Poaching is the illegal hunting or capturing of wild animals, usually associated with land use rights. Poaching was once performed by impoverished peasants for subsistence purposes and to supplement meager diets. It was set against the hunting privileges of nobility and territorial rulers.
The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (SSCS) is a non-profit, marine conservation activism organization based in Friday Harbor on San Juan Island, Washington, in the United States. Sea Shepherd employs direct action tactics to achieve its goals, most famously by deploying its fleet of ships to track, report on and actively impede the work of fishing vessels believed to be engaged in illegal and unregulated activities causing the unsustainable exploitation of marine life.
Environmental issues in Kenya include deforestation, soil erosion, desertification, water shortage and degraded water quality, flooding, poaching, and domestic and industrial pollution.
Kaziranga National Park in India has a good conservation history, especially due to its efficient management policies. In spite of the efficient conservation policies there are some loopholes in the conservation policies.
Marine conservation activism is the efforts of non-governmental organizations and individuals to bring about social and political change in the area of marine conservation. Marine conservation is properly conceived as a set of management strategies for the protection and preservation of ecosystems in oceans and seas. Activists raise public awareness and support for conservation, while pushing governments and corporations to practice sound ocean management, create conservation policy, and enforce existing laws and policy through effective regulation. There are many different kinds of organizations and agencies that work toward these common goals. They all are a part of the growing movement that is ocean conservation. These organizations fight for many causes including stopping pollution, overfishing, whaling and by-catching, and supporting marine protected areas.
Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) is a state corporation under the Ministry of Tourism and Wildlife established by an act of Parliament; Wildlife Conservation and Management Act CAP 376, of 1989, now repealed and replaced by the Wildlife Conservation and Management Act, 2013. At independence, the Government of Kenya committed itself to conserving wildlife for posterity with all the means at its disposal, including the places animals lived, forests and water catchment areas.
The International Rhino Foundation (IRF) is a Texas-based charity focused on the conservation of the five species of rhinoceros which include the White Rhinoceros and Black Rhinoceros of Africa, and the Indian Rhinoceros, Javan Rhinoceros and Sumatran Rhinoceros of Asia.
Dr. Iain Douglas-HamiltonCBE is a Scottish zoologist from Oxford University and one of the world's foremost authorities on the African elephant. Douglas-Hamilton pioneered the first in-depth scientific study of elephant social behaviour in Tanzania's Lake Manyara National Park, aged 23. His work in the 1960s paved the way for much of today’s understanding of elephants and current conservation practices. During the 1970s he investigated the status of elephants throughout Africa and was the first to alert the world to the ivory poaching holocaust, bringing about the first global ivory trade ban in 1989. In 1993, Douglas-Hamilton founded Save the Elephants, which is dedicated to securing a future for elephants and their habitats. For his work on elephants he was awarded two of conservation's highest awards - the Order of the Golden Ark in 1988, the Order of the British Empire in 1992, and the Commander of the British Empire (CBE) in 2015. In 2010, he was named the recipient of the Indianapolis Prize, the world's leading award for animal conservation. In May 2012, Douglas-Hamilton spoke at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Ivory and Insecurity: The Global Implications of Poaching in Africa.
The Lewa Wildlife Conservancy is located in northern Kenya. It was formed in 1995 and is a wildlife sanctuary incorporating the Ngare Ndare Forest covering over 62,000 acres (250 km2). The Conservancy is home to a wide variety of wildlife including the rare and endangered black rhinos, Grevy's zebras and sitatungas. It also includes the big five. Lewa holds over 12% of Kenya's eastern black rhinoceros population and the largest single population of Grevy's zebras in the world.
