For The Wild - ANDREA CROSTA on the World of Wildlife Crime ⧸113

00:00:00.000 This podcast is brought to you through support from our partner, the Kalliopea Foundation.

00:00:05.400 Kalliopea envisions a future grounded in compassion, respect, dignity, reverence for

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00:00:15.680 Rocky Mountain Seed Alliance and Led to Life. To learn more about Kalliopea's mission,

00:00:20.580 visit Kalliopea.org. Hello and welcome to For the Wild podcast. I'm Ayanna Young.

00:00:26.400 In my opinion, everyone is just putting a lot of money into fighting back with weapons,

00:00:34.840 while in reality, what you really need is to fight back with information.

00:00:40.180 Intelligence decrees the militarization of information.

00:00:49.220 Andrea Crosta has over 30 years of experience in conservation projects around the world,

00:00:54.560 and in a parallel professional career, he has been working for over 18 years as an international

00:00:59.940 consultant to companies and governmental agencies on high-end security technologies and services,

00:01:06.340 homeland security, anti-piracy, and risk management. He now applies this unique

00:01:11.920 knowledge to conservation and wildlife protection. Andrea is the executive director and co-founder of

00:01:18.040 Elephant Action League, an intelligence-led non-profit organization dedicated to wildlife

00:01:23.760 crime. He is also among the founding members of the Wildlife Justice Commission, a member of the

00:01:30.020 board of the Africa Conservancy Foundation, and the creator and project manager of Wild Lakes,

00:01:36.020 the first whistleblower initiative dedicated to wildlife crime. Andrea is among the main

00:01:41.660 protagonist of the documentaries The Ivory Game and Sea of Shadows, which recently won

00:01:47.000 the Audience Award at Sundance Film Festival 2019.

00:01:53.760 so andre it's so wonderful to have you on the show today it was lovely to meet you and the

00:02:00.340 crew at sundance and i'm really happy that we get to continue our conversation and go

00:02:04.840 a bit more in depth it's a pleasure absolutely so when we broach the subject of endangered kin

00:02:12.400 many of us just jump to habitat loss and climate change as driving factors

00:02:17.800 failing to remember that wildlife crime is one of the most immediate threats to many species

00:02:23.600 and I think this is a symptom of this larger occurrence in which climate change subsumes

00:02:30.100 conversations around environmental crime in terms of pollution and poaching at a smaller scale

00:02:35.860 but we have to bring awareness to the fact that in half a century lion numbers in Africa have

00:02:43.560 decreased from over 200,000 to less than 20,000 that over a century ago the world's tiger population

00:02:51.480 exceeded 100,000, and now there are less than just 4,000. We have lost 97% of the world's tiger

00:03:00.580 population in just one century. So aside from these glaring statistics, how significant of a

00:03:09.300 threat is wildlife crime, not only to iconic endangered species like the elephant, but to

00:03:15.680 all different species and ecosystems across the planet? Yeah, I could not agree more. I mean,

00:03:21.480 And there are many species, like you mentioned, tiger, lion, but elephants, rhinos, pangolins have a long list.

00:03:29.520 There are many species that there are a good chance that they will never see the effects of climate change because they will not be alive by the time.

00:03:37.040 Crime is the number one threat to many, many species.

00:03:41.820 Not like the iconic species that you have in mind, like elephants and rhinos and tigers.

00:03:47.320 But it's also about illegal logging and illegal fishing.

00:03:50.580 So combined environmental crime is, I think, one of the most important, if not the most important threats that we are facing right now.

00:04:00.000 And the problem is that, and it's a problem that is connected to why we have been failing to face this problem for decades,

00:04:08.940 is that we still see this as an environmental problem because animals are involved, because forests and fishes are involved.

00:04:16.660 But in reality, it's a crime problem with capital C.

00:04:20.580 And until we don't have that switch, we'll never be able to fight back as we should.

00:04:26.700 Right. It's because people see it as an environmental problem.

00:04:31.400 They think it's somehow less than, which is really insane because the environment literally sustains life itself and keeps us surviving.

00:04:42.960 So I really appreciate you pointing that out.

00:04:45.680 Wildlife crime combined with illegal fishing and illegal logging is the fourth largest criminal enterprise on the planet.

00:04:54.620 You know, after drug smuggling, counterfeiting and human trafficking, the fourth largest criminal enterprise.

00:05:00.580 We're talking about between 100 and 250 billion dollars per year.

00:05:06.900 So it's a it's a serious thing and pretty serious people are involved.

00:05:11.000 So it's not about, you know, the poor people in the bush killing an elephant.

00:05:16.980 Yeah, this is a part of the issue.

00:05:19.960 It's actually a very small part because actually the crime is actually the enablers and the drivers of these crimes are actually very wealthy people, criminal organization, criminal syndicates and kingpins and, you know, very dangerous people doing all sorts of crimes at the same time.

00:05:38.680 And with our work, we work now in three continents, Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

00:05:44.200 And most of our targets, you know, we investigate wildlife crime.

00:05:47.700 We collect intelligence on wildlife crime.

00:05:49.700 This is what we do.

00:05:50.860 And many of our targets are involved in other crimes, including drug trafficking, including

00:05:56.700 human trafficking, and money laundering, and fake documents.

00:06:01.420 And the reason is because it's very, very profitable, environmental crime, with very

00:06:06.900 low risk, because most countries are still unprepared to face it. Hence the, you know,

00:06:12.300 the presence of even militias, even terrorist groups like Al-Shabaab in Somalia is actually

00:06:17.980 involved in, was involved a lot in ivory trafficking, because you make a lot of money,

00:06:22.740 and we, you risk very little. Thank you for making that differentiation between,

00:06:27.820 you know, impoverished people, say in the bush, versus these very organized cartels and mafias

00:06:36.460 and things like that. I appreciate that and I want to talk about that a bit more later on in the

00:06:41.340 interview. So my next thought is, you know, ironically but perhaps unsurprisingly, we see

00:06:48.560 a spike in the illegal export of certain species around the same time that they achieve recognition

00:06:55.260 as endangered species. For example, in 2010 the European Union banned all exports of European

00:07:03.140 eel, declaring it critically endangered. But following this announcement, there was an

00:07:08.440 immediate spike in eel export from the eastern United States coast. Similarly, the near extinction

00:07:14.720 of the Chinese Bahaba was led to the poaching of the Totoaba in the Gulf of California.

