Investigator - Spring 2015

Investigator environmental investigation agency

EIA Investigator Spring 15 | www.eia-international.org

ALSO INSIDE THIS ISSUE 03 Botswana wildlife crime summit shows more needs to be done

04 Rampant ivory crime exposed in Tanzania and China

06

Endangered wildlife on the menu and shelves in Laos’ Sin City

Rare hornbill bird pushed to the brink by illegal trade

07 Call for action to save world’s last 100 vaquita porpoises

02

EIA Investigator Spring 15 | www.eia-international.org

A message from our Campaigns Director, Julian Newman A major theme of this issue of Investigator is EIA’s work to tackle the growing wildlife crime crisis. The word crisis is not an exaggeration; surging illegal trade in wildlife threatens the survival of a host of species. To counter this menace, EIA focuses on exposing the immoral criminal syndicates behind the poaching and smuggling of threatened species, and campaigns for more stringent enforcement to counter their nefarious activities.

EIA’s dedicated wildlife campaigners and investigators have been working flat out to address the current threat. Last November, we issued a major report on elephant poaching and ivory smuggling in Tanzania, the country which has lost half of its elephant population in the past five years. Vanishing Point involved detailed scrutiny of ivory seizures and court records, as well as the infiltration of major ivory smuggling groups by EIA’s undercover investigators. In March, we shone a spotlight on the dark secret of the Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone in Laos in the report Sin City, which detailed extensive illegal wildlife trade, especially of tigers, in the casino-dominated zone.

EIA is also raising awareness of the plight of lesser-known species increasingly imperilled by illegal trade. These include the majestic helmeted hornbill bird, the distinctive head casque of which is now worth more than ivory, and the totoaba fish, where frenzied trade in its swim bladder is linked to by-catch of the critically endangered vaquita porpoise.

This Investigator also contains a report back from the Botswana Conference on the Illegal Wildlife Trade held in March as a follow-up to last year’s London meeting. Such high-level political gatherings are vital in curbing wildlife crime, as long as the resulting communiques and statements are put into action.

In its 30-year history, EIA has been involved in successfully countering previous spikes, such as the elephant and rhino crises of the late 1980s and early 1990s, and we believe that through strong enforcement backed up by political will the tide can once again be turned.

As always, we rely on your support to carry out our vital mission.

Julian Newman Campaigns Director

CONTENTS 03

Botswana meeting shows progress but more needs to be done to fight wildlife crime

04 Written and edited by EIA Designed by: www.designsolutions.me.uk Printed by: Emmerson Press (www.emmersonpress.co.uk) Cover image: Live pangolin for sale to diners in the Kings Romans complex, Laos © EIA/ENV All images © EIA unless otherwise shown

Vanishing Point exposes rampant ivory crime and corruption in Tanzania & China

05

EIA goes inside the lawless resort in Laos where tourists can buy endangered species

Printed on 100% recycled paper

06

Helmeted hornbills pushed to the brink by illegal trade in their carved beaks

07

No time to lose in taking action to save the world’s last 100 vaquita porpoises

08

Widespread corruption in Indonesia’s palm oil sector driving illegal logging

09

The alarming scale of international trafficking in illegal ozone-depleting substances

10

Author Neil Gaiman at the 13th annual Douglas Adams Memorial Lecture

11

Members’ Zone

A huge and heartfelt thanks to our members and supporters. Without you we would not be able to carry out our vital work.

ENVIRONMENTAL INVESTIGATION AGENCY 62-63 Upper Street, London N1 ONY, UK Tel: 020 7354 7960 email: ukinfo@eia-international.org PO Box 53343, Washington DC 20009, USA. Tel: 202 483 6621 Fax: 202 986 8626 email: info@eia-global.org

03

Botswana meeting shows progress but more needs to be done to fight wildlife crime ONE year ago, the London Conference on Illegal Wildlife Trade gave international prominence to the serious threats faced by many endangered species and in March EIA campaigners were in Botswana for the follow-up to determine what progress has been made.

Building on the London Declaration on Illegal Wildlife Trade of February 2014, the Kasane Conference on Illegal Wildlife Trade concluded with the adoption of a statement which galvanises high-level political commitment to combat the “scourge of illegal wildlife trade”.

