Ian Redmond

Happy World Gorilla Day!   

First celebrated in 2017 to mark the 50^th anniversary of the Karisoke Research Centre, founded by Dian Fossey on September 24^th, 1967, World Gorilla Day has grown into a global phenomenon.  Since Dian’s murder in 1985, many people have risen to the challenge of protecting what she used to refer to as ‘the greatest of the great apes’, so I thought this blog would be a good opportunity to raise the profile of some of the unsung heroes of gorilla conservation.

Just before World Gorilla Day this year I travelled around Rwanda and eastern Democratic Republic of Congo with the French author, Yasmina Kramer, who is researching her next book by seeing first hand the lives led by rangers, trackers, researchers, vets and others in the multi-national community of conservationists in the Great Lakes region of Africa. 

 We had arranged to meet at the Hotel Muhabura, where Dian used to stay when she came down from the mountains.  The owners, two Rwandan sisters Gaudentia and Theresa, gave me a wonderful welcome as I cycled in from the bus station;  they remember Dian warmly and have named her favourite room The Dian Fossey Room – where Yasmina was busy typing when I arrived, just as Dian would have been – the tappety, tap, tap, zzzz-ting of her Olivetti portable typewriter was part of the soundscape that surrounded Dian wherever she went!   I remember first staying in the Hotel Muhabura in 1977 when working as Dian’s Research Assistant;  she had been invited to give a public lecture in Ruhengeri (the town closest to Volcanoes National Park, now known as Musanze), something she did every year to share the results of her work with the local chamber of commerce and officials.  She spoke in a mix of English, French, Kiswahili and Kinyarwanda which must have perplexed the audience but I recall they were captivated by her enthusiasm and the film and photos of the gorillas.  Much has changed in the intervening years but despite the many new hotels and luxury lodges, the Muhabura remains my favourite place to catch up with old friends and talk gorilla!  One evening the Chief Warden on Volcanoes National Park, Prosper Uwingeli, joined us for a catch-up and Yasmina learned of the plans to restore some 37km² of the park land lost to agriculture in the early 1970s.  How extraordinary that in one of the most densely populated countries in Africa, the government has taken the bold decision to make more room for the growing population of mountain gorillas while simultaneously creating thousands of jobs and resettling families in new purpose-built accommodation.  

Retraining former poachers is the goal of the Iby’iwacu Cultural Village, founded by Edwin Sabuhoro, a former ranger who realised that many members of his community turned to poaching out of poverty and set about providing better alternatives.  You can read his amazing story here.  Yasmina learned about how communities had relied on the forest for food, building materials and medicinal herbs – all resources lost to them when the Volcanoes National Park was founded (originally part of Africa’s first National Park, created in 1925 by King Albert of Belgium).  She met some of the reformed poachers, one of whom, and elderly chap named Ezekiel Kaziboneye, had worked as a porter for Dian Fossey in the early days and recounted tales of building the cabins at 10,000ft/3,000m in the saddle between Mounts Karisimbi and Visoke (hence the name Karisoke, which Dian invented).

Ian Redmond, Emmanuel Harerimana and Ezekiel Kaziboneye, three generations of gorilla workers.

We were greatly assisted by Emmanuel Harerimana, a gorilla guide, former poacher and founder of Muhisimbi, Voice of Youth in Conservation, which now runs a wonderful centre for teenage mothers and their children.  Emmanuel was mentored by Edwin Sabuhoro and is now mentoring dozens of young Rwandans, passing on his passion for conservation.

A highlight of our time in Rwanda was climbing up to the site of the old Karisoke cabins, now completely demolished, to pay our respects at Dian’s grave.  Yasmina told me she was first captivated by Dian’s story when she saw the movie, Gorillas in the Mist as a girl.  Now, decades later she was greatly moved by visiting the place where it all happened and spending some quiet time in the beautiful glade where Dian and several gorilla poacher victims are buried.  

On the way down, walking quietly along the Porters’ Trail, where twice a week supplies and post were carried up the side of the mountain on the heads of a long line of local men – all of whom depended on this work to supplement their subsistence farming – we encountered a group of gorillas who had just crossed the trail.  It was not a formal gorilla visit, just a wonderful bit of luck that gave Yasmina her first glimpse of a blackback, feeding quietly in the lush green vegetation as bees buzzed in the sunshine.  Magical!

The next day we caught the bus south to Cyangugu, around countless hairpin bends with beautiful views across Lake Kivu, to cross the border into the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).  There we were met by Eddy Kahekwa, a rising young conservationist, son of one of my oldest friends John Kahekwa, founder of the multi-award-winning Pole Pole Foundation (PoPoF), which has built a school and now an agricultural college and Spirulina farm to improve the quality of life of people living around the gorilla habitat.  John often cites a poacher who explained why he ignored the advice of conservationists by saying, “empty stomachs have no ears!”  Community conservation has been shown to work and PoPoF has received awards from Whitley Fund for Nature, Tusk and most recently the Earthshot Prize!

John was a gorilla guide in Kahuzi-Biega National Park when we first met in 1983.  Many visitors to gorillas in Rwanda and Uganda do not know that it was here in Congo that habituated gorilla tourism began, thanks to the work of Adrien Deschryver, a Belgian hunter-turned-conservationist who established and was the first warden of Kahuzi-Biega.  He had a very different approach to gorilla habituation than Dian Fossey, preferring to face the charging silverback speaking softly rather than using gorilla contentment vocalisations and non-threatening body language as practiced by Dian and her students.  In the 1980s many tourists visited both sub-species of gorilla but sadly the years of civil war and insecurity mean that few tourists venture into the DRC today.  This is such a shame because the warm welcome and gorilla tracking experience is equal to that which you might find in Rwanda and Uganda, and is significantly cheaper.  By arrangement with the park, it is easy to get a visa on the border and visit the gorillas, thereby helping to fund the park and create employment opportunities in the surrounding area.

The park is now co-managed by the Congo Conservation Institute (ICCN) and the Wildlife Conservation Society, and by chance Yasmina and I arrived just as a new cohort of eco-guards were graduating and being presented with their certificate.  The Warden, Dr Arthur Kalonji, a veterinarian, gave a rousing speech about the new graduates being the future of conservation in the park and their pride in becoming eco-guards was self-evident. 

 Graduation Day, PNKB.

The challenges they face were made clear afterwards in a briefing by Erik Saudan of WCS, who had helped train them.  With the latest GIS mapping, he showed how serious the deforestation for illegal agriculture and charcoal production was in parts of the park too insecure to patrol regularly.  

4,000 bags per week of Charcoal from PNKB go to market in Bukavu, DRC.

The most westerly part of the park, for example, requires a six-day hike to get to the boundary to then begin to patrol!   Most serious is the damage to the corridor that links the montane sector with the much larger lowland sector – here, influential people have built homes and roads to access them, despite the park being a UNESCO World Heritage Site, considered to be of outstanding universal value to the world.   The Pole Pole Foundation has the task of restoring the forest here – essential to maintain gene flow in animal populations in both sectors – but this will not be easy given the local politics.  Most important is keeping the corridor open for elephants to re-populate the montane sector, where they were all killed during the civil war.  One of the saddest sights is the pile of elephant skulls at the park headquarters – remains of the mega-gardeners of the forest whose loss has led to a deterioration in the quality of gorilla habitat.

