Black Market: Dispatches (2016): Season 1, Episode 5 - Poaching Pangolin - full transcript
The world's most trafficked mammal may go extinct before most people know what it is.
To capture something so gentle
kind of breaks my heart
a little bit.
The greed aspect
behind poaching --
it preys on the people who have
nothing else to do but this
to support their families.
Mélanie Gouby
investigates a black market
for an animal that you
probably never even heard of.
This thing is scared.
It's probably traumatized.
**
Our goal is just to
simply show the world a window
as to why people
do the things they do,
where that desperation
comes from.
**
It's like they say,
when the system fails you...
you create your own system.
**
**
So we're in Yaounde,
the capital of Cameroon.
Yaounde is a major export hub
for the illegal trade
of an animal called pangolin,
the world's only scaly mammal.
West Africans
have hunted pangolins
for thousands of years.
But in the 1990s,
overseas demand spiked.
With its only defense
to roll up in a ball,
the animal is an easy catch
for local hunters.
So poaching pangolin
became a way
for a lot of poor West Africans
to get by.
Today, the pangolin
is the most-trafficked mammal
on the planet.
It's on the road to extinction
before most people even know
what it is.
I'm here to see why this illegal
trade is so hard to stop.
We're going to a bushmeat market
in one of the main streets
to see
if there's any pangolin there.
So, what,
people are afraid that --
People are afraid
of the camera, yeah,
because when the --
the police come,
they seize their, their product
and maybe they --
they go to jail.
But they're okay
with us going...?
Yeah.
We can go, like,
customers, like curious.
We want to --
We just want
to check to see the pangos.
Okay.
To see how they do,
the man that sell the pangos.
You can go, like, customers.
So I'll just go in
with a hidden camera
and, see what happens there.
Our local producer, Allen,
says it's too dangerous to bring
our cameras into the market.
A policeman was shot there
last week.
So we are going to go
undercover.
My questions are starting
to make suspicion,
so Allen quickly makes a deal
to get us out with the pangolin.
Merci.
We need to go.
They were asking why -- why
we're asking so many questions.
**
That was horrible.
**
Our pangolin looks
in terrible shape,
so we pull over
to give it some water.
**
Guess what.
I can see something.
My God.
My God.
That's so cute.
So, she gave birth.
I think it's called a pango pup,
and it's actually quite big.
And the baby is quite healthy.
Adorable.
We need to bring it back
to the forest right now.
Yeah. Because she's
obviously very weak.
**
The pangolin trade has spiked
in recent years
as Chinese investment
in West Africa has increased.
There's, a very visible
Chinese presence in here.
And, um, just driving around,
you can see
that some of the main buildings
have been bought, um,
here by Chinese.
Chinese immigrants working on
big construction projects
have become middle men in what's
become a massive illicit market.
**
So we're going to release the
pangolin in the spot behind us.
It looks like it's, it's safe.
**
This thing is scared.
It's probably traumatized.
We let the pangolin mother
and child free
and hope they make it
in the wild.
**
The next day, we travel two days
to Cameroon's Dja National Park
to meet up
with a team of rangers
who are fighting to stop
the poaching
of Africa's protected animals,
include the Pangolin.
We are on patrol in the Dja
National Park with the rangers.
They are looking for
signs of poachers.
Anyone who's found in the park
is suspected of being a poacher
because it's a protected area.
**
The Dja Park is
a centuries-old treasure trove
for local hunters.
By 1987, the park was named
a world heritage site,
driving hunters out of
their ancestral grounds.
In the Dja, the pangolin
is a prized catch.
**
**
**
**
I'm with rangers in the
protected Dja National Forest
in Cameroon.
**
Wow.
**
Just up the road,
the rangers come across
another suspected poacher.
Protected animal Class A.
**
Africa has long maintained
a steady pangolin population.
But part of the reason
this animal's future is in doubt
is because its scales
are used by the Chinese
to treat all sorts of ailments,
from lactation to inflammation.
Even these two scales
are worth selling
for someone desperate enough.
**
The rangers caught
two suspected poachers today,
but it's only
a drop in the bucket.
Experts like Paul de Ornellas
say the government's
lack of resources makes the
rangers' job nearly impossible.
The Dja is roughly,
about 5,500 kilometers squared.
And that's basically
dense forest.
75 individuals are never going
to be able to protect that area,
even if they're
very well-motivated
and there all the time.
You need to have
a substantial increase
in the number of eco guards,
rangers, and the equipment
and the support for them
if you're going to
effectively protect the Dja.
**
I'm heading to Djoum,
a small village on the border
of Dja National Park.
I've been told
a lot of families there
rely on poaching pangolin
to get by.
So we're going to meet a poacher
who has a hunt planned
for that night.
**
**
I'm in Djoum,
a small village on the border
of the Dja National Park.
Tonight, Jean, a local poacher,
has invited us
on an all-night hunt.
**
Okay.
Okay.
**
We'll be going even deeper
into this protected forest,
where we could be arrested
at any time.
