Intelligence Brute: ACOG

Wildlife Crime

Illegal wildlife trade is a multi-billion-dollar industry that is decimating countless species around the globe, and that also extracts a heavy toll on the rangers, law enforcement officers, prosecutors, judges, and other dedicated conservationists putting their lives on the line to protect our world’s most imperiled species. The illegal wildlife trade is estimated to bring in up to $20 billion annually for international criminal networks and terrorist organizations, and the historically light sentences faced by poachers make wildlife trafficking a low risk-high reward crime for the perpetrators. This booming trade is devastating some of the world’s most beloved and iconic species, including Africa’s elephant and rhino species.

EIA has an extensive history of exposing illegal trade in endangered species products, including elephant ivory, rhino horn, tiger bone and skins, bear gall bladders, whale, dolphin and porpoise products, turtle shell, large scale trade in live caught wild birds and parrots, and destruction or degrading of their terrestrial or marine habitats. Our strategies rely on detailed investigations to document illegal trade in products of such threatened species, and we use that evidence to gain international and domestic precautionary policies and solutions to increase protections for threatened species.

Featured Work

Related Resources

Report

Pursuing Global Magnitsky Sanctions for Corruption Related to Wildlife Crime in South Africa

In May 2022, the Environmental Investigation Agency made a formal submission to the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Department of the Treasury recommending sanctions against Sibusiso Eric Nzimande, Regional Court President for the province of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa, for involvement in widespread corruption related to wildlife crime, including rhino poaching, and human […]

Press Release

On Human Rights Day Conservationists Call for Prosecution of Senior Member of South African Judiciary for Corruption Linked to Rhino Poaching and Human Rights Abuses

The Washington DC-based Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) is calling on the Government of South Africa to prosecute Sibusiso Eric Nzimande, Regional Court President of KwaZulu-Natal, for soliciting bribes and committing other acts of corruption that benefitted rhino poachers and the perpetrators of other violent crimes. EIA has submitted evidence of Mr. Nzimande’s corruption to the […]

Blog

Cutting Through The Noise: EIA’s Take on International Progress to Reduce Underwater Noise in Commercial Shipping

Recently, EIA attended the Ship Design and Construction Sub-Committee (SDC 9) meeting of the International Maritime Organization (IMO) in London. The IMO is where countries meet to agree on regulatory frameworks to, among other things, minimize the environmental impacts of shipping. EIA has been participating in IMO meetings for nearly eight years. We worked together […]

Letters

Letter: NGOs Urge Action from Tokyo on Ivory

On January 19, 2023, EIA and 17 other Japanese and international NGOs sent a letter to Tokyo’s Governor Koike, applauding her and the Tokyo Metropolitan Government for action taken on the trade in elephant ivory thus far. The organizations also encouraged Tokyo to continue to heed the recommendations from the designated Advisory Council, including by enacting an ordinance […]

Press Release

Japan Prime Minister Urged to Commit to Japan’s Ivory Market Closure

Washington, DC and Tokyo, Japan – Before the 19th meeting of the Parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) Nov 14-25, non-government organizations are appealing to Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida for Japan’s commitment to closing its ivory market to protect elephants from the threat of […]