Lambert Cirimwami laments the killing of elephants by poachers.

Before leaving DRC, I called in to see Carlos Schuler, who with his wife Christine Schuler-Deschryver, managed the German Technical Aid (GTZ) support for Kahuzi-Biega during eight years of civil war, refugee crisis and turmoil.  He tells his remarkable story in Vivre et Survivre en RD Congo (originally in German but not yet in English – publishers please take note!).  At a time when almost all expatriate left the DRC, Carlos worked with his ICCN colleagues to keep the park going, organised food distribution for thousands of local people and with the help of the Born Free Foundation, develop the infrastructure of the park HQ.

It is no exaggeration to say that had they not been there during the war after the Rwandan genocide, the gorillas of the highland sector would likely have gone the same way as the elephants!  Carlos is also a talented photographer, as the amazing images in his book attest.

He and Christine (daughter of Deschryver, the park’s founder) have now created the City of Joy, helping women who have been raped build new lives – an inspirational project that was the subject of a recent documentary on Netflix, – search for City of Joy.

As I pedalled back over the border into Rwanda and up the looong, steep hill (that was such fun to wizz down), Yasmina took the ferry across Lake Kivu to Goma to meet Henry Cirhuza, another unsung hero who has for many years managed the DRC projects of The Gorilla Organization (now an Ecoflix partner NGO (https://www.ecoflix.com/ngo/the-gorilla-organization/), supporting community conservation of gorillas in one of the most difficult and unstable parts of the world.

All in all, I guess my conclusion for this World Gorilla Day is that there are so many people devoting their lives to help gorillas and the communities around their habitat that despite all the bad news and population declines in almost all great apes, there is hope! 

 Check out the documentaries collated for World Gorilla Day on Ecoflix and please support the NGOs working to protect gorillas across the ten African countries where they live.

In memorium:  On my return to the UK, I received the sad news that Dr Antoine ‘Tony’ Mudakikwa, a Rwandan vet and one of the key people I had hoped to introduce to Yasmina, is no longer with us.  One of the original Gorilla Doctors, Tony was a charismatic and courageous conservationist who pioneered methods of treating mountain gorillas in the difficult conditions of their natural habitat, thereby saving many lives.  He represented Rwanda at many UN meetings such as CITES and will be missed by his many friends and colleagues.  My condolences to his family.  For more details of his scientific work, see https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Antoine-Mudakikwa

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Explore the intricate relationship between trophy hunting and wildlife conservation in this comprehensive analysis by Ian Redmond OBE. Learn about the scientific, ethical, and ecological impacts of this controversial practice, focusing on the hunting of elephants and other species. Understand how trophy hunting affects animal behavior, genetics, and ecosystems, and discover sustainable alternatives that benefit both wildlife and local communities.

Trophy hunting is a hot topic at the moment.  Two news stories in particular are fuelling a heated debate:   one concerns the legal killing of ‘super-tuskers’ in northern Tanzania – these are well-known elephants whose lives have been studied for decades by scientists in Amboseli National Park, Kenya, where trophy hunting is not allowed;  three have been shot and their bodies burned after the trophies had been removed, and more permits have reportedly been issued despite a 30-year agreement between the two countries not to give hunting permits for this trans-boundary population.   The second is that the UK parliament has recently passed the second reading of a bill to ban the import of hunting trophies of endangered species.

Setting aside for the moment the ethical questions raised by selling the life of an intelligent sentient being with a brain nearly four times the size of ours, let’s look at the science.  Conservation science is a complex multi-faceted discipline, but two main arguments emerge from pro-trophy hunting advocates; the first is numerical – that the number of animals killed is relatively small, they are claimed to be old and their loss is not significant to the species’ overall population;  the second is that hunting areas allegedly bring an income from habitat that might otherwise be converted to agriculture or other land use that would be bad for biodiversity.  Both may at first glance appear to be strong arguments, but do they stand up to scrutiny?  And what of the many other considerations.

Some pro-trophy hunting commentators like to characterise opponents of the practice as being driven purely by emotions, ignoring the science they say supports trophy hunting (see for example https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2024-03-25-loaded-for-bear-animals-rights-activists-and-climate-change-deniers-have-a-few-things-in-common/ and https://twitter.com/AmyDickman4/status/1775138862022463577), so I thought it might be useful to review the scientific rationale behind some very eminent scientists’ opposition to the ‘taking’ of ‘trophy’ animals from their habitat and social group.   I’ll focus on elephants but recognise that these arguments apply to other species coveted by trophy hunters. 

Ethology is a science – the study of animal behaviour.  After decades of dedicated fieldwork, we now know that elephants live in a complex, multi-tiered, society with matriarchal family groups and bachelor groups maintaining long-distance communication. They also have cultural traditions and geographical knowledge that is passed down through the generations, not just from parent to offspring but also from grandparent to grandchild.   This makes the term ‘post-reproductive old males’, sometimes used by hunters to suggest the impact of their killing is minimal in ‘conservation biology’ terms, entirely misguided.  In fact, killing the elders of a community has many effects on the behaviour of the survivors and risks losing knowledge that may be critical to survival, for example during severe droughts that may only happen every few years.  In the case of trophy hunting of predators, killing alpha males leads to social disruption, increased conflict and in some cases, infanticide, further depleting the population of the species concerned.

It is self-evident that low-level subsistence hunting of fecund species can be sustainable, but for slowly reproducing species with long lifespans and complex societies, even a low hunting pressure of 1-2 per cent per year can cause a long-term decline in addition to any genetic impact, as has been shown by computer modelling of ape populations. 

Genetics is the study of a species’ genes and how inheritance of certain characteristics affects their evolution.  Elephants have an unusual growth curve for mammals – instead of levelling off after puberty as in most species, including humans – male elephants continue to grow in overall body size as well as tusk size for their entire lives.  Growth in female elephants levels off around 25 years (a decade after puberty) but even so, they seem to prefer to mate with the biggest, most impressive males, who are often those with the biggest tusks.  This sexual selection for large males has led to the marked size difference between females or younger animals and males in their prime, in their 40s and 50s.  Killing these successful breeders has, in only a couple of elephant lifetimes, changed the genetic make-up of most of Africa’s elephant clans, reversing millions of years of evolution!   It is obvious that killing trophy animals in their prime effectively removes their genes from the gene pool, and so selects against the very characteristics valued by the hunters.   This is un-natural selection, and results in the removal (or at least a reduction) of genes for big horns/tusks/antlers/manes over time.  Even the term ‘super-tusker’ elephants – now defined as an elephant with at least one tusk weighing more than 100 pounds – is indicative of that change.  Look at the size of trophies in the 19^th century, such as this pair photographed in Zanzibar and thought to have originated on Mt Kilimanjaro – imagine the size of elephant able to wield them!  Now HE was a super-tusker!

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The view from Hopefield:

When Ecoflix was first put on Hopefield Animal Sanctuary’s radar thanks to our wonderful Trustee, Leona Lewis, we instantly knew that this was a company that fully aligned with our own ethos and beliefs.

