John Scanlon – Hope is Ending Wildlife Crime (Jane Goodall Hoepcast #10)

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Full Transcript

Jane Goodall  0:00 

JANESPLASH: One thing that I’m really grateful for is that when lockdown was imposed because of the pandemic, I happened to be here in the UK, in the house where I grew up, our family home. And every day in the middle of the day, I take a short break, I take the ancient dog for a little walk. And then I take my very small lunch, half a bit of toast and a bit of cheese. And I sit underneath the beech tree that I used to climb when I was a child. Every day except four since lockdown began, I’ve been joined by a little robin, a robin redbreast, the kind, you know, that we have in England. And sometimes when I’m lucky, he sings to me. So very often we do sort of duet, I sing a few lines of some kind of childhood song, and then pause and he sings a little bit and pauses, and I sing a little bit. And it’s so absolutely charming. I take him a small amount of robin food. He doesn’t eat much. Sometimes he doesn’t eat any. He seems to come because he likes the duets that we sing.

CONSERVATION CHOIR INTRO: Changing mindsets and opening hearts about Mother Earth. Our planet is a gift. I believe in the collective efforts of everyone. I believe that everyone can make a difference. I aspire to change the world, too, because of the hope she gave me. She devoted her life it. Together we can save the world. Together we can, together we will. What is your greatest reason for hope? I’m Jane Goodall. And this is the Hopecast.

INTRO: Today, I’m lucky enough to be sitting down with John Scanlon, someone who works relentlessly to protect the natural world. John has dedicated his life to ensuring the safety and conservation of countless species of plants and animals. He was most recently the Secretary General of the Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora. And today, he serves a special envoy for African parks. I hope you enjoy this hopeful conversation with john Scanlon.

INTERVIEW: John, really, I’m so thrilled to welcome you to this Hopecast, and to hear you talking about issues that are so tremendously important today. And that’s ways to curb wildlife crime. I think we’ve got an awful lot of things to talk about, I hope to learn an awful lot from you during this conversation about how we can change some of the wildlife legislation so that it’s possible to actually prosecute some of these criminals who are destroying our children’s future. So I’m really happy that you’re joining us for this Hopecast.

John Scanlon  3:07 

Thanks, Jane. And it’s a great pleasure and an honor to be invited to join you. And I’m really looking forward to this conversation and really grateful for the fact that you’re showing interest in it.

Jane Goodall  3:17 

So what can we do, John, to try and slow down and then halt this, this illegal trafficking?

John Scanlon  3:25 

Yeah, thanks, Jane. It’s, it’s really tragic what we see happening. The illicit trafficking in wildlife has such a devastating impact on species, on ecosystems, on local communities. And we had a World Bank report last year, that was very interesting, because for the first time, it looked at the full cost of illicit trafficking in wildlife. And that is it looked at the cost of governments, they lose a lot of revenue, it looked at the impact on the ecosystem. And it looked at the value of the contraband itself, and it valued at one to two trillion dollars a year. Because it recognized for the first time that this illicit trafficking in wildlife of wild animals and plants is degrading ecosystems and their ability to mitigate climate change, to produce fresh water, fresh soil. So they put a true value on it. Now we’ve had this Covid-19 pandemic, and it’s reminded us all in such a devastating way of the interrelationship between wildlife, people, and our public health. They didn’t even look at that issue. Here we have COVID-19, its origins are most likely in wildlife that we know of previous pandemics, the origins were in wildlife, whether it’s SARS or Mares, or whether it’s HIV/AIDS. And if we look into the future, the IPBS recent report tells us there’s 1.7 billion viruses that have yet to be discovered, of which half they think would spill over to people. So we really need to change the way we’re doing things.

Jane Goodall  4:57 

There’s an enormous cost to local communities, as well, isn’t there? Because very often they lose their livelihoods. They’re driven to poaching in order to survive and they’ll get punished probably, but the international crime gangs, well I suppose corruption plays a big role, doesn’t it?

