The fifth round of talks in pursuit of a legally binding Global Plastics Treaty kicks off in Busan, South Korea shortly — but will we emerge with an agreement capable of tackling the world’s plastic crisis or will vested interests compromise the final vision. In this episode, EIA Ocean Campaign Leader Christina Dixon and Ocean Campaigner Jacob Kean-Hammerson join Senior Press & Communications Officer Paul Newman for an update on the progress so far and a look ahead to the challenges remaining for negotiators in Busan.

In the countdown to EIA’s 40th anniversary in September, as well as sharing films and stories from our archive, we’ve also recorded a short series of new podcasts with some of the longest serving campaigners to get an insight into how the organisation has evolved over four decades. In this episode, EIA’s Senior Press and Communications Officer Paul Newman talks with Debbie Banks, the leader of EIA UK’s Tigers and Wildlife Crime campaign, about her experiences with EIA over the years and the challenges to come. Image (c) Elliott Neep / www.elliotneep.com

In the countdown to EIA’s 40th anniversary later this year, as well as sharing films and stories from our archive, we’ve also recorded a short series of new podcasts with some of the longest serving campaigners to get an insight into how the organisation has evolved over four decades. In this episode, Senior Press and Communications Officer Paul Newman talks with EIA UK Campaigns Director Julian Newman about his early days in the organisation, from going undercover as a refrigerant trade with an unwieldy camera hidden in a sports bag to night trekking through the forests of Indonesia to expose major illegal logging operations, and looks at the challenges that lie ahead in investigation environmental crime.

In the countdown to EIA’s 40th anniversary later this year, as well as sharing films and stories from our archive, we’ve also recorded a short series of new podcasts with some of the longest serving campaigners to get an insight into how the organisation has evolved over four decades. In this episode, EIA’s Senior Press and Communications Officer Paul Newman talks with EIA US Executive Director Alexander von Bismarck about the changes he’s seen in the organisation and the challenges it faces in the future.

After a strong opening to UN talks in pursuit of a Global Plastics Treaty, recent rounds of negotiation have been hindered by the efforts of fossil fuel industry lobbyists as well as by some countries keen to water it down and rein in its ambition. In this episode, EIA Ocean Campaign Leader Christina Dixon and Ocean Campaigner Jacob Kean-Hammerson join Senior Press & Communications Officer Paul Newman to talk about progress to date and what to expect when the fourth session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee – INC-4 for short – opens in Canada later this month.

With only an estimated 10 individuals left, the vaquita porpoise is the world’s most endangered marine mammal, pushed to the edge of extinction by illegal fishing for the dried swim bladders of totoaba fish which are in high demand in Asia.   But despite the species’ alarmingly low numbers, recent action in their range by Mexico’s Navy appears to give them a fighting chance – now we need consumer countries to take meaningful action to curtail the illegal trade that’s killing them.   In this episode, EIA Senior Press and Communications Officer Paul Newman is joined by Senior Ocean Campaigner Sarah Dolman and special guest Lorenzo Rojas-Bracho, an internationally recognised authority on vaquitas.

In the countdown to EIA’s 40th anniversary later this year, as well as sharing films and stories from our archive, we’ve also recorded a short series of new podcasts with some of the longest serving campaigners to get an insight into how the organisation has evolved over four decades. In this episode, EIA’s Senior Press and Communications Officer Paul Newman talks with EIA UK Executive Director Mary Rice about the highs and lows she’s experience and about the challenges to come.

On the third anniversary of the Myanmar military seizing power, the country has effectively seen a return to the violence, plunder and human rights abuses of the former dictatorship in pursuit of control and hard currency. Despite international sanctions, the current regime still seeks to fund itself through illicit exports of valuable commodities, especially of precious teak which is much sought after for luxury boatbuilding. In this episode, EIA Senior Press and Communications Officer Paul Newman is joined by Forests Campaigner Kate Klikis to talk about the ongoing impacts of the coup and efforts to stop the military junta from cashing in on Myanmar’s natural commodities.

More than two years ago, EIA unveiled our Environmental Crime Tracker, an open access online tool to help analyse and better understand wildlife and forest crime around the world. Recently, we expanded its capabilities even further with a new dashboard to help assess the prosecutions of environmental crimes. In this episode, Data Manager Royce To and Data Analyst Shaliza Malik from EIA’s Intelligence and Investigations team talk with Senior Press and Communications Officer Paul Newman about the Tracker and the value of its new prosecutions feature.

Palm oil is cheap, versatile and used widely in countess thousands of products and in biofuels, but its production has been linked to human rights abuses, illegal logging and deforestation, causing considerable harm to indigenous peoples and the habitats of endangered orangutans. In this episode, EIA Forests Campaigner Siobhan Pearce talks to Senior Press and Communications Officer Paul Newman about the various problems associated with palm oil and what is being done to address them.