00:07:21.800 So I'm wondering, how is trafficking actually exacerbated by the banning of critical endangered

00:07:28.200 species. And what does this require in terms of foresight around what species are perhaps

00:07:34.140 not currently endangered because of their location, but may soon become so?

00:07:40.760 It's a good question. The short answer is that, you know, many of these species simply become

00:07:47.260 endangered because of poaching and trafficking, because of wildlife crime. And it seems like that

00:07:53.120 unless they are, you know, the numbers are, you know, getting really low, nobody really cares.

00:07:58.200 And including, you know, including the media, it's, for example, in the mind of the people, lions in Africa are not really in danger while they are facing an incredible pressure, you know, from hunting and trophy hunting and trafficking of bones and fangs and meat for, you know, for the Asian market.

00:08:19.680 So my feeling is that if an animal is not really in danger, unfortunately, there's not enough attention around it.

00:08:30.980 So criminals can continue for years destroying the population until sometimes it's too late.

00:08:38.000 The example of the totoaba in the Gulf of California and, you know, I don't know how many of you knows about, you know, the vaquita crisis.

00:08:47.080 So the vaquita is the smallest and rarest porpoise.

00:08:50.200 It's a sort of whale.

00:08:51.800 They live only in the Gulf of California, in the Sea of Cortez.

00:08:55.080 And they were, you know, there are maybe between 20 and 30 individuals left in the whole Gulf of California.

00:09:03.680 There used to be hundreds.

00:09:05.420 And the reason is the vaquita is a bycatch of the fish that's called totoaba.

00:09:11.780 The swim bladder of these fishes is very, very expensive on the black market in China.

00:09:19.540 And the bycatch is this dolphin.

00:09:21.660 And only now everyone is actually waking up and say, hey, wow, we just have, there are only 20 left.

00:09:29.280 And only now they're finally starting to see this problem as a criminal problem.

00:09:35.600 Because until, believe me, until not long ago, it was just a sort of illegal fishing, but with poor fishermen and lack of law enforcement.

00:09:48.300 And, you know, at the end of the day, it was about animals, and so not that serious.

00:09:53.980 And our investigation actually showed that there are real cartels operating in the area now.

00:10:00.360 One single fish is $5,000.

00:10:02.760 We're talking about millions of dollars.

00:10:04.560 So former narco traffickers are now working together with Chinese traffickers.

00:10:10.080 And as you can imagine, it's a whole different film.

00:10:12.300 It's a completely different situation.

00:10:13.700 It's very dangerous.

00:10:14.840 People are actually involved, people getting killed, just because it's a lot of money.

00:10:19.720 And Vaquita is in the middle of all this.

00:10:22.180 And every year, the numbers are going down and down.

00:10:25.780 But this is a typical example of a species that, almost below the radar, progressively

00:10:30.940 disappear in front of our eyes.

00:10:32.560 It's extinction in real time.

00:10:34.560 I don't know, maybe we are sometimes bombarded with all those, you know, not only, you know, human emergency, but, you know, we know about the elephant, we know about the rhino, we know about the tiger.

00:10:43.760 So many other, many other species of many other crime related, wildlife crime related problems.

00:10:49.600 It's certainly a challenge for us.

00:10:51.460 You know, they are pretty much all fixated with the same two, three species.

00:10:55.840 Perhaps we can shift to the importance of an intelligence led approach to wildlife crime.

00:11:02.220 Now, the Elephant Action League, which you co-founded, clarifies that an intelligence-led approach is necessary to foster a proactive, impactful, and really disruptive approach to conservation models.

00:11:16.900 So I'd love if you could begin by sharing how the work of EAL differs from previous conservation models, and how can intelligence-led efforts serve as an opportunity to be more inclusive and less exploitative to communities that have been otherwise targeted under historical conservation models?

00:11:36.140 Yeah. If you allow me, I will link my answer to something we briefly touched before, so about poachers and poor people getting exploited by traffickers.

00:11:47.600 In my opinion, and this is one of the most important reasons we have been failing collectively in the past decades to face this problem in a different way, is that everyone, media, NGOs, donors, the public, they have been obsessed and focused on the very two ends of those supply chains.

00:12:11.000 We work in terms of illegal supply chain.

00:12:13.180 It doesn't really matter if it's a rhino horn, if it's ivory, if it's pangolin, if it's totoaba fish.

00:12:19.360 It doesn't really matter.

00:12:20.220 There is always a supply chain, an illegal supply chain with origin, transit, and destination countries.

00:12:26.020 And everyone is obsessed with the two ends of the supply chain.

00:12:29.380 On the one hand, you find the poacher.

00:12:32.840 And it's easy to consider poachers the villain, the people that you have to hate 0.99

00:12:40.040 and that you possibly want to kill them or jail them 0.97

00:12:43.520 because they are physically those who kill the animal. 0.99

00:12:46.920 Or everyone is fixated on the other end of the supply chain,

00:12:51.900 which is destination countries.

00:12:54.160 Let's try to change the mentality of the buyers

00:12:57.160 with billboards and awareness campaigns.

00:12:59.960 Let's use celebs and things like that.

00:13:02.800 Nobody's actually looking right in the middle of the supply chain

00:13:06.260 where the real enablers and drivers profit from everything.

00:13:10.040 And here where intelligence comes, if you look at other global threats like terrorism, like narco trafficking, like weapons of mass destruction, even organized crime, intelligence is always at the very heart of your strategy to fight back.

00:13:26.380 You cannot even dream to fight back terrorism or narco-trafficking without intelligence.

00:13:32.720 When you look at environmental crime, despite being the fourth largest criminal enterprise in the world, there's no intelligence.

00:13:41.260 Nobody is doing intelligence.

00:13:43.880 Why?

00:13:44.260 Because, you know, for governments, governments usually don't like other kinds of intelligence because, you know, they feel uncomfortable.

00:13:51.560 They, you know, they want to control information.