John Scanlon  5:19 

That’s right and local communities are the ones missing out in this. It is actually the transnational organized criminal groups. They are profiting off the back of local communities and basically, they are taking the natural assets of these local communities, depriving them of them and putting them into a poverty spiral. Locals are not benefiting from this illicit trafficking in wildlife. Maybe one or two are. The profits are going offshore, they’re leaving a degraded environment and impoverished community that’s often only been infiltrated through people corrupting officials along the way. So it’s really a devastating thing right from a local level, for local communities, local people, local wildlife. Right up to the global level, when you look at the impacts on climate change, etc.

Jane Goodall  6:07 

And you know, one thing we have to do it’s really clear to find alternative ways of making a living for the local community so that they don’t have to succumb to these bribes and so they come to understand that protecting their local environment is not just for wildlife but it’s for their own future. They need to save the environment.

John Scanlon  6:29 

Yeah we really do have to look at this interrelationship between people, their livelihoods, and wildlife. And there is a direct connection there and we have seen, as you said, through well managed wildlife tourism, great benefits flow to local communities. It’s generating jobs, it’s generating opportunities and they’re all the industries around tourism, as well. The catering or the infrastructure, all of the growing of food, you know, local produce. And when we manage protected areas well, we generate all that local employment through rangers, through guides and everything else. And the sad thing is, as you said, we’ve seen this drop off. It didn’t just slow down, it fell off the edge of a cliff with the Covid-19 pandemic. And so we’ve been, you know, caught out there. But we have to keep investing and if, if we look at wildlife not just as wildlife and the benefits of wildlife itself, wildlife is about protecting biodiversity and everything it does for us. It’s about combating climate change. It’s about public health and stopping the next pandemic. It’s about development and local jobs and it’s about security, you know, where places are well managed, generating local jobs. They’re secure places. So if we can take that broader view of wildlife, we should be getting investment from all of these different sectors into wildlife to maintain these places.

Jane Goodall  7:54 

And I think, you know, governments who are beginning to understand the value of wildlife. I mean it’s really sad that we somehow need to put a value on, on wildlife but from a standpoint of somebody living in poverty, you can understand it. A government that’s heavily in debt, tourism brings in foreign exchange which makes the central government happy and then, as you say, the local communities can benefit in many many different ways. Also, a better understanding of why it’s important for them once they have a way of making a living without resorting to poaching or, you know, it’s it’s the whole spectrum of biodiversity that’s at stake from this illegal trafficking

John Scanlon  8:38 

No, absolutely. And it’s such a wide variety of species and it’s those that are protected under international laws and those that are not. We only protect 36,000 and 8 million species and yet this same world bank report shows us that this illicit trafficking is affecting a huge range of plant species, in particular, timber and fish species that don’t enjoy any specific international protection but they’re being pillaged in such huge numbers that it’s having such a devastating impact not only on the plant, the animal, the ecosystem, but on the people that could benefit from them if you were exploiting them in a, in a sustainable way, the timber and the fish, you know, if you do that sustainably, there’s a lot of local benefit. When crime comes in, they take everything now for themselves and leave nothing for anyone else and we really, really need to get this under control.

Jane Goodall  9:30 

So what I’m anxious to hear from you is what are the plans to change some of this legislation to make it tougher to perhaps introduce more species and protect them legally as well?