The terrible scale of our planet’s plastic pollution crisis has been making headlines in recent years, as have a number of apparent technological solutions to the problem – but can we really rely on physical ocean clean-ups to sort out the mess for us? Special guest Ewoud Lauwerier, Plastic Policy Expert with OceanCare, and EIA Ocean Campaigner Jacob Kean-Hammerson join EIA Senior Press and Communications Officer Paul Newman to discuss the findings and implications of our new jointly produced report Clean-ups or clean-washing? How plastic pollution clean-up technology can actually harm the environment and obstruct policy progress.

EIA’s Ocean campaigners were among the first to spot the rising crisis of plastic pollution and we’re proud to have helped lead the call for a new Global Plastics Treaty to tackle it. This month we’ll be in Nairobi to attend the third session of the UN’s Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee working out the detail. In this episode, EIA Ocean Campaign Leader Christina Dixon and Ocean Campaigner Jacob Kean-Hammerson join Senior Press & Communications Officer Paul Newman to bring us up to date on what’s been happening at the talks so far and look ahead at what progress we can expect and any potential obstacles.

Illegal wildlife trade is happening on a large scale to supply the parts and products of protected species such as leopards, pangolins, rhinos and tigers to serve as ingredients in some traditional Chinese medicines. In this episode, EIA Legal and Policy Specialist Avinash Basker talks to Senior Press & Communications Officer Paul Newman about the findings of our new report, Investing in Extinction, and the reputation risk to which major international household names might be exposing themselves by investing in this aspect of the traditional medicine industry.

In this episode, we take a look at the work of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee, which has just met in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and discuss what happened – and what didn’t happen – at the meeting and how World Heritage Sites can be an important tool when it comes to bolstering protection for endangered species and unique habitats. EIA Senior Wildlife Campaigner Lindsey Smith was keeping close tabs on the Riyadh meeting and shares her insights with podcast host Paul Newman, EIA’s Senior Press and Communications Officer.

Much of the past decade has been a tough time for endangered rhinos, to judge from the recorded seizures of rhino horn being smuggled around the world – but it’s not all bad news for this threatened species … In this special episode for World Rhino Day, EIA Senior Wildlife Policy Analyst Taylor Tench talks with Senior Press & Communications Officer Paul Newman about the current state of rhino conservation, the progress that has been made and the challenges still remaining.

After spending most of the summer in port, Iceland’s last whalers have been given the green light by their Government to resume the hunting and killing of endangered fin whales. In this episode, EIA’s Senior Ocean Adviser Clare Perry and Senior Ocean Campaigner Sarah Dolman talk to Senior Press and Communications Officer Paul Newman about what this development might mean for whales and what likelihood there is of the hunts ending for good.

The UN Environment Assembly is in the process of negotiating a new Global Plastics Treaty, with the second phase of talks kicking off at the end of May to hammer out the detailed needed to properly address the fast-rising threat of plastics pollution. In this episode, EIA Ocean Campaign Leader Christina Dixon and Ocean Campaigner Jacob Kean-Hammerson talk about their preparations for the second meeting of the International Negotiating Committee and the role of the influential fossil fuels lobby in the process.

The plastics used in agricultural production – commonly called agriplastics – account for only 3.5 per cent of the plastic used around the world each year, but they directly pollute the human food chain and harm the wider environment. As EIA releases the first of a new series of reports on the problems with agriplastics, EIA Ocean Campaigner Lauren Weir joins Senior Press & Communications Officer Paul Newman to talk about its findings. Read the Cultivating Plastics report Find out more

The European Union has ambitious plans to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55 per cent by 2030 – but one major problem is its reluctance to address the huge amount of harmful methane released into the planet’s warming atmosphere from the its imports of coal, gas and oil. In this episode, EIA Climate Campaigner Kim O’Dowd joins Senior Press and Communications Officer Paul Newman to talk about the findings of our latest report, Hidden Harm, and what the EU should be doing about the situation. Find out more about the Hidden Harm report: https://eia-international.org/news/hidden-methane-emissions-from-the-eus-fossil-fuel-imports-undermine-its-climate-ambitions/ Read the report: https://eia-international.org/report/hidden-harm/

In partnership with the UK’s Alan Turing Institute, EIA is currently working on an ambitious project to create a database of tiger stripe patterns – as individual as human finger prints – to help identify and trace animals in the wild and in illegal trade. In this latest episode, EIA Senior Press & Communications Officer Paul Newman is joined by Shaun Buckley, a Data Scientist at the Turing Institute, to talk about the project and the challenges of developing this new cutting-edge tool.

In March this year, the United Nations Environment Assembly agreed to forge ahead with a new Global Plastics Treaty and next week sees work start in earnest to get the detail in place to address the fast-rising threat of plastics pollution. In this episode, EIA Ocean Campaign Leader Christina Dixon and Ocean Campaigner Jacob Kean-Hammerson talk about why work on this treaty is so important and what to expect from the negotiations.