00:13:53.700 And for the regular NGO, it's too difficult.

00:13:57.920 If you look at other global threats like terrorism, like narco-trafficking, like weapons of mass destruction, organized crime, intelligence, you need intelligence to fight back.

00:14:07.120 Intelligence is at the very heart of your strategy to fight back.

00:14:11.080 You cannot dream to fight international narco-trafficking or terrorism without intelligence.

00:14:16.660 Because through intelligence, you know who does what and when.

00:14:20.520 you know things which is at the you know the base to understand what is the best strategy to

00:14:25.000 to fight in environmental crime there you don't find any sort of intelligence work by anyone

00:14:31.100 we think we are the only ones basically and governments they it's not a priority it's not

00:14:37.260 a big priority environmental crime so they don't set up intelligence services dedicated to

00:14:42.600 environmental crime and also they don't they usually feel uncomfortable within other you know

00:14:47.380 intelligence work that they cannot control. For an NGO, it's too difficult, beginning from their

00:14:53.700 mindset, even to understand what intelligence means. So most NGOs are, you know, they do

00:15:01.700 other kind of conservation work in the field. And if they deal with wildlife crime, environmental

00:15:06.280 crime, they do awareness, they do maybe capacity building, training, but nobody does real

00:15:12.680 professional intelligence work. I mean, long-term undercover operations aim at collecting all kind

00:15:20.380 of intelligence, all kind of information, producing intelligence that work with crime

00:15:24.940 analysts. So intelligence is basically collecting information 24-7, 360 degrees forever on anything

00:15:33.380 and anyone. Then if you do a good work, you produce actionable intelligence and this actionable

00:15:39.600 intelligence can be shared with law enforcement can be used for an investigation but you know

00:15:44.100 intelligence and investigation is two different things and that's the main problem in my opinion

00:15:49.040 actually actually this is the problem uh so right now we are fighting environmental crime globally

00:15:55.860 as boy scouts uh just you know by trying to kill and jail the poachers who are you know as you can

00:16:04.340 imagine easily replaceable and very often as exploited as the animals by the traffickers

00:16:10.000 or billboards and using celebs you know to tell people please don't buy ivory please respect

00:16:16.780 elephants and I believe me I've been to China many many times I met traffickers I met buyers

00:16:22.340 they they don't care so much about any message that we send from here so this is why our

00:16:29.880 organization is focused entirely on intelligence collection, the investigation as well. We talk

00:16:36.140 just in terms of crime and we talk to governments actually just in terms of crimes. We share a lot

00:16:43.100 of confidential information about high level targets of people, individuals, organization,

00:16:49.440 trafficking wildlife globally. And we share this information with Chinese authorities,

00:16:53.920 with U.S. authorities, Mexican authorities, Thai authorities,

00:16:58.180 Kenyan authorities, because our job is to do their job, basically,

00:17:02.240 to do what they are not doing.

00:17:04.360 So LFN Action League is unique not only in what we do,

00:17:10.140 but also who we are.

00:17:11.780 Our core team is made up of former CIA, former FBI,

00:17:16.360 former law enforcement, former crime analysts.

00:17:19.280 We are not the classic NGO.

00:17:21.780 You know, we are an NGO, but the DNA is very, very different, is actually more similar to an intelligence agency, because we consider vital to know as much as possible on those crimes. And sometimes, you know, the current approach is just, you know, very, very superficial. They just connecting a few dots on the surface without knowing that below those dots are gigantic icebergs that you have to know.

00:17:48.580 Mm-hmm. Yeah, that makes so much sense because the intelligence that you and the EAL crew are able to collect, like what you said was actionable intelligence. It's not just a few dots, but it's taking it to the extreme. It's taking it to the edge of the knowledge so that there can be strategies and implementation solutions or solutions implemented.

00:18:14.680 So I really, I really am excited by this and it's very, um, yeah, it's riveting to, to

00:18:20.620 hear about the work that you all are doing.

00:18:22.860 And, you know, and as I was preparing for this interview, I was reminded of just how

00:18:29.020 absolutely absurd and depraved this venture is that when we trace it to demand, we find

00:18:35.680 that cheetah cubs are shipped to the United Arab Emirates to be sold as pets through Instagram

00:18:41.340 or that marine life is literally lifted from hawaiian reefs flown to la then to miami and

00:18:47.520 then to russia where they're sold as pets yet as absurd as it is wildlife crime is like you were

00:18:54.220 saying earlier it's the world's fourth largest criminal enterprise and in 2016 the value was

00:19:00.800 estimated somewhere between 91 and 258 billion dollars so i would really love to hear more about

00:19:10.580 what sort of revenue is generated, not only in wildlife crime, but also through the bribes that

00:19:16.980 are necessary to facilitate this work. You know, where is the money coming from to continue to

00:19:21.840 finance such lavish and truly absurd imports and exports? Yeah, so it's a chain. That's why

00:19:30.280 it's very, we always suggest to look at these problems in terms of supply chains, okay? There

00:19:36.860 is the supply chain of ivory, there's a supply chain of rhino or coral or tutuaba. And like in

00:19:43.640 any other supply chain, not just illegal supply chain, there are always players, you know, actors

00:19:49.940 that are more important than others who actually drive the whole thing. So the demand for these

00:19:57.360 kind of products doesn't come only from the very, very end consumers, maybe a guy in China buying,

00:20:05.200 I don't know, ivory chopsticks. It's not that simple because a lot of demand is actually fueled

00:20:10.780 by the traffickers. Now, for example, the most important wildlife traffickers in the world

00:20:15.740 are based in Southeast Asia. So Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia. So the most important

00:20:22.060 wildlife traffickers are there and they have been operating from there for ages. So they are very,

00:20:27.520 they know exactly what they are doing. They can pretty much smuggle out of Africa, Asia, 0.77

00:20:32.940 and even Latin America, whatever you want. 0.93

00:20:35.840 They have the right channels. 0.51

00:20:37.840 They know exactly who to bribe and when to bribe.

00:20:41.320 And they combine it with other kind of trafficking.