As well as the animal rescue and welfare side of what we do here at Hopefield, we also strive to help educate people on how to make better choices when it comes to all animals, birds and reptiles, as well as the environment as a whole.

Given that ‘Ecoflix was created to unite those who care about animals and the planet,’ this is the perfect collaboration and joining forces with such a like-minded company makes us very excited! We can’t wait to create content that will reach a wider audience thanks to Ecoflix, and in turn this will help educate even more adults and children when it comes to us all doing what we can to do our best by our planet.

Tuning in from Ecoflix:

Ecoflix was introduced to the amazing team at Hopefield Rescue Sanctuary via our lovely, shared ambassador Leona Lewis. Leona spoke to us so passionately about Hopefield that we were excited to meet Lianne and the rest of the incredible team.

When you visit Hopefield, you immediately get a sense of how special a place it is. It is beautifully maintained for the 500 animal lodgers who live there. Our favourite area is the ‘Shetland Village’ which has eye-catching stable ‘cottages’ complete with coloured doors and windowsfor the rescued Shetland Ponies to enjoy.

Every animal guest has an inspirational back story,and the Hopefield team know them all. Hopefield is a perfect example of the type of non-profit organisation Ecoflix wants to support and champion. The animals are loved and caredfor exceptionally well, and no animal is ever turned away. Hopefield also works very closely with local schools to help educate young people about caring for animals, and informing them that not all animals should be in the UK or kept as domestic pet.

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“Born Free is a remarkable organization, demonstrating in the best possible way how well-meaning individuals can truly make a difference in this world. 

I was a fan and supporter of Born Free for many years before I took on the challenge of fighting the Los Angeles Zoo.  My goal was, and still is, to try and free Billy, the bull elephant who has suffered there for over 3 1/2 decades. (Please see our original Ecoflix documentary Free Billy at www.ecoflix.com)

As a supporter of the Born Free Foundation, I had the good fortune to meet Will Travers decades ago.  We have since enjoyed time together in Los Angeles, London, and in Nairobi.

Given our ongoing friendship, and his immense expertise, I asked him if he would travel to Los Angeles to testify as an expert for Billy at the trial in that case.  I will forever be grateful to him for agreeing to do so. And as usual, he did an amazing job!

Since that time, we have each asked one another for assistance, and in return, provided each other with support of various kinds over the years.  Will is an Ecoflix Foundation board member, and still my very good friend. 

I have done my best to support Will and the Born Free Foundation financially. While he has been hugely supportive of my personal efforts to help save animals and of our Ecoflix philanthropic efforts worldwide. 

Together, we both recognize that we are making a difference by joining forces.  Specifically, we are both doing more, and better work, as a result of our great trust and partnership together. 

We at Ecoflix sincerely relish our opportunity to be a partner with Born Free, particularly at this extremely important and vulnerable time for our animals and the planet.

Thank you Will!

Thank you Virginia!

Thank you Born Free!!”

David Casselman – Ecoflix Founder.

“We’ve all had the pleasure of watching amazing wildlife and nature documentaries. Some tough and gritty. Some lyrical and poetic. Many featuring trusted voices like Sir David Attenborough, Chris Packham, and Gordon Buchanan. But how many times have we been taken to the edge of our seats, only to be left hanging? The shows ends, the credits roll, and we sit wondering, helplessly, what we can do to help.

That’s not the Ecoflix way! Ecoflix turns passive viewers into advocates, telling stories to stir the emotions, challenge, inspire, motivate and energise. Then, crucially, Ecoflix provides the toolkit to help us tackle the issues and make the world a better, kinder place. The natural world has never been in such a crisis. Climate change, the prospect of sixth mass extinction, habitat loss, pollution, animal exploitation, cruelty and suffering. They all have a single cause – but they all have a single solution: Us!

Our compassionate actions today can reverse the tide, turn despair into optimism, and will allow us to hand our beautiful, fragile, spinning planet, with all its myriad diversity, on to future generations with real hope in their eyes and wonder in their hearts. We can be the change. That’s why Born Free is proud to partner with Ecoflix.”

Will Travers OBE, Exec President & Co-Founder, Born Free Foundation

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David B. Casselman, Founder and CEO of Ecoflix, shares his unique experience in helping to save Kaavan the loneliest elephant, inspired by the apocryphal Starfish Story.

So often, we ask ourselves: “How can I make a difference?” Problems seem so daunting, leaving us feeling helpless. But there is an answer. We can and must make a difference, one starfish at a time. What do I mean by that? It is a reference to the Starfish Story about a little boy on a beach at low tide.

Starfish are drying on the sand and the rocks. The boy is gently throwing starfish into the water when a man come up. He asks, “What are you doing son?” In response, the little boy says, “I’m saving starfish. See? They are drying up on the sand and rocks.” The old man says, “You can’t make a difference. Look down the beach. There are millions of them.” Ignoring him completely, the little boy gently tosses another starfish in the water. Then, he turns back with a smile and says, “It made a difference to that one!”

What can we learn from the Starfish Story?

This is not just a cute story. It summarizes a problem we face every day.

Are we doing enough? Are we focused on the right problem… or the right solution? Can we really make a difference?

The answer is always the same.

We can make a difference! Like the boy in the starfish story, just focus on saving one starfish at a time.

You cannot do everything at once. And nobody can cure all of the problems in the world, and certainly not by themselves. Just do what you can, including enlisting help where possible. Then, keep up the good fight, day after day…starfish after starfish. You can do much more than you think!

Kaavan, the loneliest elephant in the world

A real-world example of this lesson in my life involved a common problem.

I learned about an elephant, suffering in a zoo. But, unlike the local elephants I tried, and failed, to help, this elephant was in an even more difficult situation. He was kept in deplorable conditions, thousands of miles away from me in Los Angeles, located in Pakistan.

Fighting my natural instinct to conclude I was powerless to do anything of value, I did my best to stay calm. I asked questions and learned more about the problem. What I learned revealed some opportunities. With effort, I learned that the situation was not completely hopeless after all. There were some glimmers of hope… and they filled me with excitement.

But, like all problems, it was necessary to take one step at a time, just like the boy in the starfish story. And proceeding that way, we did our best to exhaust all of the available options. In this case, there were many people around the world trying to help this long-suffering bull elephant, whose name is Kaavan. Bull elephants in particular have extreme difficulty in captivity. And few, if any, facilities are willing to take them because they are so strong and dangerous.

Nonetheless, we began to meet online and explore what strengths and opportunities we had to truly make a difference in his life. It turned out that we had more strength and skills than any of us thought. The legal began to exert a serious local legal challenge. We had world class veterinarians willing to help support our efforts. And, in addition to support from around the world, I was able to develop the possibility of creating a space for Kaavan at the Cambodia Wildlife Sanctuary, which I had co-founded some twenty years earlier.

Cher and the loneliest elephant

In addition, we were blessed to receive a massive injection of energy and power from the support of the global superstar Cher, who offered to go to Pakistan to make his freedom possible. Together with her nonprofit, several other nonprofits, legal help in Pakistan, the decision of the Pakistan Supreme Court, and permission from the governing bodies in Cambodia, we finally secured both permission and the funds to take Kaavan out of Pakistan and into the Cambodia Wildlife Sanctuary.