One of the biggest dates in the environmental calendar is happening in November when the 19th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora – aka CITES – opens in Panama City. But just what is CITES? Justin Gosling, the Senior Project Coordinator for EIA's Securing Criminal Justice projects in West and Central Africa talks with EIA Senior Press & Communications Officer Paul Newman about the Convention, how it came about, what it does and – just as importantly – what it doesn’t do.

On 16 September, the United Nations marks the International Day for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer – and for EIA’s Climate team, it’s an opportunity to look back at the Montreal Protocol as it marks its 35th anniversary and to consider its role in addressing present and future challenges to the planet.   In this episode, EIA Climate Campaigner Sophie Geoghegan talks to Senior Press & Communications Officer Paul Newman about the impact of the Protocol – the most successful international environmental agreement ever – and why it remains so vital for all our futures.

Today (7 September) is the UN International Day of Clean Air for Blue Skies and Climate Campaigner Kim O’Dowd talks about the dangerous impacts of methane pollution on climate change as well as on human health and what EIA is doing about it.

This episode, EIA Forests Team Leader Faith Doherty and Kaoem Telapak’s Mardi Minangsari talk with Senior Press & Communications Officer Paul Newman about the reasons for embarking on a major documentary project, the obstacles overcome and the special relationship that has been built between both organisations over two decades of campaigning.

Last week, Zimbabwe hosted what it called an ‘Elephant Summit’ for itself and several other African nations – including Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania and Zambia – with the aim of restarting the legal international trade in ivory and selling off their stockpiled elephant tusks. And in sharp juxtaposition to this potentially lethal movie, the UK Ivory Act is due to come into effect next week, banning virtually all trade in ivory in the country. In this episode, EIA Senior Wildlife Campaigner Lindsey Smith and Wildlife Campaigner Rachel Mackenna take a look at these latest developments affecting elephant conservation and consider likely next steps.

In this edition, special guest Wilson Ogoke, Wildlife Policy Coordinator with the Africa Nature Investors Foundation, talks with EIA Wildlife campaigners Philip Rekret and Justin Gosling about the country’s new environmental crime strategy and how effective it may prove to be.

Billions of tonnes of plastics have been produced by human beings and it can be found polluting every corner of the planet, from the highest mountains to the deepest seas. New research has just revealed that it’s also present in human blood. In this edition, we’re delighted to be joined by special guest Ben Jack, Programme Director of Common Seas, to talk about his organisation’s ground-breaking findings and by EIA Ocean Campaigner Tom Gammage to consider how this new research could contribute to a global plastics treaty.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change this week published its latest report pulling together all the latest data on global warming and its impacts and it makes for particularly harrowing reading. In this edition, EIA Climate Campaigner Sophie Geoghegan unpacks the main findings of the report and explains why, despite a grim outlook, it’s not a future we have to be locked into.

In just a few days, the United Nations Environment Assembly is due to start work on the creation of a global plastics treaty to tackle the very real planetary emergency of plastic pollution. In this edition, Christina Dixon, EIA Ocean Campaigns Deputy Leader, talks about why the world so urgently needs an international agreement to tackle the plastics crisis and how close we may be to achieving one.

The UN CoP26 climate change summit threw an international focus on global warming and what needs to be done to mitigate its worst potential impacts – but was the conference a success or a failure? And what needs to happen next to avert catastrophe? Climate campaigners Sophie Geoghegan and Kim O’Dowd join Paul Newman to reflect on the outcomes of CoP26 and discuss what needs to happen next.

Following the launch of the new EIA report The Truth Behind Trash, Ocean campaigners Tom Gammage and Lauren Weir talk about the scale and impact of the problem and what EIA is doing to help address it.

EIA’s Elephant Campaign Team has called for the Selous to be stripped of its World Heritage status due to the damage caused by construction of a massive hydropower project, but the World Heritage Committee stopped far short of taking such a step. Wildlife Campaigner Rachel Mackenna explains why we were pressing for delisting and talks about what actually happened at the meeting and what might be next for the Selous.

As another major bust of 17 tonnes of illegal HFC gases is made in Europe just days after the release of our new report Europe’s Most Chilling Crime, Climate Campaigner Sophie Geoghegan discusses the findings of our undercover investigations and looks at what needs to be done to tackle the illegal trade.   Read and download the report and watch our shocking short film.