“The Kasane Statement illustrates just how far we still have to go and we look forward to seeing tangible evidence of enhanced efforts; in particular, targeted efforts to disrupt wildlife crime networks, increased access to court judgements for the purpose of analysing reasons for acquittals and rationale for weak sentencing, and an end to domestic markets for ivory and tiger parts.”

Particular gaps highlighted at Kasane included: • making greater efforts to reduce demand;

It also recognises the efforts made to date by participating governments to work towards implementation of the commitments under the London Declaration – but stresses that much more still needs to be done.

• strengthening legislation in relation to penalties and following the money associated with wildlife crime;

EIA Executive Director Mary Rice, who was one of the few NGO representatives to address the conference, said afterwards she was heartened by the growing articulation of concern at how legal markets stimulate demand, which in turn drives poaching.

• supporting networks of prosecutors;

“We are encouraged by the determination expressed to pursue implementation of historical commitments to combat wildlife crime, including commitments under CITES and the London Declaration,” she said.

A tale of the Blood of the Tiger THE key front line role of EIA in exposing and opposing the illegal trade in tiger parts and products has been showcased in a new book by activist and author Judith Mills.

Blood of the Tiger: A Story of Conspiracy, Greed and the Battle to Save a Magnificent Species is her personal behind-the-scenes account, and in it she pays extensive tribute to the ground-breaking work over the years of EIA’s Tiger Campaign.

Blood of the Tiger is available to buy from Amazon.

• increasing resources and capacity along the length of the criminal justice chain;

• better engaging local communities.

The governments meeting in Kasane have called upon the UN General Assembly to address illegal wildlife trade at its 69th session in September and to support the preparation of an ambitious resolution for that meeting.

Vietnam has offered to host the third highlevel conference on illegal wildlife trade in late 2016.

Carved ivory import ban ‘largely windowdressing’ EIA’s Elephants Campaign remained sceptical when China announced in late February a one-year temporary prohibition on the import of carved African ivory products obtained after the 1989 international ivory trade ban.

While welcoming it as a positive step from China, Mary Rice pointed out: “The temporary ban does not apply to the massive domestic legal ivory market in China which continues to perpetuate the desirability of and illegal trade in ivory, stimulates demand and provides an avenue for laundering illegal ivory.

“In effect, the announcement is largely a window-dressing exercise.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxx

“China has the wherewithal to emerge as a world leader and champion in the fight against ivory trafficking by adopting a total ban on domestic trade in ivory – this is the policy change that would actually make a difference for elephants worldwide.”

04

© Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

EIA Investigator Spring 15 | www.eia-international.org

Elephant skull in the Selous, Tanzania

Vanishing Point exposes rampant ivory crime and corruption in Tanzania & China EIA is used to its hard-hitting reports making waves but November’s exposé of the corruption driving the widespread slaughter of elephants in Tanzania led to an exceptional flood of high-profile international coverage.

Vanishing Point – Criminality, Corruption and the Devastation of Tanzania’s Elephants was released on the eve of a major regional wildlife crime summit in Tanzania and detailed how its elephants are being poached in vast numbers to feed China’s ivory trade.

The key findings of the report concerned the activities of Chinese-led criminal gangs conspiring with corrupt Tanzanian officials to traffic huge amounts of ivory, to the extent that available evidence indicates Tanzania has been losing approximately 30 elephants a day in recent years.

But what really caught the attention of the media – and, in turn, the most senior

levels of the Government of China – was the revelation that even diplomatic visits by high-level Chinese delegations have been used to smuggle ivory.

American political satire The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, which helped spread the information even further in the item Tusky Business.

In December 2013, an official visit by a Chinese naval task force to Tanzania’s capital city port of Dar es Salaam prompted a major surge in business for ivory traders and the arrest of a Chinese national caught trying to deliver 81 illegal tusks to the naval vessels.

The coverage prompted a series of blanket denials from Tanzanian and Chinese government officials, often employing misdirection and outrage to avoid answering the main charges of the report.

And the previous March, a large official delegation accompanying Chinese President Xi Jinping to Tanzania created a boom in illegal ivory sales – with two illegal ivory traders alleging that ivory was taken back to China in diplomatic bags aboard the President’s official plane.