But, even then, we faced a series of next-level challenges.

They included the rigors of training and transporting Kaavan, which required an appropriate jet airplane to transport him. This included the considerable difficulty of funding those expenses, as well as the cost of building a quarantine pen, plus an independent thirty-acre jungle pen for Kaavan at Cambodia Wildlife Sanctuary, complete with his own massive swimming pool.

Like most considerable challenges, we met each obstacle head on, one at a time… one starfish at a time.

And slowly, much too slowly to satisfy any of us, we gradually overcame each obstacle. And with all of the pieces of the puzzle in place, we actually pulled off a miracle, managing to safely transport Kaavan to his forever home, in one of the few remaining lush forests of Cambodia.

Kaavan the elephant, an update

To this day, he lives in peace, no longer exhibiting stressful stereotypical behaviors. Never again need he live in the horrific confinement of a zoo, in a tiny space, on hard ground, surrounded by noisy visitors.

The moral of this story?

No matter how difficult it may seem, most problems can be overcome with enough passion, effort and support. Each takes time, creativity, massive amounts of effort… and often a lot of money.

Indeed, each problem, no matter how large or small, is its own starfish.

So don’t believe anyone who says that you we can’t make a difference. If you believe you can, every one of us has the power to change the world, one starfish at a time.

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Endangered Species Day, 20th May 2022

In this article, Ian Redmond—Head of Conservation for Ecoflix and Policy Advocate for The Born Free Foundation—discusses how endangered species affect wider ecosystems, near and far, and how undervalued this understanding is.

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There’s a species of nut tree in Gabon that gorillas love.

It first came to the attention of botanists when a primatologist, Dr. Liz Williamson, asked them what it was that her study animals were eating. The botanists had no idea and, to honour her role in discovering it, named the species Cola lizae.

In parts of the gorillas’ forest it is the dominant tree species, and yet it seems to be largely ignored by elephants and other frugivores. Gorillas are the main, if not the only, seed dispersal agent. Seeds germinate better when they have passed through a gorilla, especially when they are deposited around a night nest. Gorillas like to sleep in clearings or in small trees whose branches are folded into a sleeping platform; either way, it provides germinating seeds with a light gap in the forest and a pile of nutrient-rich manure far from the parent plant.

Thus, the continued existence of this kind of nut tree hinges on the presence of a healthy population of Western Lowland Gorilla, Gorilla gorilla gorilla, a Critically Endangered Species.

Endangered Species Day shows the interrelation between all species

I don’t know whether any entomologist has studied which species of insect feed on the leaves, fruit, bark or roots of Cola lizae but every one of those species, also depends on the gorillas (to say nothing of the species-specific nematodes and other micro-organisms).

Insectivorous birds, some of them migratory species on their way to or from the UK (such as cuckoos, swifts and swallows) will feed on these insects and clearly owe at least part of their diet to gorillas.

Pick any endangered species on the IUCN Red List and you will find similar inter-dependencies, though many have yet to be described by science. That’s why ecology is such an exciting science!

From the seeds to the rain clouds that water crops globally

Every day, the chloroplasts in the leaves of Cola lizae and indeed all the trees in the Congo-Guinean rainforest belt use sunlight to sequester and store carbon and release the oxygen that we and all animals need to live. Once a contiguous belt of forest from Senegal to the Albertine Rift, it is now more of a macramé belt fragmented into patches by agriculture, mines, roads, railways, and pipelines.

Until the climate crisis, trees had mainly been seen as a source of timber or an obstacle to be cleared out of the way for human activity. Now we know better and value trees as allies in the prevention of climate breakdown, and yet deforestation continues apace. But it is not just about carbon!

The leaves of tropical rainforest trees in Amazonia, Africa and South/Southeast Asia emit volatile organic compounds – chemicals that help seed raindrops from water vapour, forming clouds over forests and generating rainfall. The daily pulsing of tropical downpours in rainforests build up weather systems that water crops all over the world, fill aquifers and generate hydroelectricity.

And yet not a penny of the price of a bottle of wine, loaf of bread or unit of electricity goes to protect endangered species whose daily activities enhance these ecosystem services.

Our current economic thinking regards nature as an ‘externality’. Fortunately, a new economic paradigm is in the offing, elaborated by Ralph Chami and his colleagues, which values living nature through payment for ecosystem services and recognises the role of keystone species such as elephants, apes and whales.

So, on #EndangeredSpeciesDay this year, don’t just focus on how beautiful or interesting these species are.

Think about what they do – day in, day out – that benefits us all.

Help Endangered Species – Join Ecoflix

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In this article, Ian Redmond OBE—tropical field biologist, conservationist, and Ecoflix Head of Conservation—remembers and pays tribute to two internationally regarded conservationists and activists: Dr. Shirley McGreal, OBE, and Dr. Richard Leakey.

A few years ago, I was asked to speak at the funeral of a friend and colleague who was taken from us far too young. It was not an easy speech, but it made me think out loud about how we all construct a mental map of where the people who are important to us are in the world – family and friends, prominent people we admire and if we are lucky, some who fall into both categories. This mental matrix includes not just where they are but also when they are. We look back on memories of time spent together, things they have accomplished, and forward in anticipation of future occasions.

This four-dimensional social matrix is not, however, unique to humans – the large-brained, long-lived social animals such as other apes, elephants, and cetaceans appear to operate in a similar way. We notice it most when it changes; when someone important to us visits unexpectedly, their sudden appearance is a source of consternation and delight as we readjust our matrix to fit what is in front of us. Conversely, when someone dies, their loss leaves a gaping hole in our social matrix and we grieve.

Grief is such an important process, and yet because it is difficult, we seldom speak of it – but we should. Grieving together brings comfort as we share memories of the deceased and mourn the loss of future contacts to which we were looking forward. This is why the restrictions imposed on gatherings in response to COVID-19 are so cruel; it is inhuman to prevent the sharing of grief, and shedding tears together over Zoom is hardly a replacement for a heartfelt mutual embrace in a tactile species such as ours.

On a more positive note, though, video calls to share emotions across continents do bring some comfort, and there has been a lot of intercontinental grieving in recent weeks among conservationists. One after another, some of the best-known figures in the world of natural history and conservation have left us:

• On 21st November 2021, Dr Shirley McGreal, founder and driving force behind the International Primate Protection League died at the age of 87

• Over Christmas we lost Dr Thomas Lovejoy, aged 80, who coined the term ‘biodiversity’ and brought the plight of the Amazon rainforest to global attention

• Prof Edward O. Wilson, evolutionary biologist and founder of the Nature Needs Half movement, died at the age of 92

• And on 2nd January 2022, news broke that Richard Leakey, researcher into the origins of the human species and prominent Kenyan conservationist and civil servant, had died at the age of 77.

All four were extraordinary people, giants in their respective fields who changed the world for the better in their different ways. Each has had fulsome obituaries published in prominent journals, websites and newspapers so here, I’d like to share some personal memories of the two I had the privilege of knowing.

