The images presented here are taken from a series that I was asked to produce by the World Wildlife Fund looking at the effects of the illegal wildlife trade. The resulting project, ‘Inside Wildlife Crime’, is a two part investigative multimedia report shot in Asia and Africa looking at the recent escalation in the number of elephant slaughters in the Congo Basin, and the corresponding rise in demand for Ivory products in China and Thailand.
Last year I was asked by WWF to produce a series of images looking at the effects of the illegal wildlife trade, which not only threatens nature’s most iconic species, but exacerbates poverty and corruption, funding an entire spectrum of related international crime. In June, I spent some time with an anti-poaching patrol in Gabon with the aim of photographing the lives of individuals on the frontlines of the war against wildlife crime. I met with ranger Soho Jocelyn at his home in Makokou and then followed him into the forest on patrol. One night sitting around the fire we got the chilling news that two rangers had been murdered, just miles away, across the border in Congo.
The increase in clashes between rangers and poachers has left horrifying numbers dead in the past year alone. The increased frequency of ranger deaths is haunting, but it’s also an accessible symbol of a much deeper erosion of culture and livelihoods. As Soho Jocelyn kissed his wife and children before leaving for the jungle, I got a real sense of what was at stake. Not just in terms of his safety but the repercussions for his community and its history and shared values.
In many ways the short time I spent with the Baka community, who live in the forests of Gabon, Congo and Cameroon, was the most illustrative of the full effects of wildlife crime. Baka are employed and killed on both sides of the battle, a poacher one day may have no qualms about becoming a ranger the next. It all depends who’s footing the bill. But
the recent escalation in commercial poaching has brought more than just the death of a few individuals, it has brought about the disintegration of an entire way of life. Or more accurately, the advent of poaching has served as a catalyst hugely enhancing the effect of other environmental pressures in breaking the bonds the Baka once held with the forest and pushing them into alcoholism, domestic violence and a whole host of associated social problems. I often find in the course of my work that the social cohesion of indigenous groups can be read as a litmus test for environmental issues.
The Baka were originally semi-nomadic subsistence hunters. The majority have now settled in villages as pressure from logging and infrastructure projects has impacted wildlife populations throughout the Congo basin. It’s economics that have pushed the Baka to hunt elephants. Elephants alive steal food and trample crops, whilst dead their tusks are almost worth their weight in gold. It’s ironic in a sense, and also understandably frustrating for the Baka, that they used to revere the elephant and only started ‘poaching’ under pressure from French and German colonial rulers who had an insatiable thirst for ivory. Now their orders are coming from criminal syndicates and terrorist groups. It’s probably hard to tell the difference.