Within hours of the report’s release, EIA’s campaigners were being sought for interview as the story rolled out around the world and eventually onto the popular

EIA Executive Director Mary Rice warned that the scale of poaching posed a direct threat to the future of Tanzania’s elephants and its tourism industry.

“The ivory trade must be disrupted at all levels of criminality, the entire prosecution chain needs to be systemically restructured … and all trade in ivory, including all domestic sales, must be resolutely banned in China.”

05

But it’s also a lawless playground in which tourists can indulge in a taste for endangered wildlife, with “sauté tiger meat” and bear paws on the menu and open trade in endangered species products from tigers, leopards, elephants, rhinos, pangolins, helmeted hornbills, snakes and bears – smuggled in from Asia and Africa.

Released in March, the EIA report Sin City: Illegal Wildlife Trade in Laos’ Special Economic Zone documents how the Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone (GT SEZ) in Bokeo Province has become a major hub for illegal wildlife trade.

And undercover investigators from EIA and its partner Education for Nature Vietnam (ENV) found the complex has ambitious plans for the manufacture of tiger bone wine, seeking to acquire a total of 50 breeding females with the long-term goal of producing 1,000 tigers for the manufacture of tiger bone wine for consumption on-site and export to China.

Chinese company Kings Romans Group has a 99-year lease on the site and an 80 per cent stake in the operation; the Government of Laos has the other

20 per cent, has declared the complex a duty-free area and given it political patronage at the highest level.

Time to put climate first

Despite being in Laos, the GT SEZ is effectively an extension of China – it runs on Beijing time, signs are in Mandarin, most workers are Chinese nationals and the Chinese yuan is the main currency.

Chinese tourists can visit with just an identity card rather than a passport and a Chinese state-owned company has been commissioned to build an international airport.

CAMPAIGNERS from EIA joined thousands of other protesters on the streets of London in March to demand more governmental action to tackle climate change.

The Time to Act march sought to urge political leaders to put climate on the table by taking ambitious domestic actions and to help drive forward a global deal in Paris at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change negotiations this December.

Debbie Banks, EIA Head of Tigers Campaign, said: “The Government of China urgently needs to recognise the immense damage this place does to its international reputation and to take meaningful action to rein in a Chinese company which is, in effect, running amuck with impunity in a neighbouring country with weak governance.”

Circus tiger case exposes flaws in China’s trade

The report called for the Government of Laos to immediately establish a multi-agency task force to tackle illegal wildlife trade at the GT SEZ and across the country, and to seize all illegal wildlife products at the GT SEZ. It also called on China to investigate connections between Chinese businesses and traders operating at the GT SEZ and wildlife criminals operating between Laos, Myanmar and China.

INVESTIGATIONS into the discovery of the body of a Siberian tiger in a car in Wenzhou, China, revealed the murky nature of China’s ‘legal’ tiger trade.

The buyer was arrested at the scene while the seller fled and, after several months, a group connected to the illegal tiger carcass trade was caught.

It was found that the Wenzhou tiger carcass came from the China circus town of Suzhou, in Anhui province.

After detailed investigations, it was determined that the tiger had died from an illness.

Stuffed tigers for sale at the Laos GT SEZ

© © EIA/ENV Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Officially, the Kings Romans resort complex in Laos is a casino and hotel complex catering to Chinese tourists, in whose home country gambling is banned.

© Jill Thomson

EIA goes inside the lawless resort in Laos where tourists can buy endangered species

The Wenzhou tiger had been transferred five times and potentially could have ended up on someone’s dinner table, its black market price doubling in that time from 150,000 yuan to 300,0000.

Head of Tigers Campaign Debbie Banks said: “While the rest of the world is trying to end tiger trade, China’s policies are encouraging a high-value commercial enterprise that is driving it.”

EIA Investigator Spring 15 | www.eia-international.org

Outcry against journalist killing in Cambodia EIA joined 28 other environmental organisations in October to collectively condemn the murder of Cambodian journalist Taing Try. Taing Try, an environmental reporter, was shot dead while investigating illegal logging and the associated illegal trade in timber in the southern province of Kratie.