Plundering the world’s precious natural resources is a multi-billion dollar business and, as such, keeping on top of the facts, statistics, seizures and trends of environmental crime means understanding huge amounts of raw data – data which can now be much more easily managed with EIA’s new Global Environmental Crime Tracker. This week, Mel Butler, our Senior Intelligence Analyst, talks about this innovative, first-of-its-kind tool, who will be able to use it and plans to expand it in the near future. But don’t just take our word for the benefits of the Tracker – come and see for yourself when we host a live, free online public demonstration of its capabilities at 1.30pm BST on Tuesday, 15 June! Sign up now to participate in the demo, which will feature a Q&A session after Mel has introduced the Tracker.

Just a few short years ago, pangolins were said to be the most trafficked species you’ve never heard of, poached for their meat and scales, but they became much more famous after they were potentially connected to the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic and, most recently, EIA’s investigations revealed that West and Central Africa have become the epicentre for pangolin scale trafficking to Asia. Chris Hamley, EIA’s Senior Pangolin Campaigner, takes a look at the issues with two of our in-country partners, Adams Cassinga, the Founding Director of Conserv Congo, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Vincent Opyene, the CEO and Founder of the Natural Resource Conservation Network, in Uganda.

EIA’s Forests team has been working on the ground in Myanmar since the country began to emerge from under the shadow of brutal military dictatorship in 2011, exposing illegal timber trade and helping to provide the tools for meaningful reform of its natural resources sector – but all that changed with the coup on 1 February. Faith Doherty, our Forests Campaigns Leader, and Alec Dawson, Forests Campaigner, give an overview of the situation and look at the implications for those seeking to import precious teak from the country.

As part of our special Investigator Week to celebrate the team’s work, in this episode we get to talk with Mel, our Senior Intelligence Analyst, and her two colleagues, intelligence analysts Martina and Denitsa, about what they do and why it’s key to our success.  

Whether it’s in the oceans or on the land, the scale of plastic pollution is increasingly impossible to ignore and there’s a rising tide of tide of public opinion wanting to see it tackled. Christina Dixon, EIA Senior Ocean Campaigner, reflects on the findings of our recent survey of UK supermarkets and talks about what’s been achieved – and what more needs to be done.

James Toone, a Senior Campaigner who works across our Wildlife and Forests projects, talks about how timber and wildlife crimes actually have much in common.   To tackle environmental criminals more effectively, it’s important to know how they operate and new EIA research has shown major crossovers between wildlife and forest crime.   Our campaigners have conducted a major review of the extensive data gathered in the field and via research to examine the relationship between the different crime streams, with their findings highlighted in the new report Double Impact: The nexus where wildlife and forest crime overlap.

In the week that we released our new illegal wildlife trade report Out of Africa, Senior Wildlife Campaigner Shruti Suresh and Senior Pangolin Campaigner Chris Hamley discuss its findings and what needs to be done to address the situation as a matter of urgency.

The global coronavirus pandemic has dramatically curtailed the way human society functions, impacting on just about every aspect of modern life – but some things never change and wildlife crime has continued throughout the crisis.  Just as many of us have been compelled to work from home, so too have wildlife criminals and our latest research shows that many of them have adapted swiftly to changing circumstances to continue their deadly trade.  

New timber import regulations came into effect today (30 October) in Vietnam – which is currently implementing an agreement with the European Union to keep illicit timber out of its huge wood furniture industry. This week, Forests Campaigner Thomas Chung talks about the long road to achieving legal timber and why it’s so important for both producer countries and the markets they serve.   (Left to right) Paul Newman - Press and Communications Officer, Thomas Chung - Forests Campaigner eia-interntaional.org

The global illegal wildlife trade is worth billions every year, money which fuels further environmental crime, drives corruption and undermines sustainable development and conservation – but these huge profits are seldom targeted. In this edition, Julian Newman, EIA’s Campaigns Director, talks with Press & Communications Officer Paul Newman about how it’s possible to track down the financial flows and how tackling money laundering can be a vital weapon in the fight against illegal wildlife trade by hitting major wildlife criminals where it hurts most – in their pockets.   (Left to right) Paul Newman – Press and Communications Officer, Julian Newman - Campaigns Director eia-interntaional.org

Our attention may be consumed by the coronavirus crisis, but the very real threat of climate change hasn’t gone anywhere. Although the world is fast approaching potentially irreversible climate change tipping points, swift action to tackle refrigerant greenhouse gases could go a long way to help.    (Left to right) Paul Newman – Press and Communications Officer, Fionnuala Walravens - Senior Climate Campaigner, Tim Grabiel – Senior Lawyer. eia-interntaional.org

Humans produce a staggering 275 million tonnes of plastic waste a year and very little of it is recycled – mostly, it ends up in the environment, polluting land and sea while having a terrible impact on our natural world. Could the solution be a new global treaty to join forces and fight it together? Tim Grabiel, a Senior Lawyer working on EIA’s Climate and Ocean campaigns, talks with Press & Communications Officer Paul Newman to make the case for an international Convention on Plastic Pollution.      eia-interntaional.org