"ELEPHANT GRUNTS" "'Our most iconic African species are being pushed towards extinction." "'Killed by poachers to supply an illegal trade 'worth up to £15 billion a year.'" "Oh, it's sickening." "'Bearing the brunt of this onslaught are Africa's elephants, 'shot down for their ivories." "'Despite a ban on the international ivory trade, 'the killing is only getting worse.'" "'30,000 are shot every year." "'And if that continues, 'they could be gone from the wild within 25 years.'" "'Now, I'm on the search for solutions.'" "Can we get after this guy?" "'I reach the front line of Africa's poaching war...'" "I guess I better get this on." "'..and plunge into the shady underworld 'of criminal dealers in Asia.'" " I can see straightaway that this is..." " Real." " ..real." "'I witness the plight facing another 'of Africa's most vulnerable species...'" "GUNSHOTS" "'..and the work being done to try and stop the killing.'" "I can see the carcass right here." "That's a very grisly sight." "'I want to find out if the desire for rhino horn 'and ivory can be halted.'" " Good morning, your Royal Highness." " Nice to see you again." " Good to see you." "It is fixable and we can do something about it." "What action can be taken to end this lethal trade?" "I have taken sides in this debate..." "Because now is the time for us to do all we can to save Africa's most iconic species." "I've been trying to find out how we can save Africa's elephants from the slide towards extinction." "So far, I've followed the ivory trail from the poaching hot spot of northern Mozambique... to the thriving ivory markets of Asia." "I found evidence that poached African ivory is restocking the shops in Hong Kong." "And I've discovered that huge amounts of historic ivory have been coming over from closer to home." "Back in the UK," "I've been looking into our own legal market in carved ivory antiques." "What's your estimate of how many ivory pieces get sold in the UK in the average week?" "500 to 1,000 pieces, I should think." " Really?" " Yeah." "There's clear evidence that serious quantities are being bought up and shipped out to Asia." "When you get a solid block, something carved that has a weight to it, that's where the Chinese and Vietnamese are buying it." "Official figures show that last year, over 2,500 pieces of UK ivory arrived in Hong Kong alone." "Once it gets there, it's fuelling the very same market that's selling poached African ivory." "I'm convinced that sending so much ivory from the UK into the Asian market is making us complicit with the killing of elephants in Africa, making it more likely that today and tomorrow somebody will go into the bush with a gun and kill an elephant for its ivory." "So what can we do about that?" "Well, our government has promised twice now, in 2010 and 2015, to ban the ivory trade." "I'm looking at the 2015 manifesto right here." ""We will press for a total ban on ivory sales."" "So why hasn't this happened yet?" "I think the best way to find out is to ask our government for an interview for this programme, to tell me and to tell you what they're going to do about the ivory problem." "So here goes. "Dear, Minister..."" "Now I'm turning my attention to the battle to save another species under just as much pressure as the elephant." "I am heading for South Africa's Kruger National Park." "On the way, I've stopped at a game reserve in Swaziland to try and get close to one of these animals." "Rhino." " Oh, yes." "Fantastic." " Yeah." "He's stunning, Bongani, thank you so much for bringing me here." "That's incredible." "Look at him." "What a beautiful animal." "He's got a magnificent horn on him." "Yeah, it's one of my favourite." "It's not easy to find." "Beautiful." "Absolutely lovely." "'The voracious demand for rhino horn in Asia means the levels of poaching 'in South Africa have gone through the roof, 'from 13 rhino killed in 2007 to almost 1,200 last year.'" "I've been finding out about the illegal trade in rhino horn and poaching and the grisly end that so many of these animals come to." "Just to see one standing here today looking so fine," " it's just great." " Yeah, it's magical." "It is, magical." "At the start of the 20th century, there were around half a million rhino." "But today, there are just 29,000 left, and a third of them live in one famous South African reserve." "So this is the Kruger Park, the busiest game reserve in Africa, with over a million visitors every year." "And I get a sense of how busy it is, it's lunchtime here, the restaurant terrace is getting busy," "I can hear the clinking of cutlery, the scraping of chairs." "But this is also the busiest place in Africa for the killing of rhinos, with between two or three animals being lost every day for over a year now." "It's happening right here." "Protecting the rhino here has become an urgent, multi-million dollar effort, funded by the South African government and international philanthropists." "It includes helicopters, a military-style command and an army of rangers who regularly engage poachers in deadly firefights." "There's even a team to gather crime scene evidence from the carcass of every poached rhino, and I'm joining them for the day." "I don't know how many dead rhinos I'm going to see today." "I don't really want to see ANY dead rhinos, but I have to." "That's why I'm here, to see for myself just how bad the problem of poaching is here in Kruger." " This way, 250." " 250 more?" "Yeah." "I can see the carcass right here, just between these two bushes." "Oh, that's a very grisly sight." "Park ranger Russell has witnessed the alarming escalation of poaching here first-hand." "How many times have you seen a dead rhino here in