**
**
Tonight, Jean is looking for
a pangolin,
the world's
most-trafficked mammal.
**
**
In the past few years,
competition for the pangolin
has gotten fierce.
No one knows how many are left.
But more and more,
Jean goes home empty-handed.
**
**
In the morning,
Jean brought us to his home
in Djoum to meet his family.
**
**
**
Later that night,
Jean takes a bag of scales
from pangolins he's poached
and heads out to meet a buyer.
The penalty for trafficking
these scales in Cameroon
is up to three years in prison.
We're with a poacher named Jean,
who is selling off a bag
of pangolin scales.
Not only is pangolin meat
sold in the black market,
their scales are also valuable.
The Chinese use them
for all sorts of treatments
and products.
Okay.
Jean has just sold
his bag of scales
for the equivalent
of $2 a pound.
By the time they reach China,
each pound will be worth
nearly $500.
Much of Africa's
poached pangolin ends up here,
Hong Kong's harbor.
Over the last two years alone,
over six tons of pangolin scales
have been seized
by custom officials
on cargo coming in from Africa,
including 2.5 tons
coming in from Cameroon.
But some say 10 times more
slip past customs
and onto China's black market.
Sharon Kwok is a local activist
who is trying to stop
animal trafficking in Hong Kong.
This is one of
your typical dry-food shops.
And a lot of these products
are used for traditional
Chinese medicine, right?
Yeah.
We shorten it.
We call it TCM sometimes.
So pangolins have been part
of Chinese medicine
for a lot of years.
Yeah.
You roast it.
You -- you grind it down.
You make a soup of it.
But there's no scientific proof
whether it works or not.
If it's been part of
Chinese medicine for so long,
why is it just
in the past few years
that we've seen such a peak
in the trade?
When we deplete our own sources,
we just go and take
from other countries.
This has been what's going on
for many, many years.
Um, seafood we're taking
from Indonesia,
Papua New Guinea, Australia.
Um, and now that
demand's increased,
we're also aiming at pangolins
in Africa.
We really need to sit back
and reevaluate
how we're taking things
from nature
because what we're doing right
now is so totally unsustainable.
Traditionally, rare animals have
been valued for health benefits.
But as China's middle class
has grown,
expensive animal products
have also become status symbols.
Pangolin-fetus soup
goes for $300 a bowl.
We hit street markets undercover
to see if we can find pangolin
for sale.
Okay.
The local crackdown has pushed
pangolin sales deep underground.
But the demand in Asia
continues to grow...
...pushing pangolin populations
around the world
towards extinction.
**
kind of breaks my heart
a little bit.
The greed aspect
behind poaching --
it preys on the people who have
nothing else to do but this
to support their families.
Mélanie Gouby
investigates a black market
for an animal that you
probably never even heard of.
This thing is scared.
It's probably traumatized.
**
Our goal is just to
simply show the world a window
as to why people
do the things they do,
where that desperation
comes from.
**
It's like they say,
when the system fails you...
you create your own system.
**
**
So we're in Yaounde,
the capital of Cameroon.
Yaounde is a major export hub
for the illegal trade
of an animal called pangolin,
the world's only scaly mammal.
West Africans
have hunted pangolins
for thousands of years.
But in the 1990s,
overseas demand spiked.
With its only defense
to roll up in a ball,
the animal is an easy catch
for local hunters.
So poaching pangolin
became a way
for a lot of poor West Africans
to get by.
Today, the pangolin
is the most-trafficked mammal
on the planet.
It's on the road to extinction
before most people even know
what it is.
I'm here to see why this illegal
trade is so hard to stop.
We're going to a bushmeat market
in one of the main streets
to see
if there's any pangolin there.
So, what,
people are afraid that --
People are afraid
of the camera, yeah,
because when the --
the police come,
they seize their, their product
and maybe they --
they go to jail.
But they're okay
with us going...?
Yeah.
We can go, like,
customers, like curious.
We want to --
We just want
to check to see the pangos.
Okay.
To see how they do,
the man that sell the pangos.
You can go, like, customers.
So I'll just go in
with a hidden camera
and, see what happens there.
Our local producer, Allen,
says it's too dangerous to bring
our cameras into the market.
A policeman was shot there
last week.
So we are going to go
undercover.
My questions are starting
to make suspicion,
so Allen quickly makes a deal
to get us out with the pangolin.
Merci.
We need to go.
They were asking why -- why
we're asking so many questions.
**
That was horrible.
**
Our pangolin looks
in terrible shape,
so we pull over
to give it some water.
**
Guess what.
I can see something.
My God.
My God.
That's so cute.
So, she gave birth.
I think it's called a pango pup,
and it's actually quite big.
And the baby is quite healthy.
Adorable.
We need to bring it back
to the forest right now.
Yeah. Because she's
obviously very weak.
**
The pangolin trade has spiked
in recent years
as Chinese investment
in West Africa has increased.
There's, a very visible
Chinese presence in here.