Keeping up the pressure on Icelandic whaling

© Doug Janson

06

AS Iceland’s fin whaling season ended in October with 137 endangered fin whales slaughtered for profit, EIA and its campaign partners sought to keep the pressure on.

Helmeted hornbills pushed to the brink by illegal trade in their carved beaks

Icelandic whaling company Hvalur has close ties to seafood company HB Grandi, which in turn supplies Iceland Seafood International and Warners Fish Merchants.

WHILE tigers, elephants and rhinos are usually the focus of attention in terms of illegal wildlife trade, many other species are exploited below the radar of the mainstream media.

We urged supporters to write to politely ask them to use their connections to pressure Hvalur to quit whaling.

For example, significantly less well known is the trafficking of the carved beaks of helmeted hornbills, which often command black market prices higher than ivory.

New website for better access on the go!

EIA’s website underwent a relaunch in February with a fresh look and a bit of a spring clean throughout.

The most obvious change for most visitors was the new look of the homepage, redesigned to incorporate a new transitioning banner highlighting the key areas of our work, de-cluttered and expanded to showcase a lot more recent news and film content.

More significantly, we restructured the entire site to incorporate responsive design technology, allowing for optimum display when viewing it on mobile devices such as tablets and iphones.

EIA has been monitoring trade in ivory and rhino horn for the past two decades, from gathering intelligence via face-to-face conversations with traders in Africa and Asia to monitoring the ever-growing online sales.

Just as they had to learn the etiquette needed to engage traders face-on, EIA covert investigators have had to acquire the coded jargon used to communicate with online suppliers, such as ‘black’ for rhino horn and ‘white’ for ivory. In recent years, another colour – ‘red’ – has become increasingly prominent; taking its origins from its Chinese name, hedinghong (hong = red), this ‘red’ is code for the beaks of helmeted hornbills.

The main consumer market for helmeted hornbill beaks is China, where they are traded and processed through the same carving industries handling ivory and sold in shops as luxury products such as jewellery and decorative ornaments.

Retailing at about five times the average price of black market ivory in weight, helmeted hornbill beak products have become increasingly popular to the extent that ‘red’ has significantly elevated as a status symbol to its ‘black’ and ‘white’ counterparts.

The helmeted hornbill is a large, almost prehistoric-looking bird inhabiting the South-East Asia forests of Sumatra and Borneo, and its most distinctive physical feature is the unique casque, or helmet, above its red/yellow beak.

A combination of habitat destruction and poaching has left this bird perched on the most-threatened Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species since 1975.

Yet with far more attention on ivory and rhino horn, the trade in hornbill beak products has largely gone unnoticed and unhindered.

An EIA undercover investigator who monitors the trade said: “One thing is for sure, alongside the ‘black’ and ‘white’ products in trade that EIA regularly monitors, the volume of ‘red’ products in trade has become widespread in recent years and that can only be a profoundly worrying sign for these majestic birds.”

07

No time to lose in taking action to save the world’s last 100 vaquita porpoises ON Mexico’s National Day of Conservation in November, EIA joined with three other organisations to call on that country’s Government to take forceful protective measures to save the critically endangered vaquita.

and the trade in endangered totoaba, a fish whose swim bladder is highly valued in Chinese cuisine and for traditional medicines.

The vaquita is a tiny porpoise species that only inhabits the upper Gulf of California but it is believed fewer than 100 remain and it is predicted to become extinct by 2018 unless urgent action is taken.

In August 2014, Mexico’s Comité Internacional para la Recuperación de la Vaquita (CIRVA) released a report on the vaquita’s plight. It found that just 97 vaquita, including fewer than 25 reproductively mature females, remain and that the population is declining by 18.5 per cent a year.

Although not directly hunted in its own right, the vaquita has become the bystander victim of illegal gillnetting

The report recommended a ban on all gillnetting in the vaquita’s habitat and enhanced enforcement efforts to combat

illegal gillnetting and the trade in totoaba – moves endorsed by EIA. “The resurgence of illegal totoaba fishing for the Chinese market has increased the speed at which the vaquita hurtles towards extinction,” warned Clare Perry, head of EIA’s Oceans Campaign.

“This species could be pushed to the point of no return in a matter of months unless Mexico significantly steps up both at-sea and shore-based enforcement efforts and works together with the United States and China to combat the organised criminal networks that perpetuate the trade.”