Shirley McGreal, Founder of the International Primate Protection League

I first learned about Shirley McGreal in the late ‘70s from Dian Fossey, when I was working at the Karisoke Research Centre in Rwanda. One of the threats faced by the mountain gorillas we were studying was the killing of gorilla parents to capture their infants for the live animal trade; totally illegal then and now, but still a problem even today for all but the best protected primates. Dian was an early member of the IPPL network of primate specialists, which Shirley set up in 1973 when she witnessed the harsh reality of the trade in primates while living in Thailand. Dian was also a passionate opponent of the trade in primates and indeed cared about the welfare of all animals, which greatly endeared her to Shirley; they corresponded regularly, meeting only occasionally at conferences in the US.

A few years later, when working as a reporter for BBC Wildlife Magazine, I had the chance to interview Shirley several times by telephone when covering primate issues. She had an encyclopaedic knowledge of dealers, shipments and legal cases, so much so that it was with some trepidation that I would call her, knowing that I was in for a rapid-fire torrent of details which I struggled to jot down (not having the benefit of shorthand).

One memorable series of articles was about the use of chimpanzees by an Austrian biomedical company named Immuno – a tricky topic to write about because the company had already sued Shirley for publishing a letter questioning their methods; they also sued the editor of the journal in which the letter appeared and New Scientist for reporting on it. I recall the BBC lawyers scrutinising my copy line by line and am pleased to say we gave the story the coverage it deserved without ending up in court! It wasn’t until 1989 that I met Shirley in person.

Shirley McGreal was an accredited observer at the UN Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, or CITES, Conferences of the Parties, and must have clocked up more CoP attendances than almost any other delegate. I first met her in person at CITES CoP 7 in Lausanne, Switzerland in 1989 and worked with her at almost every CoP until her last one in 2019, which should have been hosted by Sri Lanka but after the terrorist bombing in Colombo, was moved to Geneva.

We were in Switzerland both the first and last time we saw each other.

A founder member of the Species Survival Network, a coalition that grew out of collaborative campaigning for wildlife under CITES, Shirley celebrated with joy every decision that brought greater protection to all species threatened by trade, not just primates. Her outspoken and informed views did not endear her to the traders, some of whom also attend CITES meetings to lobby parties to vote down decisions that would restrict their ability to trade legally in animals and plants and their ‘readily recognisable derivatives’ (which is CITES-speak for ivory, skins, timber, etc.). Her memory for faces was a great asset, enabling her to identify which of the couple of thousand delegates at a CITES meeting were allies and who the traders were spending time with – intelligence that often made a difference to those less experienced observers trying to inform key delegates of the consequences of their votes.

An experienced traveller, Shirley would plan flights and connections with plenty of time and arrive towing a wheeled suitcase weighed down by copies of the latest IPPL Newsletter and campaign leaflets.

Thinking about her, memories pop up in my mind.

On one occasion, after visiting my home in Bristol, I drove her to the station and helped her over the footbridge to the platform; as we came down the stairs a train was coming to a halt and Shirley turned to me asking, “what time does my train arrive?” I smiled and said, “This is your train, Shirley!” and opened the door of the carriage that had just come to a halt. Her face was a picture as she realised how tight I’d left it to get her to the station, but I reassured her it was perfect timing and avoided her having to hang around on a cold, draughty platform!

Shirley was a warm and generous person, and much of the success of IPPL as an organisation stems from her attention to detail and the personal touch she brought to correspondence with members, who she regarded as friends. Letter writing was an important tool in her campaigning efforts too, and by encouraging primatologists and members of the public around the world to write to key politicians or officials, IPPL changed laws, improved law enforcement and brought about bans that saved the lives and prevented the suffering of millions of primates.

Every two years, Shirley hosted an IPPL members’ meeting at the gibbon sanctuary she and her husband John McGreal built in South Carolina. The fact that it was her home meant that it was so much more than just another conference about primate welfare and conservation, it was a meeting of minds and sharing of passions for all who were fortunate enough to attend. At the last one I attended, in 2018, I invited Shirley to summarise IPPL’s work on camera as we walked under the inter-connected gibbon enclosures. Gibbon song filled the air and the close bond between Shirley and the gibbons was very much in evidence, as was the love for her and the gibbons displayed by staff, supporters and speakers.

The COVID-19 pandemic prevented the 2020 meeting, and when we hold the next one, sadly it will be a memorial to Dr Shirley McGreal, who did so much for the lives of primates large and small, all over the world.

Richard Leakey, Fossil Hunter & Conservationist

Richard Leakey was also a delegate at many CITES meetings after 1989, though it was in 1980 that our paths first crossed, long before he transitioned from paleo-anthropology to wildlife conservation.

He was then the Director of the National Museums of Kenya and helped facilitate the Kenyan leg of an extraordinary round the world expedition called Operation Drake. This was the brainchild of Colonel John Blashford-Snell and the Scientific Exploration Society, to mark the 400th anniversary of Sir Francis Drake’s circumnavigation of the globe. JBS and his team organised a two-year circumnavigation by a brigantine, The Eye of the Wind, which called in at various countries en route, where numerous mini-expeditions and aid projects took place using the logistical skills of the British Army to support scientists and utilise the enthusiasm of ‘Young Explorers’ – volunteers in their late teens and early 20s.

I worked as a herpetologist on the New Guinea phase in ‘79 and happened to be passing through Kenya when the Eye of the Wind called in there in 1980. I think Richard Leakey saw Op Drake as an opportunity to get all sorts of tasks done all over Kenya – an archaeological dig here, a walkway or a well built there, and one of the tasks was to make a footpath to Kitum Cave in Mt Elgon National Park so that human visitors were not using the same path as the elephants.

Elephants? Yes, I too was surprised.

This was the first time I had heard the words ‘elephant’ and ‘cave’ in the same sentence, and this led to my life-long fascination for the world’s only troglodyte tuskers, who venture deep into the dark zone of caves to mine the mineral-rich rock and eat it. It is an extraordinary example of salt-appetite and once I witnessed the spectacle of elephants feeling their way into the depths, and felt their infrasonic rumbles reverberate around the cave, I was hooked!

The following year, I returned to Mt Elgon National Park clutching a letter from Richard Leakey to the Warden, John Muhanga, requesting that he help get me started in studying the use of the caves by elephants and other animals. All was going well until six weeks into the study when some official in Nairobi realised that my research permit application was still being processed and I had already started on the strength of a letter from the Director of the National Museums who had no authority to give me permission. I hadn’t realised how far Richard had stuck his neck out in helping a young researcher, but it was just one example of how he supported and encouraged people to achieve their goals.

In 1987, even though most Elgon elephants’ tusks are worn down by the mining, the price of ivory had risen to such a level that even these pitted stumps were valuable enough to attract poachers. Standing beside the rotting carcase of a teenage elephant I had named Charles was a life-changing moment. I launched an appeal in BBC Wildlife Magazine, The African Ele-Fund, with several charities cooperating to fund practical elephant conservation. In May 1989, we launched the Elefriends campaign in support of Tanzania’s call for an ivory trade ban; in July that year, Richard Leakey—by then Director of the Kenya Wildlife Service—persuaded President Daniel Arap Moi to set fire to 12 tonnes of confiscated ivory (some of which would likely have come from my study animals) in front of the world’s press and TV cameras.

It worked.