00:20:44.340 Very interesting thing that you see in Southeast Asia with this trafficker

00:20:47.580 because it's our work actually to get very close to them.

00:20:50.760 We actually engage them.

00:20:52.020 Our undercover teams get very close to them, become friends.

00:20:55.940 Of course, we film them undercover because for us, evidence is everything.

00:21:00.260 When you want to help law enforcement, they need evidence, so we film meetings, we negotiate with them different kind of products, and you see the convergence of all this wildlife.

00:21:12.460 It's incredible.

00:21:13.060 The same person in Bangkok or in Hanoi, the same person, the same trafficker or trader during the same meeting can offer you rhino, ivory, pangolin, fish, live orangutans, and illegal timber during the same meeting.

00:21:32.280 And that's why it's so important to go after these people because, as you can imagine, they are difficult to replace.

00:21:40.420 They have a lot of knowledge.

00:21:42.760 When you capture them, you can actually get more information from them.

00:21:46.580 And, you know, when you take down one of these guys, like taking down a million poachers, you know, it's the ripple effect back to the field, Africa, Asia, whatever, is huge.

00:21:57.780 I give you an example.

00:21:59.000 A little bit more than a year ago in Bangkok, the Thai authorities arrested two of the most important wildlife traffickers in the world.

00:22:07.660 One was in Thailand.

00:22:08.720 The other one was in Laos.

00:22:10.420 And we did most of the work leading to the arrest, meaning that we conducted intelligence

00:22:17.160 operations and investigation for almost an year in Thailand and neighboring country.

00:22:22.060 And then when we got enough information, both were wanted, by the way, then we joined up

00:22:27.640 with the Thai law enforcement and they made the arrest.

00:22:31.660 And it's a classic, beautiful example of how an NGO like us can work in a good way, in

00:22:39.280 perfect way actually with law enforcement just helping each other these guys that got arrested

00:22:44.980 they are behind the smuggling of tons of ivory during the past year tons of rhino horns live

00:22:54.480 orangutan from from southeast asia from borneo so you can imagine the importance

00:23:00.440 to take down this kind of people of course you need time because intelligence requires time you 0.99

00:23:07.880 have to work you know you have to the way we work you know we have assets on the ground we build the

00:23:13.040 network of informants and sources and we collect information it's a you know sometimes it's a

00:23:18.360 it look it sounds glamorous but sometimes it's very boring because it's a lot of data that you

00:23:24.000 know we have to collect our crime analysts are you know incredible young people you know working

00:23:29.560 with different kind of softwares that they help the people in the field the teams in the field

00:23:34.420 to understand what we're getting.

00:23:36.620 And then finally, you know, piece by piece,

00:23:38.960 you see the puzzle in front of your eyes

00:23:40.980 and you see what you're getting from the field.

00:23:43.780 In that case, we got very close to these people

00:23:46.060 and then they got arrested.

00:23:47.360 So this is a classic example of intelligence work

00:23:51.240 and investigative work in the field

00:23:52.900 in collaboration with law enforcement

00:23:55.200 aimed at disrupting the supply chain

00:23:59.060 by hitting the right spots, you know, the right people.

00:24:03.080 Of course, I understand the regular person or the media understands better when a poacher gets killed in South Africa, for example, because you can even visualize it better, right?

00:24:18.820 You know, there is a rhino who is alive in the national park, and then the poachers got into the park and killed the rhino, and then the rangers killed the poacher.

00:24:28.320 And it's easy to understand.

00:24:29.740 And the problem is that then everyone is fixated with that situation and you think that you can reverse, you can fight back simply by doing anti-poaching.

00:24:41.180 This is a gigantic mistake to think that when you do anti-poaching, you're actually addressing the problem.

00:24:48.760 You are not addressing anything.

00:24:50.740 You're just buying time for those animals.

00:24:54.240 And that's why it's important to do anti-poaching. 0.72

00:24:56.580 But, you know, nobody should have the illusion that with antipochism, you're actually doing something to make, you know, to solve the situation.

00:25:26.580 That came from her life at home

00:25:32.120 Yeah, it's like those movies

00:25:38.040 A story that gets us sad

00:25:45.820 I love death

00:25:51.640 By the intimacy 0.73

00:25:54.180 See, I've got death

00:25:59.100 In the walking contradiction, you see you

00:26:04.840 See, walking all over your broken state 0.99

00:26:10.900 This significant mental disease 0.99

00:26:15.380 In our ocean buffet, we'll certainly take

00:26:22.180 I'd like to talk about anti-poaching and the militarization of conservation.

00:26:44.680 But first, I just want to finish up this thought around the supply chains.

00:26:50.600 And I'm thinking about the geography of trafficking and the function of transit countries, you know, their choke points and exit points and how they're just absolutely vital to maintaining the mass scale at which wildlife crime operates at.

00:27:05.760 So how do different geopolitical realities affect your operations in transit countries? Are certain government bodies, say, more hesitant in stopping criminals or less likely to cooperate with organizations like Elephant Action League?

00:27:20.600 Absolutely. This is a very important point that you mentioned. It affects a lot, not only our work, but in general. I can tell you, for example, I can give you a very easy example in Southeast Asia, where we mentioned before that some of the most important wildlife traffickers in the world live there.

00:27:38.940 you have a country like thailand where not only it's easy to establish uh you know a connection

00:27:47.580 a working collaboration with thai authorities but they also kind of proactive on that they

00:27:53.720 for example they became probably the best the thai custom i think is the best in southeast

00:27:59.040 asia in terms of profiling people coming from africa for example so they are able to understand

00:28:05.960 And before they land in Bangkok, if this guy, you know, potentially can carry something illegal.

00:28:15.020 And they do operation, they put people in jail.

00:28:18.980 The opposite, you find it in Vietnam, or even worse, in Laos, where, you know, they really, they are now a safe haven for wildlife traffickers.

00:28:28.940 because the local government not only does not do much

00:28:34.340 but is actually protecting some of them

00:28:36.480 because, of course, it's a lot of money

00:28:38.360 and some of the top officials are involved as well.

00:28:41.700 So it's a big problem.

00:28:43.720 I can tell you the same in Africa.