the park?" " Many times." " So the way this has been cut tells you that this has been done by experienced poachers?" " Yes." " How long will it take them to remove the horns?" "I can estimate based on the distance." "If they kill a rhino and we have to respond, about 1km." "When you get there now, they are finished." "So the time it takes you to walk or run 1km" " after you've heard a shot..." " Yeah." " ..the horn's gone?" " It's gone, yes." "Just 200 metres away, we find a second carcass, and the team have a backlog of three more to try and examine before the end of the day." "The documenting of this slaughter has, for the Kruger Park autopsy team, become routine." "Today, they managed to find some evidence." "Wow, that is heavy." "That is quite a lump of lead, isn't it?" "'This bullet could be used to prosecute poachers." "'But convictions are rare, 'unless the poachers are caught in possession of rhino horns." "'And the ones from these poor animals could already 'be thousands of miles away.'" "Just outside the park, people in the town of Hoedspruit are taking more direct action." "They want to try and stop the poaching before it happens." "Steven." "Ja..." "I'm joining farmers, private rhino rangers and the local police on one of their regular night-time operations." "We are going to look for weapons, rhino horn, any suspicious stuff around rhino poaching." "You're going to need this tonight." "Bulletproof for you." "I guess I better get this on." "The fact that everyone's going to be wearing these tonight says something at least about the seriousness of the operation." "I guess this is it, I'm on the front line now." "'First, we set up a roadblock on one of the main routes into Kruger.'" "THEY CHATTER" "Any spaces capable of hiding guns or rhino horn are thoroughly checked." "TYRES SCREECH" "ENGINE ROARS" "What's happened here?" "'Suddenly, a car approaching the roadblock 'has done a rapid U-turn.'" "Just goes to show that there's serious stuff going on here, nobody's going to drive away from a roadblock unless they've got something to hide." "What's the news, Rankin?" " He's got away?" " He got away, ja." "When somebody makes a really quick getaway like that, what sort of hunch does that give you about what they could be up to?" "Weapons." "Weapons." "Normally, rifles and stuff, to come and shoot, or to come and drop off for poachers." " Frustrating." " Yeah, it is, very frustrating." "The second phase of the operation gets underway." "The team have been tipped off that poachers may be hiding at a camp on a nearby farm." "'Illegal guns have been found on previous raids 'on farm camps like this one.'" "There's a guy running across the roof." "'A large migrant population is drawn to this area from Mozambique 'and Zimbabwe to try and scrape a living picking fruit.'" "There's the door." "We can go in there." "Look at this." "It's one of the crudest shelters I've ever seen." "These people must be pretty desperate." "Desperate for work, desperate for money, desperate for something." "What have you got there?" "There's a person here." "Unbelievable." "This man has good reason to be hiding," " but it's nothing to do with poaching." " Work permit?" "MAN MUTTERS" "Then you are here illegally." "When you see how they are living here... it's too hard, isn't it?" "Really tough." "IN ENGLISH:" "Three men have been arrested tonight and charged with being illegal immigrants." "This evening started as a hunt for poachers, but it's become a sobering insight into some deeply-rooted social problems." "I haven't seen anything this evening that connects any of these guys to rhino poaching at all." "But I have seen some pretty desperate people being rounded up and taken away from their very miserable living quarters." "HE SIGHS" "It was a fairly uncomfortable evening to see these guys being dragged around and pulled down here." "Sometimes on these raids, they do find guns and they do find things that connect people living in these circumstances to the poaching of rhinos." "And I guess, actually, from what I've seen, that's not hard to believe, not because of anyone" "I've met tonight or any of these guys behind me, but just because if you multiply up these desperate circumstances a few thousand times, then, yeah, you're going to find a few people who are desperate enough," "for the promise of money, to pick up a gun and go into the bush and shoot a rhino." "And on one level, you have to ask yourself... who could blame them?" "I can see that there is a war being fought in and around the Kruger National Park." "It's fuelled by the huge amount of money that flows from rhino horn." "Over 200 poachers are reported to have been killed in gunfights with rangers in the park." "And there are battles outside too." "A third of South Africa's rhino are on private game reserves, and I've just heard of an incident involving one of the private security firms that protects them, called Protrack." "I don't really have any detail at the moment but I'm on my way to Protrack's offices now to see if I can find out a bit more." "I've arranged to meet the operations manager, Shaene Tintinger." " Hi, Shaene." "How's it going?" " Good." " Good to meet you." " How are you?" "I heard there was an incident but I haven't heard any detail yet, Shaene." "Yeah, one of our guys got shot while on duty protecting rhinos." "This was a fatal shooting?" "I don't think, initially, it was." "He was shot in the leg, but because of the circumstances," "I think he bled to death." "It sounds like, in the last few years, the escalation around the protection of rhino has just been crazy." "I mean, you're in pretty much a war situation." "The amount of armed contacts are escalating