Investigators back from Japan with dolphin hunt footage and new mercury contamination data EIA investigators returned from Japan in March with shocking new evidence of the killing and live capture of dolphins in Taiji’s notorious cove.

They also probed the sale in local supermarkets of dolphin meat derived from the kills and obtained a number of samples to test for mercury and other pollutants.

Many Japanese citizens are unaware of the risks to human health of consuming cetacean meat, which is often contaminated with toxins at considerably higher levels than those officially recommended by the Japanese Government.

As well as successfully persuading supermarket chains and such leading internet marketplaces as Amazon Japan, Google and Rakuten to stop selling all whale and dolphin products, EIA works to make consumers aware of the human health risks as a means to driving down demand.

You can view the Taiji footage on our website at eia-international.org.

08

EIA Investigator Spring 15 | www.eia-international.org

Activist murdered in confrontation

Widespread corruption in Indonesia’s palm oil sector driving illegal logging IN December, the Forest Campaign’s ongoing exposure of major problems in Indonesia’s palm oil plantations sector revealed how an endemic culture of corruption and poor law enforcement is generating a flood of illicit timber.

Permitting Crime: How palm oil expansion drives illegal logging in Indonesia featured in-depth case studies of clear violations of licensing procedures and other laws in Central Kalimantan, a forest crime black spot.

The report documented outright violations of plantation licensing, timber and environmental regulations by firms clear-cutting forests in some of Indonesia’s richest tracts of rainforest.

EIA was one of 25 organisations in March to jointly protest the murder of Indonesian activist Indra Kailani, killed in a confrontation with security staff employed by a subsidiary of Indonesia’s largest pulp and paper company.

Almost all oil palm plantations in the country are willfully evading Indonesia’s Timber Legality Verification System (Sistem Verifikasi Legalitas Kayu, or SVLK), a mandatory law implemented in September 2010 as a cornerstone of efforts to ensure only legal timber is produced in the country.

The letter was sent to parent company Asia Pulp and Paper, the Government of Indonesia, the European Commission, the European Delegation in Indonesia and the Indonesian Embassy in Brusssels.

“Illegal logging in oil palm concessions is out of control and Indonesia’s revamped timber laws have completely failed to rein it in,” cautioned Forest Campaigner Tomasz Johnson.

Europe acts over single-use plastic bags

The report urged the Government of Indonesia to enforce existing laws and purge corruption in oil palm and timber sectors.

FOLLOWING an action alert for supporters to urge the UK Government to stop opposing European Union plans for binding targets to reduce single-use plastic bags, EIA welcomed an agreement in November for EU-wide measures to address the issue.

It showed clear links between a series of palm oil concessions, a corrupt local mayor and one of the highest-profile Indonesian political graft cases of recent years; also, attempts by a palm oil firm to pay US$45,000 to police to bury an investigation into its illegal operations and cases in which local governments had sold out local communities and facilitated the transfer of millions of dollars of their resources to private firms.

Once adopted, the new rules will allow EU countries to choose either to impose mandatory charges for plastic bags, or to introduce measures to reduce consumption of single use plastic bags to 90 bags per person by end of 2019 and 40 bags per person by the end of 2025 (the EU average in 2010 was 198).

© Ivy Main

© Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

“While it’s clear that Member States could and should go a lot further, this agreement is a very positive result given the recalcitrance of certain Member states, including the UK,” said Clare Perry, Head of Oceans Campaign.

09

The alarming scale of international trafficking in illegal ozonedepleting substances CLIMATE campaigners threw a spotlight on the illicit trade in smuggling ozone-depleting substances (ODS) in a new briefing in November.

New Trends in ODS Smuggling, prepared for the 26th Meeting of the Montreal Protocol in Paris, served as a stark warning of the challenges faced by attempts to help mitigate global warming by phasing out the use of fluorinated gases as refrigerants.

The Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer was created in 1987 and has since been ratified by 197 nations, establishing legally binding controls on the national production and consumption of ODS and ultimately aiming for a complete phase-out. EIA remains the only NGO probing the illegal ODS trade.

However, the criminal trade in ODS began following the first wave of chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) phase-outs and continues to this day.