00:28:45.200 There are countries like Kenya, for example,

00:28:48.000 where you find law enforcement a little more active than other countries

00:28:53.300 and it's easy to collaborate or at least to exchange information

00:28:58.100 to give them information and the opposite is i don't know the republic of congo for example where

00:29:04.920 it's absolutely you know as you can imagine sort of no man land zero rule of law and you can do

00:29:12.680 whatever you want you just pay and you can put on the plane whatever you want it's a big problem

00:29:18.060 as an organization of course we are we try to operate where we can make a difference so it

00:29:24.620 It means, among other things, it means where there is a receptive law enforcement government agency that is willing and happy to receive information from us.

00:29:36.480 It doesn't mean necessarily that we have to work together, but at least you law enforcement have to acknowledge that we can provide useful information for you, and then you can use this information as you please.

00:29:49.820 And if you arrest people, you can actually even take the credit for it.

00:29:53.160 We don't care, as long as you do it, of course.

00:29:56.480 Another country where we are working is Mexico, for example, for the Totoaba-Vaquita crisis.

00:30:01.420 And we are in constant contact with the Mexican government, a bunch of ministries.

00:30:07.980 We share information with them.

00:30:10.120 So we put a lot of effort in understanding not only the right government agencies in each country,

00:30:16.840 but also the right person, because we want to deliver our intelligence reports to that

00:30:23.160 very person that we know is not corrupt, is honest, and he's really trying to do something.

00:30:30.480 So in some other countries, it's impossible.

00:30:34.380 But I can give you, I mean, I can tell you, for example, that we have been sharing with

00:30:39.120 the Chinese government for years now.

00:30:42.220 They acknowledge and they thank.

00:30:45.140 they don't tell you absolutely

00:30:47.040 they will never tell you what they are doing

00:30:49.140 with information

00:30:50.260 but at least they are willing to

00:30:53.180 accept it and that's good

00:30:55.060 it's a beginning you know as I always 1.00

00:30:57.360 say China is a

00:30:58.960 big part of the problem right now in terms of

00:31:01.180 environmental crime at the same time 0.98

00:31:03.140 we need China 0.98

00:31:04.760 to solve it 0.99

00:31:07.240 you know without China

00:31:08.240 without having China on board without 0.99

00:31:10.480 learning to work with China we will 1.00

00:31:12.840 lose everything we can go home 0.99

00:31:15.120 everyone today. That's why we put a lot of, you know, we try our best to work with them and to

00:31:21.780 share information that they can use. That's really fascinating to learn about

00:31:26.800 the relationship with China, because I know that China is the buyer and the seller of so many of

00:31:35.940 these wildlife organs and parts of these creatures. So I think it's a lesson in how to

00:31:44.060 work with quote the enemy so to speak um or work with the you know the person on the opposite side

00:31:50.520 of the spectrum but that we can't deny that we are going to have to work with people that we

00:31:56.340 absolutely disagree with or people that we think are the worst of the worst and any whether it's

00:32:01.580 within logging and pipelines and you know whatever we're we're fighting against so i i really i'd

00:32:06.740 love to hear more about that later but i do want to talk about this anti-poaching and militarization

00:32:12.160 And so I'd love to transition into a conversation around the militarization of conservation with you.

00:32:19.260 But before doing so, I'll clarify that you advocate intelligence work as a means to prevent the rising militarization of conservation, which I'm sure you're more than familiar with.

00:32:31.420 The militarization of conservation is also described as eco-militarization or the greening of the military.

00:32:38.060 And with the rise of eco-militarization, we have also seen the coalescence of conservation groups and private defense corporations, where I imagine these corporations are making significant money by providing emerging technology.

00:32:53.480 So my first question is, how are big conservation organizations complicit in funding militarized conservation operations?

00:33:03.400 And my second question is, what future problems does this method pose if we continue to normalize violence and military intervention as a rational application of conservation and species protection?

00:33:17.240 two very good questions and and they are they address very very important issue for me which

00:33:25.460 is exactly this the militarization of conservation which is a consequence of what we were talking

00:33:31.240 about before so everyone is fixated on anti-poaching everyone wants to see anti-poaching

00:33:37.440 and they they think they the only way to fight back is basically anti-poaching what anti-poaching

00:33:43.440 means uh it means boots on the ground uh special forces weapons and drones and i don't know one

00:33:51.620 time one day i would i'm expect i expect to see missiles and because they they thought they and

00:33:58.780 they still think that poaching is the beginning of the problem while in fact is the very end of

00:34:06.180 the problem is almost a consequence of the problem the problem is trafficking and demand

00:34:12.220 that comes before poaching but because of this i would say decades of policies by especially the

00:34:20.520 big ngos but also donors focus mostly on anti-poaching what that basically led to the rise

00:34:27.660 of a whole industry around anti-poaching me you know you find the former special forces training

00:34:36.500 local forces. I know them very well. I met some of them. I've been, I'm very familiar with the

00:34:43.880 whole thing. I witnessed myself some of those trainings in different countries. And you can

00:34:49.820 see that the scope of work is simply to kill the poachers. And it's at the same time, very sad 0.78

00:34:58.800 to see because you know i remind you that the a lot of the poachers are poor people and they are

00:35:07.680 offer three four five years of salary to kill one elephant and maybe they have a family of five ten

00:35:17.380 at home waiting for them so it's very you know as i always say in africa in those conditions

00:35:24.780 is actually very difficult to remain honest it takes i don't know a lot of courage because the

00:35:30.880 temptation is simply too big as i always say if i start offering here in los angeles five ten times

00:35:36.680 the salary of a person to do something i will have long lines of people willing to do pretty

00:35:41.760 much everything here in los angeles can imagine in the middle of africa people that you know

00:35:46.860 doesn't have anything so you see now you have all these uh different groups doing different things

00:35:53.220 working with the former special forces they are working with drones training local groups local

00:36:01.860 rangers in all sort of guerrilla warfare ambush and in some cases you know you have a few places

00:36:11.040 in africa for example garamba national park in congo where yes you have a very very unique

00:36:17.840 situation in terms of poaching. Poachers are actually militias and sometimes basically

00:36:23.620 terrorists. So you do need this kind of preparation if you want to protect a national park. But in