John Scanlon  9:44 

Yeah, thanks, Jane. And 10 years ago or so we launched a consortium called the International Consortium on Combating Wildlife Crime and it was societies, I signed societies. It was Interpol, Office of Drugs and Crime, World Bank and World Customs. because we all recognize that we were facing a surge in illegal trade at that time, in particular, as it affected elephants and rhino and we weren’t able to deal with it effectively. So that consortium did a lot of good work, we just had the 10th anniversary. But what we recognize on the 10th anniversary is despite everything we’re doing it’s not enough. We are continuing to see a surge in illegal trading, particularly as it effects some species, the pangolin was given highest protection under societies, yet we’ve got the highest level of poaching and smuggling. We see timber species. We see fish species and many others facing a huge surge in trafficking. So we have to reflect for a moment and say is the system good enough or do we need to scale this up? And the reality is we need to change, because to date what we’ve done is relied very heavily upon societies, the Wildlife Trade Convention, to provide the legal framework and that was done in the absence of anything else. There was no other instrument to turn to so by default, we turned to societies. But we’ve really exhausted the mandate of that convention and why? It’s because it’s a trade related convention, not a crime related convention. It was never designed to deal with wildlife crime. It obliges breaches of the convention to be penalised not criminalized. It doesn’t deal with poaching it only deals with cross border movement. And it only relates to species that are included in its appendicies,  of which there are 36,000 and 8 million species, so it’s only got a small subset. And they only get listed when they’re already severely threatened to have this sort of ambulance approach to protecting a species, you know, when it’s really you know close to dying, we list it. We need to look at all species, whether threatened or not, to make sure that they don’t find themselves in the ambulance. So it shouldn’t be okay to steal any wild animal plant or any country whether it’s endangered or not. So we need to change the framework. What we need to do is have, for the first time, a global agreement on combating and preventing wildlife crime. And we can do that. We have a UN convention called “The UN Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime,” it sets the general framework for dealing with transnational organized crime and there are three protocols, they are sub agreements under that convention on human trafficking, migrant smuggling, and firearms. We need a fourth protocol that deals directly with wildlife crime. The trafficking in all fauna and flora. And what we can do through that is to say what conduct is criminalized, to say how we’re going to cooperate with one another to deal with demand reduction, and to share information on known trafficking routes, known organized crime groups, share information on forensics and work together on technical and capacity building support, etc. But we need to embed this issue into the international criminal law framework because it’s a crime issue, not a trade issue. This is about serious organized crime and that’s what we need to do and we can do it, we know exactly what we can do, we have to see if we can generate the sort of political will that’s needed because this is about countries agreeing amongst each other to carry this idea forward.

Jane Goodall  13:25 

Well, John, I don’t know, I’ve seen so many of these agreements where people agree and they sign legislation, but corruption somehow manages to knock it down, may creep around the corner. But step number one, yes, is to get it in there, to get, to get that made as a, as a crime. That definitely is step number one. And after that, the enforcement of it and the prosecution.

John Scanlon  13:50 

And this protocol that we’ve drafted one. We’ve worked with an excellent law firm, Arnold and Porter, to draft a protocol to show exactly what it could look like. And one of the important things that does is it not only protects species protected under international law, but under a country’s own domestic law. And what it does is require mutual respect for each other’s laws, so that if you take any wildlife from a source country, bring it into a destination country, if you’re caught at the destination country it is a criminal offence in the destination country to have brought in that wildlife other than in accordance with the laws of the source country. So it’s making it much harder. You might get out of the source country but at the destination country you face a criminal prosecution for having done that. Showing respect for each other’s laws. That puts a lot of pressure on those who are trafficking, that they have to run the gauntlet twice and it would apply to any wildlife that’s protected under national law, not just those protected under, under international law. It would provide a much stronger framework,

Jane Goodall  14:56 

Yeah, I see horrific situations arising where animals are sent out, but they’re not allowed in and unless we get lots of sanctuaries of people who know how to look after them, it’s going to be absolutely dreadful. It’s bad enough now, confiscated animals often have nowhere to go and I know that sometimes they give them to organizations that are not exactly very, very transparent and then they just get sold on again. So it is a problem, isn’t it, to have places where confiscated wildlife can be put and looked after?

John Scanlon  15:34 

You’re absolutely right and I remember visiting a very good facility in the Netherlands, several years back, where they were actually servicing a large part of the European Union for animals, live animals, that had been confiscated and seized in illegal trade because as you scale up that effort, you actually have to have somewhere where you can care for those live animals in trade and they are often a forgotten part of this whole chain of dealing with the criminality. You have to have them. Otherwise you can have customs officers that just leave it alone, it’s a little bit too difficult to know what to do with this. They need to have confidence that they can seize confiscated, and there’s a rescue center that these animals can go to. Some zoos, actually, play a very important role there as well.

Jane Goodall  16:21 

Yes, they do. You know the other thing which, of course, I always come back to, is we’ve just been talking about trafficking, you know, from my research with chimpanzees and from all of the most recent scientific research into animal behavior, there’s ample proof that all these animals are sentient beings. They feel fear, they feel pain, they’re individuals. So it’s causing immense suffering to billions of sentient animals, I mean honestly, if you try and think collectively of the suffering it’s, it’s so overwhelming.