Wildlife Alliance is an international non-profit forest and wildlife conservation organization with current programs in Cambodia. It is headquartered in New York City, with offices in Phnom Penh. The logo of the organization is the Asian elephant, an emblematic species and the namesake for the Southwest Elephant Corridor that Wildlife Alliance saved when it was under intense threat of poaching and habitat destruction in 2001. It is today one of the last remaining unfragmented elephant corridors in Asia. Due to Government rangers' and Wildlife Alliance's intensive anti-poaching efforts, there have been zero elephant killings since 2006. Dr. Suwanna Gauntlett is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Wildlife Alliance, and one of the original founders of WildAid. The organization is governed by a board of directors and an international advisory board that provides guidance on strategy, fundraising, and outreach.
The Wildlife Protection Society of India (WPSI) was founded in 1994 by Belinda Wright, its Executive Director, who was an award-winning wildlife photographer and filmmaker till she took up the cause of conservation. From its inception, WPSI's main aim has been to bring a new focus to the daunting task of tackling India's growing wildlife crisis. It does this by providing support and information to government authorities to combat poaching and the escalating illegal wildlife trade - particularly in wild tigers. It has now broadened its focus to deal with human-animal conflicts and provide support for research projects.
The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society engages in various demonstrations, campaigns, and tactical operations at sea and elsewhere, including conventional protests and direct actions to protect marine wildlife. Sea Shepherd operations have included interdiction against commercial fishing, shark poaching and finning, seal hunting and whaling. Many of their activities have been called piracy or terrorism by their targets and by the ICRW. Sea Shepherd says that they have taken more than 4,000 volunteers on operations over a period of 30 years.
Anti-whaling refers to actions taken by those who seek to end whaling in various forms, whether locally or globally in the pursuit of marine conservation. Such activism is often a response to specific conflicts with pro-whaling countries and organizations that practice commercial whaling and/or research whaling, as well as with indigenous groups engaged in subsistence whaling. Some anti-whaling factions have received criticism and legal action for extreme methods including violent direct action. The term anti-whaling may also be used to describe beliefs and activities related to these actions.
The ivory trade is the commercial, often illegal trade in the ivory tusks of the hippopotamus, walrus, narwhal, black and white rhinos, mammoth, and most commonly, African and Asian elephants.
Captain Peter James Bethune is a New Zealand ship's captain with 500 ton master licence, published author, producer of The Operatives TV show, and public speaker. He is the founder of Earthrace Conservation. He works assisting countries in Asia, Central America and Africa with fisheries enforcement and anti-poaching. He is the holder of the world record for circumnavigating the globe in his powerboat Earthrace, a wavepiercing trimaran powered with biofuels.
The International Elephant Foundation (IEF) is a non-profit 501(c)(3) corporation. Formed by individuals and institutions, IEF is dedicated to the conservation of African and Asian elephants worldwide.
Akashinga, is a non-profit organisation registered in Australia, predominantly operating on the African continent. The group initially created a structured military-like approach to conservation, employing tactics and technology generally reserved for the modern-day battlefield, and has since moved to a community oriented approach. This has included the training of local women as rangers.
Smart Parks is a UK-based charity that specializes in providing aerial surveillance and monitoring services through the use of unnamed aerial vehicles (UAVs), commonly knowns as drones. The organization was founded in 2012 and launched publicly in 2013, and operates as a registered charity in the UK and a private foundation in the Netherlands. The organization was formerly named ShadowView.
Steven R. Galster is an American environmental and human rights investigator and counter-trafficking program designer. Since 1987, he has planned and participated in investigations and remedial programs to stop wildlife and human trafficking and to mitigate corruption and build governance in Asia, Africa, Russia, South America, and the USA.
Rhinoceros poaching in southern Africa is the illegal act of slaughtering rhinoceros in the southern African countries of Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe and South Africa, where most of Africa's rhinos live. The most common reason for rhino poaching is to meet the high demand for their horns in Asian countries, where the horn is predominantly used in Traditional Chinese Medicine but is increasingly being used as a symbol of wealth and prosperity. In previous generations, the most common rhino poaching activity was hunting for recreational purposes. Because of excessive poaching, rhino populations have decline rapidly since the 1970s, leaving some species critically endangered and facing extinction.