00:36:29.780 many other cases, in my opinion, everyone is just putting a lot of money into fighting back with

00:36:36.600 weapons, while in reality, what you really need is to fight back with information. Intelligence

00:36:43.540 decrease the militarization of information imagine to fight a war i don't know nobody likes war so i

00:36:50.340 don't want to i don't want to you know make an example that people will not like but imagine to

00:36:55.180 fight the war against terrorism in afghanistan without intelligence simply bombing left and

00:37:02.700 right and killing single i don't know taliban and and that's it and then a little bit of propaganda

00:37:08.140 awareness that's it without intelligence without knowing who does what and who is very for real

00:37:13.880 important and who is not important at all right now we are fighting environmental crime like this 0.56

00:37:18.980 blind we are just killing people and and try to convince consumers not to buy this product we 0.97

00:37:27.940 know now what is the situation so i it's mind-blowing you know it's i really don't understand

00:37:33.320 why the people and the international community

00:37:37.560 doesn't understand that without intelligence,

00:37:40.240 we will lose not only these speeches very soon,

00:37:43.980 but we will also lose all the millions of dollars

00:37:46.080 that we put to protect these speeches so far.

00:37:49.220 Yeah, it's really insane.

00:37:51.280 It's just, it doesn't make sense.

00:37:53.380 And I've seen the propaganda that you're talking about

00:37:56.320 where people are saying,

00:37:59.580 oh, look, it's the local people, they're armed,

00:38:01.960 the local people are the ones protecting the wildlife against the poachers and there is this

00:38:08.400 kind of villain and hero story narrative that people get attached to and you know and it's a

00:38:14.500 very it's a very deep narrative for us as humans the the enemy and the victorious justice seeking

00:38:20.460 person and as much as i i can understand this narrative i also see this other narrative coming

00:38:28.420 up right now too i actually just read an article and it was titled millions of forest dwelling

00:38:34.340 people are about to be evicted in the name of conservation and the the headline the supreme

00:38:40.160 court of india has directed 16 states to evict all scheduled tribe members and other traditional

00:38:46.840 forest dwellers before july 27th whose claims were rejected under the forest right act in 2006

00:38:52.320 And it's interesting because, you know, there's this issue that poachers are coming into these lands and killing wildlife.

00:39:01.760 But then there's also an issue of indigenous peoples and conservationists thinking that they're in the way of the wildlife.

00:39:09.960 So I'm seeing these two pieces and I know that, you know, I'm not sure if you are aware of the removal of indigenous peoples from land, say in Africa or Latin America, is tied in with the poachers?

00:39:26.500 Or do you feel like this is just a whole other narrative altogether in the name of protecting the wildlife?

00:39:32.260 Yeah, I think it's a different narrative, partially linked to environmental crime. But you also have to, for example, in Africa, you also have to think that there is no, over there, of course, you have no, absolutely no zoning or planning when you, urban planning, when you build stuff.

00:39:54.300 Okay. So a lot of important national parks are not only completely surrounded by villages, by people, but also, of course, these people need to survive. They need the wood for the fire and everything. So they need to graze the fine place for the cows to graze.

00:40:15.320 So there is a pretty significant, you know, anthropic pressure on those white places and the white places are getting smaller and smaller. 0.94

00:40:25.020 My prediction is that, you know, in maybe in a few decades from now in Africa, you will see white animals just in within very large enclosures. 0.94

00:40:34.980 And that's it. And, you know, national parks here and there. 0.93

00:40:38.640 And that's it will be because at the same time, there is also no control on on the growth of the population.

00:40:45.320 And so there's no family planning as well.

00:40:47.420 So you have every year you have millions of new people who need a job, who need to eat, who need to do, you know, to live and less and less space for for the wild creatures, you know, for wilderness.

00:41:01.820 Then it's up to us, you know, to decide collectively, OK, how much how many wild animals we want?

00:41:07.320 We cannot have as many as we want because simply there is no space anymore.

00:41:11.860 But my point is that whatever you decide, then you really have to protect it. And you don't protect those wild spaces just by hammering on, you know, on the poor people around the park, jailing poachers and deploying the military.

00:41:28.060 I don't think this is the right way to protect those places.

00:41:31.340 You have to have a more strategic approach, again, based on intelligence, based on to know who does what, to base what's going on in that place.

00:41:41.800 And, of course, it goes without saying work with local population as much as possible.

00:41:46.860 You know, the locals are your first line of defense, you know, are the guardians.

00:41:51.860 So you have to find a way to have them on board.

00:41:54.440 You just need a couple of very organized criminal groups to create havoc, you know, to destroy everything under the nose of law enforcement and under the nose of local populations.

00:42:06.600 So it's a very, very difficult situation, I have to admit.

00:42:13.000 There is simply not enough space for wild animals.

00:42:16.660 And at the same time, many of those wild animals are now a product, a very, very profitable product.

00:42:25.520 So how do you protect them?

00:42:28.620 Again, an example from Mexico, the Totoaba crisis and the Baquita crisis.

00:42:34.380 Fishermen over there, they're very poor,

00:42:36.580 and they usually make around $500, $600 per month

00:42:40.960 fishing shrimps and other fishes.

00:42:45.000 With only one to 12 fish, they make $5,000.

00:42:49.040 So how do you stop that?

00:42:51.600 I went there, I spent there a year and a half.

00:42:54.340 There is absolutely nothing else to do in terms of work.

00:42:57.880 The government is far away.

00:43:00.600 They all have families.

00:43:01.720 and the whole thing is actually now managed by organized crime.

00:43:05.780 So how do you protect the place like that?

00:43:08.840 I think it's self-evident that you will not be able to protect it with weapons.

00:43:14.360 You have to deploy the whole army to protect the place like that

00:43:17.460 and still probably will not be effective.

00:43:20.380 You have to be more strategic and more intelligent

00:43:22.420 to approach those kind of problems.

00:43:25.280 Unfortunately, I don't see this strategy being used

00:43:29.160 almost anywhere in the world, actually.

00:43:31.720 Thank you.