John Scanlon  16:58 

Yeah and it’s enormous suffering because it’s all done illegally, so they’re trying to hide what they’re doing. These animals get put into dreadful conditions to try and hide them during this illegal trade. Many of them will die in the process. So it’s a very sad situation from every perspective, every angle you look at it.

Jane Goodall  17:18 

I was part of a rescue of some African Gray Parrots and after a lot of rehabilitation and many dying, of course, some of them are now actually breeding in the wild. It was very exciting to pull the string and watch them come out, for the first time, into the big wilderness.

John Scanlon  17:35 

Yeah, there are some wonderful stories like that. Too few, but there are lovely stories about how animals can be rescued and brought back to the wild, which is lovely to see, but as you said, so many die en route or through the process and if they’re not recovered through being detected at customs, how many do we know we’re going to a destination somewhere else?

Jane Goodall  17:56 

I mean, you read about the tons of pangolin scales, just the scales, think of the number of pangolins, I mean, it’s, it’s mind boggling. It’s horrible.

John Scanlon  18:06 

That is mind boggling and I’ve been, I’ve never seen a wild pangolin. They’re, they’re quite difficult to see in the wild. That poachers and smugglers have found them in such big numbers, it is a horrific number, the number of animals that have been found in legal trade in either, their scales or their meat or as live animals. It’s a tragic fate that they’re suffering, at the moment.

Jane Goodall  18:36 

I’ve just written a book for children, for China, and it’s about to be published in, in Chinese. The young people, particularly in China, they really are beginning to get a feeling for animal welfare, which, didn’t really exist when I first worked there in the mid 90s. So it is changing.

John Scanlon  18:56 

I’ve certainly had the good fortune to do quite a lot of work in China and I think I share your view that you do see an attitudinal shift. I certainly worked very closely with them on the whole ivory trade issue and met with Vice Premier Wang Yang there. Did the first ivory crushing in Dongguan, China, 2014. Hangzhou did the first event we did on demand side issues of ivory and then the first closure of markets in Beijing in 2017. And there was a clear shift in attitude there, I think, with the younger generations I spoke to there, including Hong Kong, it’s a different attitude towards animal welfare and animals that I was detecting and they’ve certainly gone hard in terms of wildlife and captive breeding in response to this Covid-9 pandemic. It’s another reason why we do need to scale up our enforcement effort because, as you just said, Jane, if we put in place greater restrictions, either nationally or internationally, because we think wildlife trade laws should also be amended to regulate trade on public health grounds, not just on conservation grounds but also look at the public and animal health implications of the trade the moment we just look at conservation but, as there are more restrictions, we can’t just let it dive underground. So we have to scale up the enforcement effort and we’re not going to stop pandemics if we stop it in one country, two countries but there’s three, four, five, ten, twenty others that are doing it. So we do need this global approach to wildlife trade to look at it through a one health lens, conservation, public health, animal health, look at it all together. It will put in place greater restrictions, then scale up the enforcement and have this agreement amongst states on wildlife crime how we agree to combat it and prevent it together. There are so many reasons, as we were saying before, to do that now: biodiversity, climate change, development, public health, security. We can’t, in good conscience, leave the next generation with the system that we’re living with today when we know that it’s not fit for purpose. It was great 50 years ago, but it’s not great now.

Jane Goodall  21:10 

The silver lining of this pandemic is that it has woken people up and it will help wildlife trafficking. So we’ve been working really hard, you know, through JGI’s Roots and Shoots program, we’ve been working on the demand side of it. Because if you can work on the demand side, people don’t want these things anymore, if people don’t want ivory and they they realize that rhino horn and pangolin scales are like eating our fingernails, then, you know, that will be a big help. The other end of it, so this legislation was the sort of humanitarian side of it and then there’s the demand.

John Scanlon  21:50 

We have to look right across that illegal supply chain from better protecting its source, providing local opportunities, local employment, all the way through to the demand side to suppress the demand. The challenge we face is that with some of these animals and plants, there are so few left, it only takes a tiny percentage of a population to wipe out an entire species. So the challenge we confront there is it only needs such a tiny, tiny fraction of the overall population to want to get access to these animals and plants illicitly and it can cause such misery for everybody. So a big part of demand reduction is what you’re talking about, is changing attitudes, a new generation thinking of these things differently, but then there’s also those that won’t change and they need to feel the hot arm of the law, the long arm of the law. That’s that’s the demand reduction strategy for some of these individuals that won’t shift their behavior.