Global demand for refrigerants has risen significantly, with peak hydrochlorofluorocarbon (HCFC) consumption approximately three times greater than CFC production at its peak.

Cautioning that the likely scale of illegal HCFC trade will be larger than that for CFCs, the briefing outlined how the use of HCFC-22 in developing countries rose by 11 per cent from 2011-12.

Customs trade data shows the potential for illegal trade, with codes relating to trade in HCFCs revealing that on average reported imports of HCFC-22 are 32 per cent lower than China’s reported exports of the gas.

New Trends in ODS Smuggling detailed several international cases of illegal HCFC-22, including: • Spain – 30 1,000kg cylinders of HCFC-22 found in a 2012 raid; • Russia – more than 1,500 cylinders of CFCs and HCFCs of Chinese origin seized in January 2014; • India – 182 tonnes of HCFC-22 from China seized in March 2013 and a further 1,305 cylinders of HCFC-22 concealed in a shipment of oranges from Dubai in August 2013; • China – in May 2014, a TV investigation revealed widespread use of CFC-12 for vehicle air-conditioning, estimating about 80 per cent of all cans marked as HFC-134a could contain CFC-12.

EIA urged Parties to the Montreal Protocol to analyse Customs trade data discrepancies and to request additional Customs training to ensure large tanks of refrigerants are routinely checked.

“

The likely scale of illegal HCFC trade will be larger than that for CFCs.

High Street stores urged to shut the door on fridges to fight climate change and cut bills!

THE sixth instalment in EIA’s game-changing Chilling Facts series of reports was released in October with a call on leading High Street retailers to help fight climate change by closing the door on open refrigerated display units.

The report revealed that the take-up of climate-friendly refrigeration by supermarket chains is spreading faster and more widely than ever.

But EIA campaigners felt major retailers could do more – and significantly cut their energy bills – by fitting doors on their refrigeration units.

“Adding doors can result in energy savings of about 33 per cent,” said Senior Climate Campaigner Fionnuala Walravens. “Those companies reluctant to make the move claim doors would significantly reduce impulse-buying but the evidence from retailers who have introduced doors refutes this – in fact, there’s even testimony that having doors in place reduces shoplifting!”

EIA is the leading NGO working directly to eradicate climate-harmful refrigerants such as hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), a group of super greenhouse gases hundreds to thousands of times more potent than carbon dioxide which are widely used in refrigeration, air-conditioning, fire protection, aerosols and foams.

10

EIA Investigator Spring 15 | www.eia-international.org

MEET THE TEAM NAME: Vicky Lee AGE: 31 BORN: China EDUCATION: Degree in Communications.

CAMPAIGN SPECIALISM: I work across EIA’s campaigns on China-related issues.

WHAT FIRST INTERESTED YOU IN ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES?: For my previous work in China, I travelled extensively across the country. I saw a country that was rapidly transforming and its people busy fighting for a better life – so much so that most have forgotten the cost of getting wealthy and comfortable.

My heart sank every time I saw the appalling pollution in the air and water, wasteful business banquets and the prevailing aspiration for new gadgets and fashion items with little regard for the environment. I wanted to work towards changing the way Chinese people consume to a more ethical and environmentally conscious approach.

WHAT IS YOUR MOST MEMORABLE EXPERIENCE AT EIA?: There was one day all the EIA staff took a couple of hours to call EIA supporters to thank them for donations. I was given a list of 20 people and I remember so vividly speaking to a senior gentleman. We chatted about what EIA has been doing lately and when I asked if there was anything more he would like to know, he paused for two seconds and said: ‘You know, the reason I’m supporting you is because I am very concerned about Chinese people and the damage they are causing’. I laughed and said ‘You may be right but I’m a Chinese myself and I work with so many more Chinese environmentalists for the same cause’. He got a bit embarrassed and (being very British) started apologising – but I was just so happy that I had a chance to let him know that I am also trying to do something positive.

“The great thing about actually meeting an elephant or a giraffe or a rhino is that they do not disappoint” – Neil Gaiman THE 13th annual Douglas Adams Memorial Lecture was delivered to a packed audience at London’s Royal Geographical Society in March by celebrated author and screenwriter, Neil Gaiman.