00:44:01.720 This is a wedding for my foes

00:44:28.160 Waiting for my followers

00:44:33.460 Representing my forgotten thoughts

00:44:42.160 My forgotten thoughts 0.99

00:44:51.640 I hear your analysis and I was thinking back to The Ivory Game,

00:44:57.440 a film that you were in with richard lacania's director and it was really yeah gosh just i

00:45:04.280 remember this scene of villagers in africa and they were so frustrated with the elephants because

00:45:11.220 the elephants were coming into their farms and destroying their crop and they needed to feed

00:45:15.620 their children and so there was a there was this uh kind of battle around like well is the government

00:45:20.580 or conservation groups going to pay for fences so that the elephants can't get into their home

00:45:25.700 and their farms and they were saying we will kill these elephants if they continue to ruin our crops

00:45:31.980 because we need to feed our children and so i i really hear this complex issue of well the wildlife

00:45:39.280 needs space to survive and then the local people many of whom most of whom are impoverished they

00:45:46.320 need space to live create homes create jobs you know have water and water is you know we know the

00:45:54.300 water crisis all over the globe and there the water is dwindling more and more and more of

00:45:58.680 course the water isn't dwindling for corporate resource extraction projects because those the

00:46:03.400 corporations get as much water as they need but then what's left over is minimal for the rest

00:46:08.180 of the people in the in the wildlife so i i do see the complexity of this and i feel

00:46:14.340 such heartache going into the future knowing that all of us humans more than humans we are going to

00:46:23.540 be struggling to see who gets to survive um you know who who gets to have the resources in order

00:46:31.120 to continue living and it's really it's really challenging and so of course i go back to this

00:46:37.880 question of ultimately we need to go for the root of the problem and the root of the problem

00:46:44.980 i'm wondering you know is that demand and then let's just say we're only talking right now about

00:46:51.800 the poaching i'm wondering is the root of the problem the demand so how is demand destroyed

00:46:57.340 and who oversees this and then you know we talked about how to do this without criminalizing the

00:47:02.980 poor and with cultural sensitivity in mind given that historically global environmental

00:47:08.320 interventions have been part of a problematic western imposition imperialism and assimilation

00:47:14.160 so if we need to go to destroy the demand yeah i kind of just want you to be able to speak to this

00:47:21.480 this big lump of confusion that i've just laid on you

00:47:24.880 yeah because on the you know mainstream media present this problem in my opinion is in an

00:47:32.680 oversimplistic way putting a lot of you know a lot on the on the shoulders of of poachers and

00:47:38.580 and talking mostly just about the poaching grounds it's actually more complex and when

00:47:43.400 you start analyzing the complexity of this problem then you'll get into this mental matrix because

00:47:48.500 then you understand oh wow it's it's not only complex but we were actually we have been focusing

00:47:53.680 on the right on on a very small portion of this problem for decades and elephants actually is a

00:47:59.060 good example you know elephants just in 200 years is incredible what happened to elephants you know

00:48:04.460 200 years ago they we had around 27 million elephants in africa 200 years ago 100 years ago

00:48:11.940 there were already only 5 million and now it's 350 000 elephants probably in the whole africa

00:48:18.580 it's a sort of a holocaust almost in 200 years they've been wiped out from the continent

00:48:24.200 and still we still have this problem if you ask many countries in africa they will tell you 0.98

00:48:30.660 there are still too many because why there are too many well because people there's a lot of

00:48:36.940 people now and compared to 200 years ago and it's simply not space enough but just you know going

00:48:42.340 back to the china problem i have one example very recent from our work that explained how

00:48:49.420 poaching is actually connected to the demand and to china so we have been working as you said on

00:48:55.660 this problem in baja california illegal fishing of totoaba and the extinction basically of the

00:49:01.120 vaquita this little little dolphin little porpoise so we have been sharing information with the

00:49:06.660 chinese authorities for over a year on the chinese traffickers so illegal traders that

00:49:12.880 would traffic also totoaba swim bladder okay just to give you an example uh for this swim bladder

00:49:19.980 we just said in the gulf of california fishermen get something like five thousand dollars especially 0.99

00:49:26.060 if it's a female from one swim bladder the same swim bladder on the black market in china is

00:49:31.900 easily get, goes to 30,000, 35,000, 50,000. We saw, we've seen bladders at $100,000. Okay. So 0.71

00:49:40.620 imagine the profits behind. That's why, again, it's a criminal organization behind. So what

00:49:46.240 happened recently is that the Chinese authorities arrested about a month and a half ago, there was

00:49:52.920 the very first big bust in China on Totoaba traffickers. They arrested dozens of people

00:49:59.840 and millions of dollars of totoaba seized at the same time the mexican authorities are finally

00:50:07.060 putting some pressure on the chinese traders in mexico and we all we're also doing the same you

00:50:13.540 know openly with our work and with the with the film sea of shadows so there is a there's a new

00:50:19.540 pressure on the chinese side of this problem so very interesting interestingly about a week ago

00:50:26.780 We have sources on the ground in Mexico, in Baja California, and these sources were telling us, listen, we are seeing something strange.

00:50:35.220 The price of Totoaba collapsed from $5,000 to $2,500, and some illegal fishermen and traders and basically criminals are complaining that because of the pressure on the Chinese traders in Mexico and in China, this whole thing became all of a sudden too complicated, too dangerous, and not profitable as it used to be,

00:51:00.600 Because the Chinese traders do not have enough money to invest in new nets, so in new illegal

00:51:07.360 phishing activities. 0.97

00:51:08.840 And that is extremely interesting.

00:51:10.660 This is a great example of what intelligence and investigative work can do on the supply

00:51:16.760 chain.

00:51:17.280 So all of a sudden, you are choking the demand along the entire supply chain because it becomes

00:51:23.580 not profitable enough.

00:51:25.620 And why?

00:51:26.020 Because the key players along the supply chain are finally getting some pressure.

00:51:32.480 And that, I think, is a great example of what we should be seeing in many other instances, in many other supply chains.

00:51:41.480 Good intelligence work and investigative work leading to effective law enforcement action that causes some sort of ripple effects along the supply chain all the way to the poaching grounds.