hugely." "So that tells us one thing." "The poachers are coming a bit more prepared for contact." "How inevitable is it that this situation" " gets worse rather than better?" " Absolutely inevitable." "It is going to get worse." "What makes you so convinced of that?" "Because of the value that rhino horn carries." "You've got to relate this problem to, eh, serious drug cartel and drug smuggling, and people die because of that stuff." "People die because of diamonds, people die because of gold." "Rhino horn has a higher value than any of those things I've mentioned." "It carries a higher value." "So, where there's high value and high reward, people are prepared to do high-risk things to get that." "Fighting off poachers with military-grade defences might slow down the killing of rhinos and elephants, but I don't think it's going to save these species." "The value of the end products is just too high, and there are too many people willing to take risks for the money involved." "Behind the poaching are the traffickers and dealers, raking in the big cash from ivory and rhino horn, so who are these people?" "Morning." "'I want to try and infiltrate the shady world 'of the international wildlife criminal." "'So I've come to the Wildlife Justice Commission in the Hague.'" " Hi." " Hello." " How's it going?" " Hugh." " Hi." "TJ." "TJ, nice to meet you." "By the way, are those your real names?" "THEY LAUGH" " Ah, no." " They're not?" "'This NGO operates undercover to investigate 'some of the world's biggest dealers." "'They present their evidence 'to the governments of the countries concerned, 'pressing them to take action.'" "What sort of social media sites are being used?" "We monitor WeChat and we monitor traders using WeChat." "So, WeChat is very big in Asia?" "It is." "This is not behind closed doors." " This happens in the open." " We're not talking about the darknet here?" "This is just free, open trading on WeChat, Asian WeChat, which is one of the busiest social network sites in the world?" "Do you want us to show you how easy it is?" "Yeah, please." "'I'm joining their current investigation 'of big-time Vietnamese dealers." "'And for that, I need a fake online identity.'" "What do you have in mind?" "Something vaguely close to Hugh." "Have you got a good Chinese name that sounds a bit like Hugh?" "THEY CHUCKLE" "Little Wu." " Little Wu." " Why don't you call it Little Wu?" "I can be Little Wu." "TJ creates my Little Wu profile and sends a message to a new lead they suspect of being a major boss in wildlife crime." "IN FAR-EASTERN LANGUAGE:" "PHONE CHIMES Oh, is that...?" "That was a ping." " DISTORTED VOICE:" " We just got approval from our friend in Vietnam." " Little Wu is in!" " Little Wu is in." "The trader has posted a grim trail of the goods he has on offer, and now Little Wu has joined his group, ready to do business." "You can see that he posts every day." "Gosh, so this is just today's postings?" "That's today's postings." "This guy sells tigers, he sells pangolins, he sells ivory, he sells rhino horn." "I can see some tiger penises." "A tiger being skinned." " Ivory." " Yeah, they are the tips of ivory." "And all the pictures of actual real rhino horns, and they are all on scales." "Would it be interesting to ask him if there are any of those left?" " Yeah, definitely." " Great." "So, our friend has contacted us back, we can play the message that he sent us." "RECORDING OF MAN SPEAKING FAR-EASTERN LANGUAGE" "So, he's asking, "Do you want the whole rhino horn?" ""Approximately how many kilos are you looking for?"" "He's just sent us more pictures." " Ugh." " These are the big horns over here." "One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten," " 11 horns." " 11 rhino horns!" "We didn't see that picture before." " You haven't seen that picture before?" " I haven't seen that picture, no." "So just come in now is a picture of 11 big rhino horns." "Oh, sickening." "Jesus." "There's nearly 1 million worth of rhino horn sitting on the table there." "About a million US." "I've seen a lot of shocking things today, but for some reason, that picture is the worst of the lot and it really gets to me." "Well, it actually gets to me as well because that's the single largest amount of horns" "I've seen in one photograph from a trader." "Are you serious?" "We've never seen that many horns in one photograph." " Can we get after this guy?" " Yeah, most definitely." "But we need to go to Vietnam for that." "OK." "Let's do it." "Evidence from intercepted hauls at customs point to one country as the biggest importer and user of rhino horn." "It's where the man we're after runs his business." "Vietnam." "I've come to its capital a couple of days ahead of Tony and TJ." "I want to understand why rhino horn is in such high demand here." "The common explanation is that it's used as traditional medicine, although since it's made of the same stuff as our fingernails and hair, keratin," "I can't imagine it has much effect." "When I meet local wildlife campaigner Wen Bu on Hanoi's Medicine Street, she tells me I'm looking in the wrong place." "It's become way too expensive to use as a remedy." "If you buy rhino horn, you show us how rich you are." "Because rhino horn is very expensive." "Between 35 to 50,000 US dollars for a kilo." "Up to 50,000 a kilo?" "Yes." "So it's only used by a very small, very wealthy group of people." "So I would say the number one reason we believe the rhino horn's used for is for social status." "It's really about an elite group of people showing off their status to each other?" "If you organise a party at your house with VIP guests, you use rhino horn, grind them up and mix with wine and drink