The promise of community-based conservation in Africa.
No Fear No Favor
- Description
- Reviews
- Citation
- Cataloging
- Transcript
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Shot over two years in Zambia's Kafue National Park--one of the largest intact wilderness areas in the world — as well as in Kenya and Namibia, NO FEAR NO FAVOR illuminates the wrenching choices faced by impoverished Africans who live where community meets wilderness — on the front lines of Africa's poaching crisis.
Through community conservancies, the people in these communities protect wildlife and the region's wilderness heritage, return eco-tourism profits to local people, and generate sustainable livelihoods — especially for women and girls.
'No Fear, No Favor introduces a range of causes and consequences of wildlife poaching for the global illegal wildlife trade, a conservation crime harming diverse wildlife species and human livelihoods. While profiling the wildlife, people and places touched by commercial poaching, the film spotlights the role of communities in driving sustainable solutions to the problem. I will show this film to my students, my parents, and my daughters so they may bear witness to one of the defining challenges of the Anthropocene.' Meredith L. Gore, Associate Professor of Geographical Sciences, University of Maryland
'Kafue National Park is an international treasure: I saw my first lion kill 50 yards from my tent there. I also saw villages nearby where I thought the children would shortly die of malaria. How can we expect desperate families not to poach valuable wildlife? This powerful film explores these issues, their solutions - and the conservation heroes who make them work.' Stuart Pimm, Professor of Conservation Ecology, Duke University, Founder and President, Saving Nature
'This is a sensitive and compelling exploration of the terrible challenges that wildlife trafficking poses for conservation in Africa, and of the inspiring response by local communities who have banded together in conservancies to protect their wildlife heritage and secure livelihoods for their members. The film brings the scourge of illegal wildlife trade into vivid focus. Importantly, however, it gives equal weight to the human face of wildlife trafficking. No Fear, No Favor is a great resource for educators and activists, showing that illegal trade is inextricably intertwined with community economic needs. No solution that ignores local communities can be effective.' Bob Dreher, former Senior Vice President, Defenders of Wildlife and Associate Director, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
'The power of great storytelling about the places where we are active, like Zambia, is one of the important ways we build a global community of advocates.' Bill Ulfelder, New York Executive Director, The Nature Conservancy
'No Fear, No Favor provides a very insightful look into the poaching crisis in Africa and the illegal trafficking of wildlife products to consumer markets abroad. This is a skillfully produced and filmed video that objectively addresses the comprehensive range of issues related to Africa's illegal trade in wildlife including conflict animals, poverty, and consumerism. It is a valuable educational tool for students interested in wildlife conservation and conservation crimes.' Greg Warchol, Professor of Criminal Justice, Northern Michigan University, Author, Exploiting the Wilderness: An Analysis of Wildlife Crime
'Using personal stories from both sides of the poaching crisis, No Fear No Favor offers an excellent basis for discussions of the fundamental causes of species loss. The documentary shows the ties between poverty and poaching and how local people are exploited by large wildlife trafficking syndicates. It demonstrates the underlying economic and political basis of the crisis and the critical lesson that conservation of local resources must be managed by, and for the benefit of, local communities.' Robert R. Alexander, Professor of Economics and Environmental Studies, Kenyon College
Citation
Main credits
Bank, Mirra (film director)
Bank, Mirra (screenwriter)
Bank, Mirra (director of photography)
Brockman, Richard (film producer)
Other credits
Edited by Maxwell Anderson; cinematography and location sound, Mirra Bank.
Distributor subjects
African Studies; Conservation; Endangered Species; WildlifeKeywords
[00:00:00.00] (MUSIC PLAYING)
[00:00:36.89] - Scientists have issued a global distress call.
[00:00:39.80] - And the devastating impact of modern civilization--
[00:00:41.78] - The human race is destroying the natural world at such an unsustainable rate.
[00:00:47.15] - We've lost much of our forests,
[00:00:49.22] much of our native wetlands.
[00:00:50.71] - We're completely unprepared for that huge scourge of poaching.
[00:00:53.81] - We are poor. If I got more money, I can educate my childs.
[00:01:00.08] - If your people are dying because of starvation, then wildlife is a low priority.
[00:01:05.21] - From habitat loss and poaching--
[00:01:07.62] - One million species are threatened with extinction.