00:51:53.860 That's a great example of we should be all working towards this from now on and without overdoing on the poachers.

00:52:02.980 it's interesting to hear how the demand it's not so much the people who are trying to buy

00:52:09.480 the totawaba bladder for medicine it's like the demand comes from this this really greedy desire

00:52:16.120 to make as much money as the cartels can so it's like an inflated amount it's not it's not really

00:52:23.120 the demand of the medicine it's this inflation due to these criminalized organizations or some

00:52:30.000 I think that's how I'm understanding it.

00:52:32.720 Correct.

00:52:33.380 The side of the problem is also, of course, the consumers, in this case, in China, and they have to be educated that it is wrong to buy totoaba, for example, or it is wrong to buy rhino horn.

00:52:45.940 But let's not forget they have been doing this for centuries. 0.93

00:52:48.780 And only in the very young Chinese generation, we are beginning to see a change. 0.96

00:52:54.640 They are different from their fathers and mothers. 1.00

00:52:57.100 But it will take time.

00:52:58.200 it will take at least a full generational change before seeing some significant effects in the

00:53:04.560 consumer mind in China. In the meantime, you have to find a way to tackle this problem in different

00:53:10.480 ways. And the only way we found is, okay, it's crime. Let's fight it as a crime, not as an

00:53:17.500 environmental issue only. It's actually crime because these traders along the supply chain

00:53:23.160 have all the interest in fueling the demand and in pouring, in this case, totoaba or even

00:53:28.580 rhino, continue to bring, never stop.

00:53:31.180 So a consumer, if he wants to buy rhino or if they want to buy totoaba, they have to

00:53:36.840 be able to do it.

00:53:37.600 But let's not forget, those consumers can buy many other things, including legal things.

00:53:42.420 OK, it's not that they die if they don't buy totoaba.

00:53:45.820 If the one day they will not find totoaba anymore or it will become so difficult or

00:53:50.140 so dangerous and police will put you in jail believe me they will stop doing it because there 0.93

00:53:54.760 is one thing only that chinese consumer fear and is law enforcement nothing else they are afraid of 1.00

00:54:02.100 their government and they are afraid of law enforcement so every time law enforcement 0.77

00:54:05.680 really wants to change something they can do it overnight basically in that country

00:54:09.720 so right now they don't do it because it's not a priority but you have to you don't have to think

00:54:15.480 of the consumers of the very final consumer as the only engine behind the whole thing is very

00:54:22.440 wrong it's equally wrong as to as seeing the poachers as the engine behind the whole thing

00:54:28.160 it's and i know it it makes sense to think as you said before these are two narratives that

00:54:34.720 easy to understand right the villain the poacher the bad guy in the field who killed the animal

00:54:39.780 And then the Chinese, you know, rich guy who buys ivory. 0.95

00:54:44.720 Yes, they are part of the same equation. 0.91

00:54:47.920 But what I'm saying is that they are not the most important variable of this equation.

00:54:53.760 It makes so much sense.

00:54:56.120 I am so just blown away by the work that you and your team do, Andrea.

00:55:01.800 It's so important.

00:55:03.120 It's very courageous and it isn't talked about enough.

00:55:06.220 And I'm really grateful to you in this conversation how you've been able to kind of smash through these simplistic narratives that we're told and to really start to help us understand how these systems maintain themselves and what we could do to actually disrupt the flow of these cartels.

00:55:31.460 And how that ties into the bigger systems of government, economics, relationships with local people, poverty. I mean, it's just so dense. And I'm really happy that there are people like you who are out there giving their lives.

00:55:47.420 And I hear the sacrifice that you and others have had to give in order to protect these creatures, these kin of ours.

00:55:55.280 And I want to say that I know in this modern culture, we're kind of taught that we are the most important people, humans or ourselves.

00:56:03.880 You know, we got to make sure we're happy.

00:56:05.240 We got to, you know, why sacrifice?

00:56:07.140 But anything that is really worth it, take sacrifice.

00:56:11.080 Anything that we want to see changed in this very twisted world, it will take sacrifice from each of us to bring these solutions to fruition.

00:56:22.260 And so I'm so grateful that you were willing to do that with your life.

00:56:26.360 And, you know, like I said, I have probably 100 more questions rattling in my head.

00:56:31.360 But for now, I am going to really sit with this information.

00:56:35.340 it's actually this is a i have to tell you it was a very great i mean it was a great interview you

00:56:42.440 had really good question that i rarely hear if not ever and uh because the the problem is that

00:56:49.680 a lot of media approach this uh this problem in a very simplistic way and it's not good when you

00:56:56.740 oversimplify something that is really complicated the risk is to is to put your attention on the

00:57:02.540 wrong part of the problem oh my gosh absolutely the risk i mean the the attention and the money

00:57:07.660 i mean the attention and the funding to go into the wrong place that's never going to actually

00:57:12.220 resolve the issue and then and then what's so dangerous is that we think we're doing something

00:57:17.340 whether if we're donating we think we're doing it but that's what's dangerous about that

00:57:21.700 that's that's the you said something so important that myself i repeated so many times during my

00:57:26.820 speeches and conferences when there's nothing more dangerous in general in life for a person

00:57:32.140 when you think you are doing something and in reality you are not doing anything that's super

00:57:36.660 dangerous then when the bad guys really laugh at you yeah well and i i definitely see that being

00:57:43.860 the same thing with um a lot of social media you know we we keep thinking that we're doing things

00:57:49.780 but it's really just this ball of distraction that's a that could be a whole hour conversation

00:57:55.620 in and of itself just the strategies of the strategies and the myths and misinformation

00:58:00.780 of how we are going about our tactics.

00:58:03.840 It's really interesting.

00:58:05.340 Yeah.

00:58:27.180 Thanks so much for listening to For the Wild podcast.

00:58:30.040 I'm Ayanna Young

00:58:31.460 the music you heard today was from

00:58:33.860 Ila Bamba

00:58:34.460 I'd like to thank our incredible team

00:58:37.040 who worked so hard day in day out

00:58:39.240 to bring you this content

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For The Wild - April 03, 2019

ANDREA CROSTA on the World of Wildlife Crime ⧸113

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