And, um, just driving around,
you can see
that some of the main buildings
have been bought, um,
here by Chinese.
Chinese immigrants working on
big construction projects
have become middle men in what's
become a massive illicit market.
**
So we're going to release the
pangolin in the spot behind us.
It looks like it's, it's safe.
**
This thing is scared.
It's probably traumatized.
We let the pangolin mother
and child free
and hope they make it
in the wild.
**
The next day, we travel two days
to Cameroon's Dja National Park
to meet up
with a team of rangers
who are fighting to stop
the poaching
of Africa's protected animals,
include the Pangolin.
We are on patrol in the Dja
National Park with the rangers.
They are looking for
signs of poachers.
Anyone who's found in the park
is suspected of being a poacher
because it's a protected area.
**
The Dja Park is
a centuries-old treasure trove
for local hunters.
By 1987, the park was named
a world heritage site,
driving hunters out of
their ancestral grounds.
In the Dja, the pangolin
is a prized catch.
**
**
**
**
I'm with rangers in the
protected Dja National Forest
in Cameroon.
**
Wow.
**
Just up the road,
the rangers come across
another suspected poacher.
Protected animal Class A.
**
Africa has long maintained
a steady pangolin population.
But part of the reason
this animal's future is in doubt
is because its scales
are used by the Chinese
to treat all sorts of ailments,
from lactation to inflammation.
Even these two scales
are worth selling
for someone desperate enough.
**
The rangers caught
two suspected poachers today,
but it's only
a drop in the bucket.
Experts like Paul de Ornellas
say the government's
lack of resources makes the
rangers' job nearly impossible.
The Dja is roughly,
about 5,500 kilometers squared.
And that's basically
dense forest.
75 individuals are never going
to be able to protect that area,
even if they're
very well-motivated
and there all the time.
You need to have
a substantial increase
in the number of eco guards,
rangers, and the equipment
and the support for them
if you're going to
effectively protect the Dja.
**
I'm heading to Djoum,
a small village on the border
of Dja National Park.
I've been told
a lot of families there
rely on poaching pangolin
to get by.
So we're going to meet a poacher
who has a hunt planned
for that night.
**
**
I'm in Djoum,
a small village on the border
of the Dja National Park.
Tonight, Jean, a local poacher,
has invited us
on an all-night hunt.
**
Okay.
Okay.
**
We'll be going even deeper
into this protected forest,
where we could be arrested
at any time.
**
**
Tonight, Jean is looking for
a pangolin,
the world's
most-trafficked mammal.
**
**
In the past few years,
competition for the pangolin
has gotten fierce.
No one knows how many are left.
But more and more,
Jean goes home empty-handed.
**
**
In the morning,
Jean brought us to his home
in Djoum to meet his family.
**
**
**
Later that night,
Jean takes a bag of scales
from pangolins he's poached
and heads out to meet a buyer.
The penalty for trafficking
these scales in Cameroon
is up to three years in prison.
We're with a poacher named Jean,
who is selling off a bag
of pangolin scales.
Not only is pangolin meat
sold in the black market,
their scales are also valuable.
The Chinese use them
for all sorts of treatments
and products.
Okay.
Jean has just sold
his bag of scales
for the equivalent
of $2 a pound.
By the time they reach China,
each pound will be worth
nearly $500.
Much of Africa's
poached pangolin ends up here,
Hong Kong's harbor.
Over the last two years alone,
over six tons of pangolin scales
have been seized
by custom officials
on cargo coming in from Africa,
including 2.5 tons
coming in from Cameroon.
But some say 10 times more
slip past customs
and onto China's black market.
Sharon Kwok is a local activist
who is trying to stop
animal trafficking in Hong Kong.
This is one of
your typical dry-food shops.
And a lot of these products
are used for traditional
Chinese medicine, right?
Yeah.
We shorten it.
We call it TCM sometimes.
So pangolins have been part
of Chinese medicine
for a lot of years.
Yeah.
You roast it.
You -- you grind it down.
You make a soup of it.
But there's no scientific proof
whether it works or not.
If it's been part of
Chinese medicine for so long,
why is it just
in the past few years
that we've seen such a peak
in the trade?
When we deplete our own sources,
we just go and take
from other countries.
This has been what's going on
for many, many years.
Um, seafood we're taking
from Indonesia,
Papua New Guinea, Australia.
Um, and now that
demand's increased,
we're also aiming at pangolins
in Africa.
We really need to sit back
and reevaluate
how we're taking things
from nature
because what we're doing right
now is so totally unsustainable.
Traditionally, rare animals have
been valued for health benefits.
But as China's middle class
has grown,
expensive animal products
have also become status symbols.
Pangolin-fetus soup
goes for $300 a bowl.
We hit street markets undercover
to see if we can find pangolin
for sale.
Okay.
The local crackdown has pushed
pangolin sales deep underground.
But the demand in Asia
continues to grow...
...pushing pangolin populations
around the world
towards extinction.
**