Jane Goodall  22:52 

Absolutely and if they weren’t shift their behavior they deserve to be behind bars.

John Scanlon  22:56 

Well certainly, giving people jail sentences and heavy fines and going after the assets that have been acquired through this illicit trafficking is what we need to do so they do feel that the pain from this, in terms of the penalties, and we have also written into this agreement under the UN Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime, we’ve looked at combating but also preventing. So we’ve added into that agreement commitments to work on demand reduction, to work across civil society and other sectors to assist with demand reduction, so what we’ve tried to do in this legal agreement is have commitments not just on what conduct should be criminalized and how we deal with that but how we can prevent it by dealing with demand reduction, etc. So getting both ends of the spectrum, as you are highlighting there, from source to destination so we cover it all.

Jane Goodall  23:50 

Don’t you think it would be really good, and you could really help here, to collect up some of these stories of success because when people realize there is a way around, you can change people’s attitude, there are these places that look after the animals, they can sometimes be rehabilitated, then people are much more inclined to say, “Okay, it can’t be done. Let’s go ahead and do it.” It certainly works with youth.

John Scanlon  24:18 

Yeah, I think you’re absolutely right, Jane, and balancing that story of the scale of the threat and the sort of nasty things we’re seeing, against the positive things we’re seeing with those individuals who are involved in law enforcement, involved in protecting animals that have been rescued from illegal trade, also some great stories about what’s happening in source countries where you see, I’ve been to northern rangelands, to the Laos conservancy, I’m sure you have as well, into Garamba National Park in DRC, Ecogear and Rwanda, there’s such fantastic stories there about where the land is being well managed with local people being employed, local people deriving the benefit. It really is a fantastic story of people and wildlife benefiting. So there are good stories, we just need to keep scaling them up. Because we have good things happening, we need more good things happening. So always that balance between sounding the alarm, but also saying, you know that there is hope. Because if we can do more of this, then you know, it’s gonna be good.

Jane Goodall  25:24 

So we can work together.

John Scanlon  25:25 

We can. And we’ve shown it, you know, we have examples. It’s not in theory. Yeah, it’s in practice.

Jane Goodall  25:31 

Roots and Shoots began in ’91. And it began in Tanzania. It began with high school students. So a lot of them are actually in decision making positions. We’ve had incredible examples of, of them, actually, you know, forcing through change and raising awareness and standing up to corruption even, which is pretty amazing. The environment minister in DRC, right now, was Roots and Shoots in primary school. You know, it has begun to work.

John Scanlon  26:01 

No, it’s fantastic. And I think what’s great about Roots and Shoots is we see different generations coming together. And you see the benefit experience and the wisdom of people like yourself, blended with the enthusiasm, the creativity, the innovation of the youth. And when you can say we have a shared responsibility to look at the future of wildlife, you know, across generations, you get so much more. And I remember, you know, just in my lifetime, growing up in Australia, seeing shifts in attitude to wildlife, and native vegetation. There was like a 180 degree turn, there was a shift in attitude. And it was a generational shift. And I’m working with a lot of people at the moment, younger people, and their passion and drive and commitment to wildlife and nature conservation is absolutely inspiring.

Jane Goodall  26:55 

It really is. That gives me my most hope, when I’m, you know, carrying on because we have to, and giving people hope, because really hope is absolutely key. Without hope you just become apathetic. What’s the point? I mean, what’s, what would be the point of you trying to fight for this legislation, if you didn’t hope that it would actually work? You wouldn’t be doing this if you thought, well, it’s useless.

John Scanlon  27:21 

No, exactly. And I mean, we think that we have to change wildlife trade laws, wildlife crime laws, a lot of other things we need to do as well protect wildlife better at source, etc. But these changes are needed. And so we are, as a group of us, including Jane Goodall Institute Global as one of our champions, pushing forward with these suggestions. It’s going to be difficult. It’s never easy changing the international legal framework, but we believe it needs to be done. And because it needs to be done, we’re working to encourage states to pick it up. Because why wouldn’t you do that? You know, it’s going to be difficult. But if I look at back in the 1970s, where we had the first UN Stockholm on the Human Environment, that was hard. Negotiating societies in 1973 was hard. Negotiating the biodiversity convention in 1992 was hard. So things can happen, where there’s enough momentum, and there’s good reason to do it. And the fact that it’s hard or it’ll take some time or it’ll be challenging, is no reason not to do it.