it." " And it's showing off." " So the right clothes with the right labels, the smart car and rhino horn at your parties, that really establishes that you're a top player, a member of the elite?" "Yes, yes." "So making a rhino horn cocktail has become the way to show off for the new super-rich of Vietnam." "I want to find out how easy it is to get hold of, but I need to be careful." "Investigative work by foreigners in this one-party police-run state is strictly illegal." "Being caught would quickly land me in jail." "I'm just sewing a button on this shirt." "It's all rigged up with a tiny little lens inside there." "So, this is obviously for undercover filming." "Look at that." "That will do, I think." "My cover story is that I'm a businessman looking for an exotic new product to impress my rich clients." "Far Flung Foods is the name of my business." "I've got my business card." "It's got the website address." "I've created a little one page "coming soon" website." "I've contacted an investigative reporter who's agreed to help me out." "Hi, thanks for setting this up." "Shall I jump in?" "'He's approached a dealer through his local contacts, 'offering to introduce a wealthy foreigner 'who wants to buy rhino horn." "That's me.'" "And do you know where we're going to meet this guy?" "It's probably like the inside of coffee." " A coffee shop?" " Yeah, a coffee shop." "'I need to come across as upbeat, friendly and genuinely keen to buy.'" " Hello." " Hello." " How are you?" "I'm Hugh." "'But that's not how I feel inside.'" "'Change of plan." "'He wants to take us to his house, and I've got to run with it." "'And I'm not the only one who's uneasy.'" "'My cover seems to wash." "'And we're straight down to business.'" "Oh, my goodness." "I wasn't expecting this to happen quite so fast." "MAN LAUGHS" " I can see straightaway that this is..." " Real." " ..real." "Totally." "Because you've got that..." " Yeah, because of..." " The hairs." "And the way that the light comes through." "See that?" "It's extraordinary." "This one is like 57 million." "And this one, only 54." "'That's over £20,000 per kilo." "'In a country where the average wage is just £175 a month." "'I've seen all I need here." "'Now I've just got to find a reason not to do the deal.'" "I'm very impressed." "This is not about buying one thing today, it's about trying to have a relationship." "Well done." "Thank you." "It turns out that rhino horn is just a phone call away." "It's there for the taking." "I could have got cash out of my wallet this morning and walked out with half a kilo of rhino horn, and that trader would not have been remotely concerned about who I was or why I was buying it." "He just wanted to sell it." "So actually, when it comes to the coal face of buying and selling rhino horn, there's not much suspicion, not much anxiety." "If you've got the money and you want to buy it, you can have it." "It seems bizarre and alien to us in Europe that people would covet... the horn of this animal." "But then there are centuries of tradition and mystique about it here in Asia that add to that." "And if you put a layer on top of that, of modern money madness and the obsession with status and wealth, it seems that perhaps you get something that means that people do want to hold on to this," "that it's going to be quite hard to shake from the culture." "My wildlife investigator friends Tony and TJ have now arrived in Hanoi." "We're meeting at their hotel to plan our sting on Mr Big, the man with 1 million worth of rhino horn for sale online." "Hi, how are you?" " Good, how are you?" " Really good to see you again." "All the way the other side of the world from where we last met." "We've hardly started when we are interrupted by the hotel manager." "He's worked out we're filming and he's not happy about it." "It's vital he doesn't clock what we're doing." "Government officials are implicated in using rhino horn, so being caught trying to expose the issue would be bad news." "We haven't got many options, so we relocate to my hotel round the corner." "Come on in." "If you sit backs to the window, that's going to help us black you out." "What about the main target?" "You're going to meet him face-to-face." " DISTORTED VOICE:" " That's correct." "And we're going to get some pictures of him and his products?" "That's what we're hoping for, yes." "I can't wait to see that." "I can't wait to think that in the next 24 hours," " we'll be bringing that in." " That'll be exciting." "I know your phones are pinging." "I'm sure that's back at base." "Just to let you know, the police have actually turned up at our hotel, so..." "Are you kidding?" "'This is a big problem." "'The first hotel have all our names, and if any of us are caught, 'we could be charged with espionage." "'Tony and TJ leave to grab their gear and make their escape." "'The bottom line is we have to get out of here - fast.'" "I've never done anything like this before." "My heart's thumping right now." "'It's too risky to take the undercover gear with us.'" "That's all staying here in Vietnam." "It's basically a total giveaway." "'But the secret footage from meeting the rhino horn dealer 'is too precious to ditch." "I'm burying the memory card deep.'" "Hopefully no-one is going to look in my dirty laundry." "Abandoning our sting on Mr Big is a huge disappointment, but the thought of a Vietnamese jail is even more motivating right now." "I just want to get out before the message reaches the airport to stop us." "So, sitting down on the plane, due to take off in just a few minutes." "We're not quite there yet." "When the wheels leave the ground, that's when I'll feel all right." "That is us off the ground