea is to enable
communities to profit

from animal conservation
and make protection

more attractive to them than poaching.

The 9-1 anti-poaching unit is
a part of this new concept.

It's made up of members
of different tribes.

So they have the co-operation of all

the communities in this large area.

They have informants who tell them

immediately about suspicious activities.

And the villagers seem to appreciate

the presence of the 9-1 team.

- The concept of
community conservation is making

a big difference in this
part of Northern Kenya.

Poaching has dropped by a third

and locals now know that protecting

animals brings tourists
into the community lands.

And tourists bring money.

It was the influence and
pressure from his community

that finally made Lotak change sides.

- Community
conservation is a model

that is slowly beginning to take hold

in other parts of Africa as well.

Millions of years of evolution are coming

to an end as elephants and rhino continue

to disappear at breath-taking speed.

- Rhino poaching will end the day when

there's no rhinos left, finished.

Or the day it's made so difficult

for the poacher to come in here,

that it's impossible to poach a rhino.

And that's we must do.

- Extinction is no longer

a by-product of poaching, it
has become its very purpose.

- If we don't nip this in the bud,

we will lose all of our rhinos
within 10 years, I believe.

We will lose almost all of our

wild elephants within 10 years.

- Poaching is
an international crime.

It will take a concerted
international response to stop it.

- I think when we lose these animals,

we lose part of our humanity.

What are we leaving for our
children and grandchildren?

We're leaving a really
impoverished world environmentally.

Which means we've basically
sold all the family jewels.

So their inheritance
is gonna be squandered

if we don't take care of it now.

- We know from
experience that only when

the demand stops, so will the killing.

- The world has two choices,
we can have elephants.

Or we can have ivory trade.

We can't have both.