In October 1989, CITES CoP7 voted to list African elephants on Appendix 1, thereby ending commercial trade in elephant ivory across borders of all countries in the convention. There were loopholes, though, and every two or three years, supporters of the ivory trade (led by a small number of Southern African countries) tried to lift the ban, at least partially.

One of my most vivid memories of Richard Leakey’s flair for publicity was in 1997 when Zimbabwe hosted CITES CoP 10.

Intense political efforts to reopen the ivory trade were being led by the host government and there was open hostility towards the ‘bunny-hugger’ delegates and NGO observers who opposed it. Half-way through the two-week conference at the SSN reception, Richard walked carefully on his prosthetic legs onto the stage in front of several hundred people to rally the anti-ivory campaigners (Shirley among them). Sensing the tension we had been under all week, he pulled out a fluffy toy rabbit, held it aloft and proclaimed, “I am proud to be a bunny-hugger!”

The room erupted with cheers!

Whilst Leakey’s conservation work was focussed on Kenya, his positive impact was felt across Africa and elsewhere. He was a leader in many fields, as a scientist, museum curator, a civil servant, one of the founders of the Kenyan opposition party Safina as well as a founder of Wildlife Direct – a Kenya-based NGO now shaping a new generation of African conservationists.

Readers of his books and viewers of his popular TV series on evolution and human origins will attest to the fact that Richard Leakey was a deep thinker, as was his father before him. It was Louis Leakey who famously initiated the studies of great apes to look for insights into the behaviour of our East African ancestors, whose fossil remains the Leakey family have excavated. Later dubbed ‘Leakey’s Angels’, or the Trimates, under Leakey senior’s guidance Jane Goodall began her study of chimpanzees in 1960, Dian Fossey began her research on mountain gorillas in 1967 and Biruté Galdikas her study of orangutans in 1971.

At the turn of the millennium, though, reports from all ape research sites indicated that the non-human apes seemed to be heading towards extinction; and so in 2001, when UNEP launched the UN Great Apes Survival Partnership, it seemed only natural for Richard Leakey to play a role and we were delighted when he agreed to be Patron of www.UN-GRASP.org. I recall him bringing this depth of understanding to the first inter-governmental meeting on great apes in Kinshasa in 2005, when UN-GRASP was formally constituted and most of the 23 great ape range states signed the Kinshasa Declaration agreeing to ensure the survival in their natural habitat of our cousins the gorillas, chimpanzees and bonobos of Africa and the orangutans of SE Asia.

Richard Leakey’s ability to stride through the corridors of power and attract resources for both conservation and anthropology made him a unique figure on the world stage, speaking with authority and vision to academics, politicians and the public alike. The loss of such iconic figures brings to mind a line from Tennyson’s poem Morte d’Arthur that my Mother reminded me of, a few days before she died:

And slowly answer’d Arthur from the barge:

The old order changeth, yielding place to new…

Carrying on their work

And as with the knights of the round table, so it is with the cause of conservation. It is the new generation who must carry on, to complete the task these pioneers began – halting the loss of biodiversity to prevent ecosystem collapse, stabilising the climate to prevent catastrophic global warming and allowing Nature to regenerate.

In this task, education will play a critical role because every one of us has a role to play. Ecoflix will provide the information and the inspiration.

It is up to every one of us to get involved – seven billion people can achieve a lot if they put their collective mind and hands to the task! And with role models like Drs McGreal, Leakey, Wilson and Lovejoy, when we have grieved their loss, we have their examples to follow.

Further reading: ‘They saw bigger things’: Richard Leakey, Edward O Wilson and Thomas Lovejoy remembered

The post Good Grief: Ian Redmond Remembers Drs Shirley McGreal & Richard Leakey appeared first on Ecoflix | World's First Not-For-Profit Streaming Platform.

In this article, lynx conservationist Elizaveta Lukarevskaya highlights three points. First, the growing problem of young lynxes found in Russian settlements. Second, the founding of the ABCR Lynx Rehabilitation Centre. And finally, how Ecoflix has helped their lynx conservation mission.

For several years we’ve been planning to create our own organization. Its purpose would be to conduct independent research and generate expertise on the state of rare mammals (in particular, big cats). Our father, Viktor Semenovich Lukarevsky, is a first-class specialist in this field.

He is the:

• Author, co-author of the “Strategy for the Conservation of the snow leopard in Russia”, “Strategy for the Conservation of the Amur tiger”

• Coordinator of the project for the development and co-author of the “Strategy for the Conservation of the Far Eastern Leopard” (1997)

• Coordinator and leader of WWF projects in Turkmenistan (1999-2009)

• Coordinator of the Commission On Large Predators of the Theological Society of the Russian Academy of Sciences for Turkmenistan (1988-2000)

• Member of the IUCN Commission on cats (1996-2016)

• Member of the IUCN Commission on species survival, as well as head of numerous field studies and much, much more.

At the end of 2018, we created a Lynx Rehabilitation Center. Our goal is to rescue lynxes and carry out rehabilitation for their subsequent release into the wild. Additionally, the center aims to improve the methodology of existing rehabilitation programs.

The growing problem of lynx conservation in Russia

We also started monitoring the media and faced a serious problem in our country.

Every year, during the autumn–winter period, the media reports on sightings of lynxes in Russian settlements. As a rule, these are young lynx individuals, fingerlings. They are essentially kittens who have not reached one year old and are without a mother. Young individuals are not able to feed themselves in the forest in winter and, already exhausted, they go to settlements in search of easy prey (domestic cats, dogs, chickens, etc.). This leads to conflict between animals and humans.

During the autumn–winter period of 2019–2020 we identified 20 such cases. In 2020–2021, 32 cases have already been identified.

Such animals cannot return to the wild immediately after the vet’s examination. In a state of exhaustion, young kittens will not survive. They must be placed in a center where, under the supervision of specialists, the animals regain their strength and prepare for a few months to return to the wild.

ABCR and Ecoflix joining forces to solve lynx conservation

So, in 2019, we created the ABCR Lynx Rehabilitation Center (Association of Wild Big Cats Research and Conservation) and started our work.

At the moment, the lynx is not listed in the Red Book of Russia but is listed in the Red Books of a number of Russian Federation subjects.

The number of lynx is decreasing. Therefore, the rescue of orphaned kittens and other lynxes, their rehabilitation and return to the wild contribute to lynx conservation in our country.

Thanks to the support of Ecoflix, we can build another enclosure for comprehensive rehabilitation and prepare lynxes for their return to the wild.

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I chuckled heartily out loud. I was watching Netflix’s new movie, ‘Don’t Look Up’, whilst whizzing through Switzerland on an electric train. My best friend had invited me to celebrate the New Year with him and his family at their home in the Swiss Alps. Mountains make me happy, so I leapt at the opportunity. There are very few places on the planet that remain resilient to man’s meddling, but mountainous terrain makes life harder for humans and that’s usually good news for Nature.  

Once whilst making a Discovery Channel TV Series I lived in a log cabin nestled deep in the coast mountains of southeast Alaska. I was surrounded by majestic peaks, glistening glaciers, thick forests, and beautiful braided rivers that ran thick with salmon. I had grizzly bears for neighbours. It was epic! 

However, staring out of the train window gloomy thick fog hid my much-loved mountains from view. It was as if they didn’t exist. I was sad not to see their beauty immediately, but I knew they were there. I flipped open my laptop and pipped for some movie magic instead.