and in the air, and there's only one way to describe how I feel right now." " BLEEP - relieved." "Goodbye, Vietnam." "Amazingly, just three weeks after we left Hanoi in a hurry," "Tony managed to get a second undercover team into Vietnam." "I can't wait to find out what they've come back with on Little Wu's nemesis, Mr Big." "Things went very well for us." "Excellent, they made contact with Mr Big?" " Yes, they did, yeah." " The same guy who sent those pictures of," "I think it was 11 rhino horns to Little Wu?" "Any sign of them when you got there?" "Unfortunately when we got there, he was out of rhino horn, so we asked him what did he have available, and he had some ivory." "Really?" "So this is our guy?" "This is Mr Big?" " That's Mr Big." " Oh, my God." "So, he showed us about 440 kilos of ivory." "That's a lot of tusks on that pile." " 440 kilos?" "!" " Yeah." "How many individual tusks, roughly, do you think that was?" "I can't tell you the exact count, but in excess of 100." "Did he give a per-kilo price for that?" "It basically worked out about half a million US for the whole lot." " And he was quite keen to shift all of it, was he?" " Yeah." "We still think the main market is China, but what we have been told is that major traffickers are now stockpiling ivory, because they think that the trade will rebound eventually, so they are buying the commodities now," "buying the wildlife products now at a cheap price, hoping to sell them in the future." "So we are looking at speculators here, especially with this raw ivory?" "'This intelligence that the kingpins 'of wildlife crime are speculating on 'a future ivory trade is pretty terrifying." "'Any market in ivory supports that speculation.'" "And the legal UK ivory market is potentially huge." " NEWSREEL NARRATOR:" " In this London warehouse, from tusk to mirror, everything goes at top speed." "We've travelled a long way from the African elephant." "Between 1860 and 1920," "Britain imported the tusks of over one million African elephants." "That's more than twice the number alive in Africa today." "Much of this now makes up our own stockpile of worked ivory." "Official records show thousands of such pieces are being sold into Asian markets every year, and that's just the legal stuff." "What's heading out of the UK under the radar?" "I go to speak to the head of the Border Force wildlife team," "Grant Miller." "He shows me a small selection of the smuggled UK ivory seized by his team, all leaving the country without proper paperwork." "And these are all worked pieces of ivory here, are they?" "These are the types of things that are being shipped out to" "China and Hong Kong, likely to be re-carved, reworked into an item that they actually want." "They can be anything from Victorian hairbrushes, which can be a substantial weight of ivory at the back of it." "So that's your Chinese nationals who are just sourcing any ivory they can to fuel the demand." "And this is an ongoing problem, week in, week out?" "When did you last get a seizure?" "Last week, I made 18 seizures of ivory at the UK border on export." " 18 in a week?" " 18 in a week." " All elephant ivory?" "All elephant ivory going to China and going to Hong Kong." "Clearly, huge amounts of UK ivory is reaching Asia, both legally and illegally." "And this is a trade that our government has twice promised to ban." "It's a promise I first wrote to them about more than two months ago." "I've been pushing the Government for an interview to clarify their policy on UK ivory, and I've finally had a reply from the Ministry of the Environment." ""The minister will not be able to take part in your programme" ""on this occasion."" "Well, if there's one thing I've learnt trying to get interviews with ministers, it's that the first no doesn't really count." "You have to keep trying." "Convert that no into a maybe and eventually get a yes." "So I've bashed out a reply straightaway." ""Dear Minister, I was very disappointed to hear" ""that you've declined my request for a filmed interview."" "The problem of historic ivory stocks is one the UK Government seems reluctant to talk about." "But earlier this year, the government of Kenya invited me to attend an event addressing just this issue." " You can have it." " Yeah?" " You can have it." "Just outside Nairobi, Kenya is preparing to make an extraordinary statement to the world." "Hi there." "These 12 mounds make up virtually all of Kenya's ivory stockpile." "They are the accumulation of tusks seized from poachers and collected from elephants that have died naturally." "And they are all about to go up in flames." "They're heavy." "They are really heavy." "In charge of the logistics of this extraordinary event is Patrick Omondi of the Kenyan Wildlife Service." "What's the total tonnage on this site?" "How many tonness of ivory are you going to burn?" "We are going to torch 105 tonnes." " 105 - tonnes." "Yes, of ivory, and 1.35 tonnes of rhino horn." " Gosh." " Yes." " Have you any idea what the value of that would be if it was being traded internationally?" "We, as a country, we have, eh, not put a price to ivory." "We still believe ivory is worth more when it is in a living elephant." "We lose approximately 35,000 elephants a year in Africa." "35,000 elephants." "And most of those, you don't get the ivory back?" "Most of them, you don't get ivory back." "So if we had the stocks here," "I think we would be having three or four times..." " Really?" " ..of ivory." "Three or four times this if you'd managed to collect all the ivory poached in Africa in just one year?" " In one year." " We'd be looking at four times as many piles." " Yes, four times as many piles." " That's