Wild Daze

Jambo

- Our ancestors originally came

from the tropical rainforest.

So, the tropical rainforest in a sense,

is our Garden of Eden. And the gardeners

in the Garden of Eden are the megafauna: the orangutans,

the elephants, and occasionally the rhinoceros,

believe it or not.

The fate of tropical rainforest

is inextricably tied to the fate of these megafauna.

So, do we need rainforests?

Of course we need rainforests.

We need oxygen, we need to breath.

It's a cliché to say by saving orangutans

or by saving elephants, we are saving ourselves.

But it's actually true if we look at the longterm.

Humans are very bad at looking at the long term.

We want it now.

- Yes, it's always very difficult in our terribly busy,

frantic, and dangerous world to focus on non-human issues.

But nevertheless there is a massive crisis going on

with wildlife around the world.

And it's not just the charismatic species

that we're talking about.

There are a ton of smaller species

that are also under massive threat and species

that we don't favor quite so much.

Evolution, or evolutionary biologists, some might say,

and certainly creationists might say,

and certainly religions might say, that the human being

is the pinnacle of evolution.

Well, if it is, we are one

of the stupidest species on the planet.

Because I cannot think of any other species

that goes around intentionally trashing its own home.

So, if we're the apex of evolution,

then if there is a God, He made a real mistake.

- Once you understand there's no sharp line dividing us

from the rest of the animal kingdom and that we are part

of the animal kingdom and not as we arrogantly suppose,

somehow separated, you then can ask yourself,

"Well, okay how is it that we're different?"

because we are different.

And I think it's the explosive development

of the human intellect.

And so how come the most intellectual species

to ever walk the planet is wiping out the other life forms,

is destroying ecosystems...

Because this, in the end,

is going to lead to our destruction.

So, we destroy these animals at our own peril

without thinking of the future of our own species.

The real cause of wildlife crime

is corruption, and corruption, it's greed.

The real conflict is powerful people,

many times government officials, who are the ones

in the heart of organized crime,

that's basically activating hundreds of poachers,

across many countries.

The illegal wildlife trade is not rooted in poverty at all.

In fact, poverty has nothing to do with this issue.

It is in fact, the rich and the powerful

that actually are the part of this problem.

- These are people that have made reputations

and made a very, very, very strong impact in the world

and they've made that impact in a very violent way.

They've killed people, they've executed entire families,

they've bribed officials, they've put people in places

where they can make decisions

that impact policies and governments.

You're not talking about you know, your run of the mill,

poor poacher who's running around with a 1947 rifle.

You're talking about extremely powerful,

extremely influential people in positions of power

that simply snap their fingers and make people disappear.

- Why are we not just going

in there with drones?

- I thought you wanted to hear the answer

to the other question which was a much better question.

- Okay, so the question is,

are we losing this war?

- Yes, right now we certainly are.

And it's not just that we're losing the war,

the rate at which we are losing the war is increasing.

There is evidence coming across my desk every day

of the gravity of the situation.

It is more serious than anyone can express standing here.

It's certainly easier to say, well, it isn't that bad.

I'm looking at a small portion.

My job is to look at the big scale.

I've worked in the field in parks.

I've worked in countries.

I've worked on regions.

Now I look at bigger picture

and that bigger picture is really serious right now.

- My interest in organized crime came from years

of being a journalist, working in conflict areas

and unstable areas of the world.

And what I found was no matter where I went

whatever the so-called problem of the day was,

was predicated on crime and corruption.

The U.S. government could have more impact

if we go after the networks that facilitate all sorts

of organized crime, instead of trying

to fight specific types of organized crime.

There are far fewer people who know how to launder

and move large amounts of illicit cash

than there are poachers sneaking into parks across Africa.

If we can stop the money, make it harder for them

to move money through the global financial system

we're going to have more impact in shutting this down.

And not just the ivory problem,

but the human trafficking problem, tax evasion,

the departure of revenues from corrupt

and developing countries.

There are all sorts of treaties that already exist

that prohibit the extraction of natural resources

illegally from Africa.

We could be applying those to the wildlife trade.

And we need to think about this

as not just a ecological disaster

but a national security issues,

an international security issue.

The people who are moving ivory,

the people who are moving rhino horn,

are the same people who are moving young women

from Bangkok to Africa and Europe,

the same people who are moving drugs up

into consumer markets.

It's the people who have the capacity

to move illegal products

through the global transport system.

And it's the people who have the capacity

to launder illicit money

through the global transport system.

And so what the United States,

and pretty much every other government does,

is they stovepipe all of those different commodities

and they give different departments the responsibility

to deal with those different commodities.

So, we will have a department that handles wildlife,

we'll have a department that deals with narcotics

and a department that handles terrorism.

And the bad guys are all working together.

You know, you never see a drug trafficker

in Afghanistan who says,

"I'm not giving that Al Qaeda guy my heroine to carry.

"He doesn't have the authorities to carry my dope."

No, they're all working together.

- It's a wide range of different kinds of groups.

Some are groups that have been designated

as terrorist organizations by the U.S. government.

Some are rebel militias, some are organized crime networks

and some are actually state actors,

military or police units that are taking advantage

of natural resources in the

- One of the biggest and least discussed problems

in the world today is that the illicit extraction

of resources from most developing countries

is about 10 times what they get in foreign aid.

So you're never going to get ahead of this problem

until we can stop it.

If we can stop the money

we're gonna have more impact in shutting this down.

We'll be able to have much more of an impact

against these violent networks if we go after them

for their totality of their activities for drugs,

for wildlife, for people, for guns.

I hear these going in Africa as cheap as 75 dollars.

A better quality one may be $100, $150, $200 dollars

depending on what they are.

- These are not hunting guns, right?

- No, they're the best thing ever made for shooting people.

Serious, that's what they're for.

They're for shooting people.

It's not a competition gun.

It's not really intended for hunting.

It's really probably one of the most efficient guns

ever made for shooting bad people.

That's why they are so prolific in the world.

- This rhino horn here weighs six, seven pounds.

I don't remember if this is the front or the back.

I don't know that much about them, but alls I know

is this right here on the retail market

is worth about 650,000 dollars.

That amazes me to think that, because what

that equivalates to is somewhere around 35,000 of these.

When you got $650,000 dollars in that horn right there

and you can buy a bunch of these, how much terror

do you think this whole game drives?

It's about a weapon bought to kill an elephant

and then used to rob a bank.

It's about entire local communities, poor local communities,

getting exploited by traffickers that arrive

and offer five, six years salary.

Of course, they kill an elephant for five years of salary

in Africa; they will do it here in Los Angeles.

- What we got here is about a four-foot tusk