Entitled On Immortality and Douglas, he spoke of the timeless nature of stories in general and, in particular, where Adams’ stellar work fits into this theme.

Douglas Adams was a fixture of Neil Gaiman’s adult life, from the moment he interviewed him as a fresh-faced

journalist. While enthralling as ever, it was touching to see how much Douglas meant to him.

This series of annual lectures raises money for two organisations that were particularly close to Douglas’s heart, EIA and Save the Rhino.

Our sincere thanks to Neil, Douglas’ family and friends, and the small army of staff and volunteers from EIA and Save the Rhino who helped to make this such an enjoyable and successful event.

11

Members’

Big Give 2014 – thanks!

ONCE again, thank-you for your support during the 2014 Big Give Christmas Challenge.

For the third consecutive year, we surpassed our £20,000 target; the monies received will directly help to support EIA’s work to expose and counter illegal wildlife trade.

Look out for details of the 2015 challenge in your next edition of Investigator!

Direct Debit Request SOME of you may have recently received a phone call from our volunteer Julia at EIA HQ. Julia has been helping us to contact those members who pay an annual membership fee to ask if they might consider moving their payment to a monthly Direct Debit.

There are many advantages to paying via Direct Debit.

Regular payments help streamline our financial processes and cut administrative costs.

Setting up a Direct Debit is quick and easy. If you would like to find out about doing so, please contact the fundraising team on fundraising@eia-international.org or call +44 (0)20 7354 7960

Raffle Congratulations to Mrs P Sneddon, Mrs E Stone and Mr C Waters, the respective 1st, 2nd and 3rd prize winners of our Christmas Raffle 2014!

To be in with a chance of winning £1,000, please fill in the raffle tickets contained in your pack and return them in the freepost envelope provided!

If you don’t have any raffle tickets with your Investigator but would like to enter, please call 020 7354 7960 or email fundraising@eia-international.org.

Z NE MEMBER PROFILE Dr Patrick Curry has been an EIA supporter since 1991.

“In February, I organised an evening event in north London on behalf of EIA’s campaign to save the world’s wild tigers,” he said.

“People were invited through Barry McGinlay, of Tai Chi Life, who teaches me tai chi and qi gong, and affiliate groups. Despite the winter blues and general over-busyness, we treated those who made it there to some interesting talks on the Chinese martial arts and Taoism, and succeeded in raising £400.

“I discussed the important place of the tiger in Chinese cultural life and history.

Along with the dragon, the phoenix and the tortoise, it has been one of the principal symbolic animals for thousands of years.

All the more irony, therefore, that it is the Chinese Government’s toleration of trade in tiger body parts that is driving the wild tiger to extinction.

“I am a longstanding supporter of the EIA. I value it for its fearless work (one of the tiger’s virtues!) and its emphasis on action over bureaucracy. As the author of Ecological Ethics (2011), I appreciate its awareness that wild places and wild animals need each other, and we need them both.’’

Curry

Dr Patrick

Get involved to help EIA fight environmental crime!

• MAY 17, 2015 – Super Hero Run. Charity fun run over five or 10km in London’s Regent’s Park, plus a free costume for every participant.

• OCTOBER 9, 2015 – Save Wild Tigers Gala Dinner. Drinks reception followed by dinner and inspiring entertainment at the iconic Savoy Hotel London. For information and to book tickets, please email inspire@savewildtigers or contact Save Wild Tigers on +44 (0) 1628 498492. Please say you’re a supporter of EIA. • OCTOBER 11, 2015 – Royal Parks Half Marathon. Covering 13.1 miles through stunning London scenery, this run starts and finishes in Hyde Park.

• DECEMBER 3-5, 2015 – Big Give 2015. EIA once again intends to take park in the Big Give Christmas Challenge this year; we’ll announce which project it will be in aid of in the next Investigator.

• APRIL 17, 2016 – Brighton Marathon 2016. EIA will again have places available for the 26.2-mile course around the picturesque seaside town.

• APRIL 17-23, 2016 – Gary Hodges Exhibition. The Mall Galleries will host the acclaimed pencil artist’s first solo selling show in 22 years, to benefit EIA and Born Free Foundation.

For more information on any of these events, please email fundraising@eia-international.org or call 020 7354 7960.