extraordinary." "Kenya deliberately refuses to acknowledge the cash value of the ivory they're destroying, but a bit of mental maths tells me that it's over £100 million worth." "In recent years, Botswana, South Africa," "Zimbabwe and Namibia were permitted one-off sales of their ivory stockpiles to Asia." "Kenya's president Uhuru Kenyatta is one of many who argues that these sales fuelled the demand for ivory and lead to increased poaching all over Africa." "No-one has any business trading in ivory, for this trade means death." "Death for our elephants and death for our natural heritage." "In destroying the ivory, we reject once and for all those who think that our natural heritage can be sold for money." "If you walked in on this scene and you haven't heard any of the arguments or discussions about why this is happening, you'd think this was the maddest thing you'd ever, ever seen." "The tusks of 8,000 African elephants going up in flames." "Why is it happening?" "It's really hard to explain why it's happening, and it's not completely clear whether this will change anything, but there are a lot of people here, including three African presidents, who are determined that it WILL change something." "And, you know, right now, I feel it's got to change something." "I don't want to have been here and seen this for it NOT to change something." "Watching the tusks of 8,000 elephants burn," "I can't help remembering the ivory of over a million elephants that Britain took from Africa." "Isn't it now our responsibility to make sure that what remains of our ivory plays no part in fuelling the poaching of elephants in Africa today?" "That's the question I want to ask our government." "But two weeks after my last e-mail to the minister," "I still don't have a reply." "So what is our government going to do about our stockpile?" "Are we going to get the promised ban on the ivory trade?" "I don't know, because I can't get them to talk about it." "They haven't even replied to my last request for an interview." "But I'm not giving up." "I'm going to give it one more shot." "I'm going to write to the minister's boss, the Secretary of State for the Environment." ""Dear Right Honourable..." ""Andrea Leadsom."" "There are some high-profile figures here in the UK working to try and reduce the market value of ivory and rhino horn." "I'm on my way to meet one of the UK's figureheads for conservation of rhino and elephant." "The fact that he's actually made himself available for a TV ad that's been broadcast all over Asia" "I think really shows the level of his commitment." "For some species, it's almost too late." "We could fill this stadium and many more if we could stop the illegal trade." "Ask your friends and family never to buy rhino horn." "And together, we CAN save our wild rhinos." " When the buying stops..." " The killing can too." "This ad, by the NGO WildAid, was played up to 70 times a day on Chinese state TV." "It's part of a strategy to try and change the culture of desiring wildlife products, called demand reduction." "Good morning, your Royal Highness." " Good morning to you." "How are you?" " Good." " Nice to see you." " Good to see you." "Where do you think the solution lies, the big picture solution?" "The big picture solution is definitely in the demand side." "It is the key, but it's also the biggest and hardest thing to tackle." "And it's not something you can just fix really quickly." "We have to find a way of reducing the demand, making it much less attractive." "You've felt so strongly about this that you've done something which is quite unusual for a member of the royal family, which is that you've stepped up and appeared in a TV ad alongside two great sporting superstars." "Do you have any evidence that this demand reduction and the kind of work you've been doing is really starting to bite?" "I do." "I think it is starting to bite." "If you look at what's happened with shark fin soup, Save the Whale, all those sorts of campaigns, they took a bit of time to get going, but once they reached a certain level, they took off." "Ivory needs to become unfashionable and undesirable, and I still believe that if we can get this campaign to the level it should be at, it will turn the corner and it will start snowballing into a real positive movement." "Back in southern Africa, many are arguing that the strategy of demand reduction is failing to save Africa's most threatened species." "I'm on my way to a farm outside Johannesburg whose owner advocates a radically different approach to safeguarding the future of the rhino." "This is home to the largest herd of rhino in the world." "They are owned by John Hume." "It's quite something to be able to look at rhinos in these kind of numbers." "Oh, yes." "'John started his breeding project in 1992 'with just five rhino." "He now has over 1,300 of them.'" "How would you describe the contribution that you've made to rhino conservation, helping the African rhino population?" "Only in numbers, really, because I haven't spread them anywhere." "Which I could go on doing." "Buy more land, breed more rhinos." "But in order to do that, I'll need a lot of money, and the security is now one-and-a-half times what all the rest of the costs are put together." "So it's not sustainable." "Protection is easily your biggest expense?" "Oh, yeah, by far." "It's much bigger than all the other expenses put together." "John wants to pursue a controversial way to pay for protecting his rhino." "He's been humanely removing their horns and has built up reserves worth millions of pounds." "But, at the moment, he can't legally sell it." "I'm convinced that the only way we're going to save rhinos is to legalise the