‘Don’t Look Up’ is the star-studded new film by director, Adam McKay, and writer, David Sirota, satirising the world’s dismal inability to act on the climate crisis with a fictional tale about how America responds to a giant ‘planet killing’ comet hurtling towards Earth.  

The story starts with Jennifer Lawrence as Michigan State University Astronomer, Kate Dibiasky, discovering a comet. However, the jubilation of Kate’s discovery is quickly cut short when Leonardo DiCaprio’s character, Dr Randall Mindy, calculates that this comet will collide with Earth in only 6 months’ time. Not good. Worse still, it’s even bigger than the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs so if humanity doesn’t figure out a way to stop it then the world will end.

The comedy kicks off when Dr Mindy and Kate deliver their apocalyptic news to the US President, portrayed by Meryl Streep, who distracted by mid-term election troubles decides to kick the comet can down the road, to “sit tight and assess”. Shenanigans ensue as the mystified scientists struggle to get the news out through the mainstream media which is much more concerned with celebrity dating gossip than planet killing comets.

‘Don’t Look Up’ is ridiculous and had me in stitches. The unwitting Swiss folk on my train must have thought I’d lost the plot. Unfortunately though for me the movie also rings alarmingly true.

My name is James Levelle and I’m an adventurer and filmmaker dedicated to telling stories that share extraordinary ways of seeing the world that can positively engage audiences and inspire people into enthusiastic action. I’ve found this to be quite challenging…

James Levelle’s first-hand experience of the terrifying forces of nature

When it comes to apocalyptic experiences, I haven’t yet wrestled with a planet killing comet, but I did very nearly die in the third most powerful hurricane to ever hit the continental USA whilst making a documentary series for the BBC about cyclones. This cyclone, Hurricane Michael, struck the Florida coastline harder and faster than anyone predicted, catching me out in the open, miles from shelter.

Some terrifying trivia: major hurricanes can unleash as much power as 10,000 nuclear bombs. By comparison the asteroid in ‘Don’t Look Up’ would release as much energy as several million nukes so whilst a category 5 cyclone can’t compete with that, my situation was no less deadly.

In Florida, federal emergency services buildings, such as fire stations, are built to be hurricane-proof, but ‘Michael’ was a full-blown maniac and ripped the roof off.

The engine of my pickup truck roared furiously powering me through the 150mph winds that were snapping trees like matchsticks, sending power pylons crashing down around me and razing steel-reinforced concrete buildings to the ground. I got lucky and found a fire station. In Florida, federal emergency services buildings, such as fire stations, are built to be hurricane-proof, but ‘Michael’ was a full-blown maniac and ripped the roof off. I had one last chance. I ran into the garage and jumped into a fire truck. Moments later the garage doors caved in and the hurricane tore through station. Battered on all sides the truck held fast. The hurricane headed on north and I survived.

I was already aware of the disastrous impacts of global warming around the world but the extreme climate chaos I saw and experienced that day rocked me to my core. There is solid scientific consensus now that as the climate crisis escalates extreme weather events such as hurricanes, floods and fires are becoming even more devastating, but no one seems to be listening.

In the movie, ‘Don’t Look Up’, Dr Mindy and Kate struggle to get the message across. They’re scientists. What more can they do than present people with the scientific fact that a comet threatens to wipe out life on Earth? I’m not a scientist but after damn near dying in that hurricane I needed to know what more I could do the communicate the urgency of the climate breakdown. The question was what?

Well, I recently completed my most recent documentary adventure, ‘Race For The Future’, for which I journeyed from the UK, half way across the world, on a mission to amplify the voices of young people by videoing their climate messages and delivering them in film to the United Nations Climate Conference in Chile, South America. And my challenge was to travel the 9,000 miles over land and sea… fossil fuel free.

‘Race For The Future’ was the most gruelling but inspiring adventure of my life. It makes for a dramatic, fun and super uplifting documentary but I recently received feedback from a couple of TV channels saying they won’t broadcast it because they don’t think that climate change rates with their audience.

This is no new problem for climate activists. Veteran environmentalist, George Monbiot, recently wrote:

“Those seeking to sound the alarm… soon hit the barrier that stands between us and the people we are trying to reach, a barrier called the media. With a few notable exceptions, the sector that should facilitate communication thwarts it.”

What James Levelle learned from the film “Don’t Look Up”

For me, the utter frustration felt by Kate and Dr Mindy in ‘Don’t Look Up’ is painfully real. In the movie, President Orlean does eventually decide to combat the comet but only because her political career is threatened by a sex scandal. She rallies the nation around the asteroid threat which creates the political distraction she needs and boosts her approval ratings.

The President launches her dramatic nuclear attack on the comet but as the missiles rocket out of Earth’s orbit, Peter Isherwell, a billionaire tech mogul and Orleans’s top political donor, waltzes into mission control. After a private word with the President the mission is mysteriously aborted. It turns out that the awkward Isherwell, played by the brilliant Mark Rylance, has discovered the comet is jam packed full of rare earth elements that he believes his, as yet untested, space age technology can exploit by breaking up the asteroid in space and recovering the fractured pieces from the ocean.

A massive misinformation and propaganda campaign soon follows claiming the comet and its rare earth elements will create countless jobs and wealth for everyone. If successful, Isherwell, the President and their cronies will certainly get filthy rich but the same is unlikely for ordinary folk. Either way, long before Isherwell’s attempt to crack the asteroid it is society that fractures and rapidly splits apart. ‘Republicanesque’ fans of the president scream ‘Don’t Look Up’ whilst the opposing ‘Democrat-like’ liberals chant ‘Just Look Up’.

It’s a familiar story and it may seem hopeless to some but, in my eyes, I see a fantastic opportunity to dig a little deeper and deconstruct the ‘illusion’ of disconnection this movie so effectively lampoons.

Unable to debate and consciously converse, the characters in ‘Don’t Look Up’ are a bunch of bloody morons oblivious to what’s actually happening in the world. Pernicious polarisation works the same way with climate change. We see only what we don’t agree with and are blind to all the fundamental needs and wants that connect us all. The fact is that neither the climate nor the fictional comet care what we think we see or don’t see; they continue on a deadly collision course destined to deliver disaster to everyone in the end.

Peter Isherwell launches his high-risk last minute comet cracking plan. It fails. The planet and humanity are doomed. 

Dr Mindy brings his colleague Kate and friends to his family home for a last supper. The comet strikes Earth and as the apocalyptic shockwaves rattle towards their dining table Mindy muses out loud, “We really did have everything, didn’t we? I mean, when you think about it.” And with that they are all blown to smithereens and the world ends.

There is hope for the future

I thought ‘Don’t Look Up’ was great fun. I laughed a lot and it felt good. You’ve got to laugh, right? That’s why comedy is so vital for a healthy society. We’ve got to be able to look at ourselves in the mirror, to recognise our crazy human ways and laugh. But if we’re to avoid the end of the world as we know it and solve a problem as polarised, and overwhelmingly massive as the climate crisis we must not only recognise our foolish ways, but we must also find fun ways to motivate change.