Jane Goodall  28:23 

Yeah. You just become obstinate and say, “I’m not going to let them defeat me. No way.”

John Scanlon  28:31 

Now, we’re gonna draw inspiration from you there, Jane. And I think that there’s a whole group of organizations that have very different views on many, many different things. But we all agree with these objectives, we have to change our relationship with nature, we have to protect wildlife, we have to prevent the next pandemic, the next generation should not be left with the legal framework that we have when we know it’s not fit for purpose. So yeah, a great group of inspiring people who are all working towards common objectives.

Jane Goodall  29:01 

You know, there’s one other thing which we’re working on trying to do. So when you’re educating, especially youth, but adults, too, you know, this one way you go, you show the cruelty, you show the suffering of an elephant, people don’t actually like watching that they tend to turn it off. But to get together some of these things that you’ll find now on YouTube, you know, they’re so moving, when you see how elephants will rescue a little one and see how intelligent they are. That really gets into people’s hearts, and then they want to save them. Those sorts of things, that gets to you. It really does.

John Scanlon  29:52 

One of the good things that the IPBS report, the global assessment, was quite a sobering report, as you know, about, you know, all the consequences of, of our actions over many decades, it predicted that we could lose up to a million species over the coming decades. But then it had those critical words, unless we change course. And we can change course, if we choose to. There seems to be a shift in people’s head through COVID-19, almost the light went on, a recognition, that this interrelationship with nature, we’ve got wrong. We need to recalibrate it. I just hope that people hold that thought, because we tend to have short memories. And I remember SARS was, you know, a big issue, it went away. And then 10 years later, sort of people have forgotten and got back into bad ways. Here, you know, we’ve seen the consequences of this pandemic, we are seeing a shift in attitude, but we have to institutionalize some changes, as well. Otherwise, we have short memories, and in 10 years time, we forgot about it, and we get hit again in 20 years time. So this idea of feeling what we feel from COVID-19, seeing what we see, recognizing the science, and then institutionalizing changes. So in 10, 20, 50 years, we have changed our way of doing things and haven’t just fallen back into old bad habits.

Jane Goodall  31:12 

I think this was the kind of last push, because it’s affecting our health and our economy, whereas climate change is actually a far greater threat. But oh, well, it’s nothing to do with me, that’s happening over in the Amazon. I’m here in the UK. But actually, we’re beginning to realize more and more and more people, people are realizing it’s affecting our weather. It’s affecting the weather in the UK. It’s affecting this, that and the other. And of course, as it warms up, so you get diseases coming in from different animal and plant species. We’re seeing it more and more. And this thing about our health is the last push to get people to really change, don’t you think?

John Scanlon  31:56 

I agree with you entirely, Jane. I do think just in the various people I’m interacting with, I think this COVID-19 has been that thing that’s pushed people over the edge. And it’s finally clicking. The other thing that I hope there’s a recognition, is that to see, is that people recognize that we have to break out of these silos, you can’t just think I do biodiversity, I do climate, I do development, I do public health, I do security, you know, we have to see a convergence here. And if you invest in nature, the return on your investment in nature is massive: biodiversity, climate development, public health, security. You know, I think breaking out of that sense that wildlife, you invest in wildlife for wildlife. Yeah, we we do that. But the benefit of doing that is huge for everyone. And the amount of investment is just such a tiny, tiny fraction of the budgets of you know, health, or security or development. So for what is in the scheme of things, a tiny investment, we can take that biodiversity, combat climate change, get good development benefits for rural communities, protect our public health and provide security. That’s where we need to be and maybe COVID-19 pushed us over the edge. Time will tell.

Jane Goodall  33:13 

So, John, if we are thinking about these changes that we’ve been talking about and this huge change in legislation that’s so important, what is it that governments, local and on the ground, what can they be doing now to help this process along?