trade in their horns." "I understand completely how selling rhino horn will help your business here, help you keep this thing going, but I'm a bit less clear on how it will help the African rhino generally." "That part is easy." "I do not believe that putting more horn on the market is going to stimulate the demand." "I believe the opposite." "The government has got 28 tonne of horn, I have five tonne of horn." "So we have over 30 tonne of horn." "We could easily, sustainably sell six or seven tonne of horn into the demand, and thus, I believe, lessen the demand into Kruger National Park." "Lessen the pressure on the wild rhino?" "Lessen the pressure on the wild rhino." "The principal alternative argument to commercialisation and open trade in rhino horn is demand reduction." "Isn't this just the moment when demand reduction might start to bite and, inevitably, illegal trade has to end up in demand increase?" "No, I'm sorry, I don't accept that at all." "What do you think I should do?" "Sitting here, knowing that without selling my horn, all of these 1,360 rhino are going to be dead in ten or 12 years' time." " Poached?" " What do you expect me to do?" " They'll be poached?" " Poached or I'll be forced to sell them to people who are not as legitimate as I am and they will kill them for the black market, because it's worth more on the black market." "Because you haven't won, yet, your demand reduction fight." "I've now visited four different countries in Africa and two in Asia, and what have I found out?" "What do I think?" "It does seem to boil down to these two polar positions." "One of them, idealistic and high-minded and hopeful that people can change, cultures can change, and we don't have to go on desiring objects made from our wildlife." "And the other position that says that's not realistic, it's never going to happen, it's all about money." "If it pays, it stays." "We have to recognise the value of these animals, it's the only way they're going to survive." "My heart says, "Let's get to a better place." ""Let's change the culture." ""Let's have a world where consuming wildlife is not the only thing" ""that justifies its existence."" "But if I'm going to get behind that," "I have to truly believe that this demand reduction mission can really be achieved." "One country in the world consumes more ivory than any other." "And with a population of 1.3 billion, there's plenty of potential for further customers." "I'm heading for a city in China that's been at the centre of the ivory carving industry for centuries." "I want to get under the skin of a culture that still values ivory." "And so I've arranged to meet a few people who own some." " Hello." " Hi, Yami, how are you?" "I understand that you've bought a few pieces of ivory." "I'd be really interested to see them." "This is a very light thing, isn't it?" "It's very small." "'I show Yami, her son and friend 'some of the recent Wild Aid campaign videos." "'They feature big Asian stars 'pushing the message of demand reduction.'" "Please, be ivory-free." "Hi, Catherine. 'Next, I meet Catherine and her daughter.'" "When I watch the advert," "I understand they're actually killing the live animal and just taking the tooth or horns." "Very shocking." "To see another way the message is being put across," "I join an ivory awareness event at one of Guangzhou's huge shopping malls." "Events like this are regularly being held in different cities across China." "Well, this is fun." "We've got an interactive elephant here in the mall." "Here comes the gun." "Here comes the target." "And at the end of all the fun, we hear a bang and the elephant goes down." "When did you first understand that ivory came only from elephants that had been killed?" "Do you think this can change the way people think about ivory?" "There's also a change in attitude happening at the top in China." " NEWSREADER:" " US President Barack Obama and China's president Xi Jinping have announced a commitment to ban commercial trade of ivory in their respective countries." "President Xi still needs to commit to the timing of his ban, but it feels like there is real momentum for change here in China." "Are you sure that you will never buy ivory?" "Yeah, I'm sure." "If the ivory trade were to be legalised now, which is what some southern African countries are arguing for, it would completely undermine this work." "I think the world needs to see what I'm seeing here." "We're asking people today if they want to make a personal commitment never to buy ivory." "Would you like to do that today?" "No problem, OK." "OK." "That's good." "Two, three, and turn it over." "That looks great, but what does it say?" "HE READS ALOUD IN OWN LANGUAGE" "I've been really touched by these pledges that have been made today." "You know, it gives me a lot of hope." "People today are telling me that demand reduction CAN work, it is working, and they want to be part of it, and that's a message I'm very happy to take out to the rest of the world." "It's become clear to me that the solution to the killing of Africa's elephants relies on the world pulling together to end the ivory trade." "In a few days' time, delegates from 183 countries will be attending a wildlife trade conference in Johannesburg called CITES." "Ivory is top of the agenda, with some countries asking once again to be allowed to sell their ivory stockpiles and others pushing for an outright ban." "So, is the UK going to attend the CITES conference with a weaker commitment to ending our own ivory trade than China and America?" "I've been asked to speak at the View From The Shard at a pre-CITES event in London." "But the day before, the hot news is that the UK Government