HOT OFF THE PRESS! All 8 species of Pangolin have just been upgraded to Appendix 1 at CITES, securing them a much stronger level of global protection.

Officially the most trafficked animal in the world, the Pangolin has been in the headlines recently alongside Elephants and Rhinos as the CITES conference got underway.  Lisa Hywood (www.tikkihywoodtrust.org) our friend from the Tikki Hywood Trust has been at Cites, fighting for their protection! Well done to Lisa and all the others there on behalf of the Pangolin, what a great result!!

We will be joining Lisa and organisations such as Species Survival Network (www.ssn.org) and African Elephant Coalition (www.africanelephantcoalition.org) who will be representing many of the species that the projects we support strive to protect. We are all hoping for great results across the board, helping to put an end to the trade of these animals and their body parts. Sue and I head there tomorrow and will be on the side lines looking, listening and learning….. We will be there as members of SSN and are excited to see their president, Will Travers in action!

Have a look at this 1 minute video to hear Lisa talking about Pangolins and to see some footage of these intriguing animals.

BBC article

If you want to find out more about Cites watch this great video from the Born Free Foundation explaining it all…..

Cites Explained 

I was happy to join the Global March for Elephants and Rhinos and to support Lilongwe Wildlife Trust on behalf of Malawi’s Elephants.

This was a timely march in the run up to CITES, The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (www.cites.org), which is taking place right now. My sister Sue Olsen and I will be attending the conference next week and crucial decisions will be made regarding the trade in ivory and rhino horn as well as many other species and their by products. We’ll update you from Cites next week, fingers crossed for positive outcomes. 

A huge crowd marched through London to the door of No. 10, to urge the government to take action on closing the UK’s ivory trade.

Elephants and rhinos face extinction unless all countries act together to ban their domestic trade in ivory and rhino horn and protect these species with the strongest possible measures. 🐘📢

Powerful speeches from Virginia McKenna and Dominic Dyer, from The Born Free Foundation and Malawi’s own Ngane, delivered powerful and heart felt messages on the subject.  Also speaking were world renown conservationist Ian Redmond OBE and Stanley Johnson, father of Boris Johnson.