John Scanlon  33:30 

So at the international level, we need to amend our wildlife trade laws, which is societies to build in public and animal health criteria. We need states to get behind that. So we need countries to say that they agree with that. But countries are going to be influenced by what civil society says, by what the private sector says. So we really need to mobilize private sector and civil society, to say that’s a good idea. At the local level, we really need to ensure that we are investing in nature. We’ve lost so much revenue through tourism in so many parts of the world, we need to invest in nature, across public health budgets, across development budgets, security budgets, they need to direct some of their budget into protecting nature, because the return on that investment is a return on climate, public health and development. So we need to see budgets open up for nature that haven’t traditionally invested in nature. If we get enough public momentum, I think the governments will will see the benefits of this, good governments are obviously going to be responsive to their communities. So in short, we ask all civil society business sector industry associations, to generate momentum within in between governments to amend wildlife trade laws, amend wildlife crime laws, to make sure that we can avert the next pandemic and bring these wildlife crimes to an end.

Jane Goodall  34:57 

Yes, and educate young people in school and university to understand the issues. Thank you, John. I’ve certainly learned a lot from talking to you, so really thanks for joining us on this Hopecast. I think it’s been fantastic.

John Scanlon  35:13 

Jane, it’s been a great honor and pleasure to have the opportunity to spend so much time with you and I’m a huge admirer of everything you’ve done for so long and Roots and Shoots is fantastic. Getting that younger generation mobilized and inspired about wildlife, I think it’s incredible and it’s going to stand us in good stead and it’s going to make sure that my kids grow up on a better planet than it would otherwise be.

Jane Goodall  35:38 

And next time we meet face to face.

John Scanlon  35:40 

I’m very much looking forward to that. I’ve been sitting in this chair, in this room for far too long.

Jane Goodall  35:46 

Me too.

FROM THE ARCHIVES: Recently there’s been increased international commitment to fight wildlife crime and it’s now time to join forces with Jane Goodall Institute is part of a new collaborative alliance, the Global Initiative to End Wildlife Crime. No organization on its own, no country on its own can effectively stop the illegal wildlife trade that knows no borders. Only through our collective efforts in continued collaboration, can we stamp out this cruel and devastating trade. Together, we simply must.

Feel hopeful and inspired to act with the Jane Goodall Hopecast by subscribing on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Pdcasts, and anywhere podcasts are found. I’m your host, Jane Goodall. The Jane Goodall Hopecast is produced by the Jane Goodall Institute. Our production partner is FRQNCY Media. Michelle Khouri is our executive producer. Enna  Garkusha is our producer, and Matthew Ernest-Filler is our editor and sound designer. Our music is composed and performed by Ruth Mendelssohn, with additional violin tracks from Angie Shear. Sound design and music composition for the Conservation Chorus is by Matthew Ernest-Filler.


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The Jane Goodall Institute is a global community conservation organization that advances the vision and work of Dr. Jane Goodall. By protecting chimpanzees and inspiring people to conserve the natural world we all share, we improve the lives of people, animals and the environment. Everything is connected—everyone can make a difference.

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About Author

Scientist. Activist. Storyteller. Icon. Jane Goodall blazed the trail and changed the world. Now, she's studying new subjects – humans! This brand-new podcast will take listeners on a one-of-a-kind journey as they learn from Dr. Goodall's extraordinary life, hear from changemaking guests from every arena, and become awed by a growing movement sparked by Jane and fueled by hope. Join us as we get curious, grow compassion, and take action to build a better world for all. As we face some of the greatest challenges to humankind and the natural world, we have a unique opportunity: the power of technology to connect and share ideas. Now is the time to galvanize people around Jane’s message of hope in action and bring big thinkers together to change hearts and minds alike. The Jane Goodall Hopecast is produced by the Jane Goodall Institute by Dan DuPont, Shawn Sweeney, and Ashley Sullivan. Our production partner is FRQNCY Media. Michelle Khouri is our executive producer, Enna Garkusha is our producer, and Matthew Ernest Filler is our editor and sound designer. Our music is composed and performed by Ruth Mendelson with additional violin tracks from Angie Shyr. Sound design and music composition for the Conservation Chorus is by Matthew Ernest Filler.