might just have been stirred into action." "The Times front-page headline this morning," ""Britain to crack down on illegal ivory."" "Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall is on the line now." "'I'm being asked to comment on the problem of the UK trade.'" "UK ivory ends up in the Asian market, the Asian market is what's killing African elephants." "'And my hopes for a total ban from our government.'" "The announcement, if it comes, will come tomorrow with Hugh there, the Duke of Cambridge and the minister from Defra too." "In fact, the announcement's early." "Well, this has just come through." "GOV.UK. Press release." ""UK ban on modern-day ivory sales."" "I read this and I was about to punch the air with excitement, and then I did a double-take." "Hang on - modern-day ivory sales." "Modern-day ivory sales are practically banned already." "To do any trade at all in modern-day ivory in the UK, you need a special licence from CITES, and I know from talking to Defra that only 150 of those were issued in the last year." "Meanwhile, we are selling thousands of pieces of our antique ivory to Asia, to the corrupt market that is responsible for the killing of elephants in Africa." "What's been done about that, our antique ivory?" "There is something here at the bottom." ""Trade in works of art and ornaments dating from before 1947," ""deemed antiques, will continue to be permitted."" "That means our entire stockpile of antique ivory, the stuff that's heading off to Asia as fast as we can sell it, is still up for grabs." "I'm afraid our minister has spectacularly missed the point here." "I really hope she's at the Shard tomorrow, because I'm dying to talk to her." "The next day, as the event gets underway," "I'm poised for my chance finally to speak about ivory with Andrea Leadsom." "This way." "Minister, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall." " Oh, hello." "Nice to meet you." " Very nice to meet you." "Very much hoping to talk to you a little bit about the announcement you made yesterday." "This is a first step." "I think it sends a really important message to the world that trade in ivory is just unacceptable." "You know, we've got to do something to save these iconic animals." "But actually, a ban on modern-day ivory is absolutely key at the moment, and so that's the first step." "One of the clearest lines in your press release yesterday said it would be business as usual for pre-1947 ivory." "That could continue to be traded." "Is that something you can look at if there is clear evidence that pre-1947 ivory is implicated in export to Asia, where of course it then stimulates the trade and plays a role in covering the ivory from poached African elephants?" "So, as I say," "I think the announcement we've made to ban the trade in modern-day ivory is a really important first step." "We will meet our manifesto commitment, what we're trying to do..." "The manifesto commitment was for a total ban." " Yes, that's right." " So that should include pre-'47 ivory in due course?" " And as I said..." " But yesterday's statement said that that could continue to be traded, so that seems to actually actively contradict your manifesto pledge." "Manifesto pledge - total ban." "Yesterday's statement - pre-1947, no problem." "Which of those two is ultimately going to stack up?" "We're totally committed to our manifesto." "So ultimately a total ban?" "And yesterday was a good first step that sends an important message to the world about the protection of these iconic animals," " which is absolutely vital." " So any suggestion that pre-1947..." " Thanks." " Any suggestion that pre-1947..." " Thank you." " ..will remain legal could come under review?" "OK, well, that may be the best shot we get at talking to Andrea Leadsom today." "I just don't understand why the Government aren't taking more positive action on this." "Can concerns for a small section of the antiques trade really outweigh doing everything we can to save the elephant?" "Right now though, I need to concentrate on this event." "It's being covered by the world's media and beamed live to the city hosting the CITES conference, Johannesburg." "It's my chance to present what I've discovered in Africa, Asia," "Europe and the UK and explain my conclusion that banning the trade completely is the only answer." "Your Royal Highness, ladies and gentlemen and the Sandton Convention Centre in Johannesburg, good afternoon." "We must now decide whether to keep open the possibility of legal trade in the products of rhinos and elephants or to do all that we can to eradicate demand and end the trade once and for all." "I've spent six months on a filmed quest to try to find out what the solutions might be." "I have taken sides in this debate." "We have to end this trade." "For good." "My investigation into what's driving the illegal ivory trade and what we should be doing about it has come to an end." "For now." "But there has been an important development from the delegates in South Africa." "The CITES conference in Johannesburg has produced one really important resolution for Africa's elephants, and these are the critical words." "All 183 countries at CITES, including the UK, have promised to close down any "legal domestic market for ivory" ""that is contributing to poaching or illegal trade."" "I think my films have proved that here in the UK, by selling our antique ivory into the Asian market, we are contributing to poaching and the illegal trade." "These words are the new mandate for global change, and if we're going to ask the rest of the world to take action on ivory, then surely we have to take action ourselves." "So, come on, let's ban the UK ivory trade."