My 9,000-mile fossil fuel free travel challenge to Chile was massively motivating. If ever I feel down, I need only think of that incredible interconnected network of young people enthusiastically acting to affect change. Their vital imaginations, unblinded by adult cynicism, simply refuse to accept the narrowminded, negative and apathetic perspective that ‘life experience’ so often conditions into us.

Children may lack experience, but I believe that’s exactly why they see most clearly. They helped me remember the importance of focusing on what’s in front of you, of working with whatever you can, and then charging ahead making the positive changes to better your life, the lives of those around you, and the planet.

Almost anything is possible if you really focus on your goal, put the work in and most crucially, deeply believe in the outcome. The success of ‘Race For The Future’ is testament to this way of seeing the world.

My Swiss train pulled into the station. The depressing grey veil of cloud had disappeared, and I could now see the spectacular snow-capped Alps gleaming with the last of the sun’s golden light. My spirits soared at the sight of them. The miserable mist had completely barred them from view before, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there.

All I had needed to clear my vision was to climb a little higher and ‘Just Look Up’.

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The following article, written by Ecoflix Founder David. B. Casselman, describes the incredible life-story of Lek Chailert and David’s first meeting with the irrepressible elephant activist.

Today, I want to focus on my gratefulness for the support, education, and endless wisdom bestowed upon me by many people in my life, but in particular by Lek (Saengduean) Chailert from Chiang Mai, Thailand.

It has been my good fortune to have had many remarkable mentors in my life. Beginning with my father, Harry Casselman, a world class trial lawyer and later an arbitrator. Next, it was Ed DeBuys, a lovely man, who was the partner who trained me in the first law firm willing to hire me after passing the California Bar exam.

And then there have been friends who encouraged me, like Michael Bell in Los Angeles, a passionate gladiator for animals, who insisted that I could do a lot of good by using my legal training to serve as the voice for the countless, helpless, animals around the world.

And there have been so many more, but none quite like Lek Chailert.

Lek Chailert: the myth, the legend

“Lek” means “tiny” in Thai. And Lek qualifies, physically. She is slight of build and well under 5 feet tall. But what she lacks in physical stature, she more than makes up for in courage, wisdom, and an indefatigable spirit, which compels her to help animals of any size or stripe, day or night, sick or well.

Her compassion and energy are unquestionably contagious. Anyone near her feels compelled to reach down deep and do more, just to try and keep up with Lek, as she solves problems left and right.

Not many know that Lek has been threatened many times and ways by people who did not want her to object to or stop the cruel business of breaking and riding elephants. Trekking has long been the number one tourist attraction in Thailand. But, less well known, is that trekking—as it is called to attract the millions of tourists who come to ride them—causes immeasurable, brutal, and bloody harm to the body as well as to the spirit of every trekking elephant.

In response, Lek has been fighting against that cruelty since she was a small young child growing up in the Hill Tribe of Thailand.

Unmoved by the financial consequences of her public outcry against such inhumane treatment of elephants, Lek was rejected by her own family, exiled by her country, and quite literally hunted by those who threatened her life, and would most certainly do her serious bodily harm… or worse.

Such animosity lasted for many years.

But, by sheer force of will, and remaining very hard to find, she managed to survive those long decades along the path she has chosen.

Now, she is a member of the Thai Parliament, an invited speaker to the United Nations, befriended and honored by heads of state, and much more. But she has not changed: not even a little. She is still riveted to the notion that all living things deserve dignity and protection from undue harm.

Having just celebrated her 60th birthday, she is still the same young lady from Thailand who could not be corrupted or diverted from her life’s work, to save elephants, and indeed all
animals… even people.

Finding and meeting Lek Chailert

And it is here that I enter the story.

I met Lek decades ago, after searching for years to find someone who knew her or could help me speak to her. I was given the honor of being permitted to protect one million acres of unmined jungle land in Cambodia. I desperately needed her wisdom to do it “the right way.” Too many sanctuaries talk the talk, but don’t walk the walk. I needed to learn from this one truly incorruptible source, how to do it right.

And as luck would have it, one day when I least expected it, the opportunity fell in my lap. After requesting an introduction from someone who said they knew her, almost a year passed without a word.

Then, one day while I was at a legal conference in Hawaii, I received an email telling me that Lek had agreed that I could have her number. Without even considering what time it was in Thailand, I was so excited, I just pushed the link in the email, and called her, just like that.

Even as the phone was ringing, I realized that it could be the middle of the night there. But, before I could hang up, someone answered in a very gruff tone. “Hello?”

What followed was one of the most magical experiences of my life. It was Lek. I quickly tried to explain my situation and asked if I might get some advice or assistance with my sanctuary efforts.

After a long pause, she asked: “Did you say you have control over one million acres?” I said, “Yes.” Then, after another long pause, she asked: “And you say that you are working in partnership with the Cambodian government?” I said “Yes.”

Once again after a long pause, she asked: “When can we meet?”

My answer was to fly home from Hawaii, catch the first plane to Thailand, and in less than a week, I was in her presence at Elephant Nature Park. After two days of unbelievable overstimulation and education about, around, and under Asian elephants, I asked her: “Would you like to see the land we have been allowed to use to develop the Cambodia Wildlife Sanctuary?”

Now it was her turn. In a heartbeat, she said “Yes.” So, the next day we flew to Bangkok and down to Siem Reap, followed by a 2-hour crucible over terrible roads, until we got to the site of our future Sanctuary (today, the roads are paved, and it is a fairly simple one-hour drive).

When we finally stopped, Lek got out of the car, and looked up at the massive Mahogany, Rubber, and Teak trees covering the million acres set aside for us. We had driven through endless miles of clear-cut land, with almost no trees of substance in sight.

She walked a bit into the canopy, which stood out from all of the land around it.

She bent over and plucked some grass or other vegetation.

She smelled it.

Then turned to me with tears in her eyes and said: “When do we start?”

The beginning of a beautiful friendship

And so began an amazing friendship, partnership, mentorship, and much more.

I have done my best to help Lek Chailert, and Darrick Thompson, her husband, an equally remarkable human being over the years. I have tried to provide sound legal counsel, and some substantial financial contributions when it was clear that it was much needed.

In return, I have received so much more.

As they have saved elephants, dogs, monkeys, gibbons, pythons, and many more animals, both at Elephant Nature Park and at the Cambodia Wildlife Sanctuary, I have learned things I cannot even put into words.

Yes, I learned a great deal about animals, and it is precious information. But nothing can compare to spending hours with, or talking to Lek, and feeling her goodness as it radiates from within. Helping Lek, Darrick, and many others who give of themselves so selflessly, is a joy, not a burden. Lek and other people who drive themselves every day to help animals inspire me, constantly. In return, I do my best to help them, often financially. Sometimes legally.

They are the very best humanity has to offer.

Trying to live up to the goodness and purity of mind and spirit which Lek exemplifies every day is a challenge. She is the Mother Theresa of our generation. Pure goodness.

Indeed, once my wife Pam and I were talking to her at the Cambodia Wildlife Sanctuary, and a butterfly literally landed on Lek. Amazed, I watched as that beautiful butterfly just rested there and opened and closed its wings. It could feel her goodness too. All I could say was, “See Lek, even the butterflies know…”

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