[00:01:10.52] - If we just let it be, it will just be history that we had elephant, we had all these species.
[00:01:16.57] (MUSIC PLAYING)
[00:02:34.76] - Most of the poachers are just poor people who need to make some money.
[00:02:54.65] - They're villagers with nothing, who know the park like the back of their hand.
[00:02:58.70] - I know all of the area in the park.
[00:03:01.83] - If you're a poacher, you will decide, "Well, what's the value of this? What's the risk?" And if the value is high enough, you'll do it.
[00:03:08.53] (MUSIC PLAYING)
[00:03:59.47] Kafue is this supernova of a park,
[00:04:03.02] one of the biggest in the world. And it's actually all intact from an ecosystem point of view. But the threat from poaching is increasing all the time.
[00:04:56.54] - Desperately poor villagers form the foundation of a complex supply chain.
[00:05:02.10] - They're at the bottom of the pyramid of existing syndicates already involved in human trafficking or drugs. You've got hundreds of thousands of people in the illegal wildlife trade. They have good communications. They're very mobile. As you go up the pyramid, it becomes more and more dangerous.
[00:05:27.20] Game Rangers International established an intelligence-led anti-poaching unit. We have an agreement with the government to work with their men and women on the front line.
[00:05:58.88] - With the poaching which is there this time around, if we just let it be
[00:06:03.89] it will just be history that we had elephant, we had all these species. He's one of the poachers we just apprehended. He's still a very young guy. I'm wondering how come he went into the park to do poaching, leaving school? He's only in grade 11. Was it your first time to go,
[00:06:42.37] you were caught this time around?
[00:06:55.45] You don't have parents to sponsor you?
[00:07:00.28] - We have very limited manpower, extremely limited resources. So we have to be very clever
[00:07:06.46] with the way we develop intelligence.
[00:07:09.06] If you remove the middleman, things start to collapse.
[00:07:12.82] - We need to know who sends the people who got in the park.
[00:07:22.09] - A lot of wildlife has been lost over the years. But we'll keep trying. If we can protect their habitat, the wildlife will come back. Then it'll be 100% where it should be.
[00:08:11.04] Kafue River, 865 kilometers long. That's a lot of water. So we're going to pump water from the river up to here, these three tanks. And that's going to allow the community that lives here to get water instead of going down to the river every day. They can just get water out of a tap. Zambia is still blessed.
[00:08:35.50] (RADIO CHATTER)
[00:08:38.98] - And to secure these protected areas, it's all about making wildlife pay, if you want it to stay. Here we are coming to headquarters just now. Let me welcome you to the Zawa Special Anti Poaching Unit. Our long-term objective for Kafue National Park is to secure it. We need more anti-poaching units, and we need more tourists. Conservation--
[00:09:07.32] - Yeah. The wildlife tourism industry generates a lot of revenue for conservation. You have to pay park entry, and it creates employment. It starts to really get harder and harder for poachers to come into the park.
[00:09:22.71] - Commercial hunting for bushmeat is out of control. There's a snare at every rat hole, but hardly anything left to catch.
[00:09:33.57] - Nearly 9,000 pounds of endangered pangolin scales were discovered in bags of plastic.
[00:09:40.98] - In the course of our work we confiscate pangolins, tortoises, parrots. But elephants are being wiped out in this huge scourge of poaching.
[00:09:51.61] (MUSIC PLAYING)
[00:10:04.10] Elephants are completely under threat, and could even be extinct in the next 15 to 20 years at current rates. Poaching just seems to be the latest thing that everyone wants to do in Southern Africa, in Central Africa, Eastern Africa, because it's a quick way to make money.
[00:10:22.40] Strong family units, and maternal bonds.
[00:10:33.10] They seem to grieve.
[00:10:39.97] The mandate for this unit extends across the whole of Zambia. So if there is intelligence that comes from Angolan border, we'll go there. If there's intelligence that comes from Congolese border, we'll go there. We've apprehended Congolese nationals bringing in firearms and trading it for ivory or for bush meat.
[00:10:57.88] - Organized crime rings have moved into the poaching trade. The corruption of Chinese officials has made their impact even more devastating.
[00:11:05.86] - In China, ivory carvings are a status symbol for the country's wealthy elite.
[00:11:12.60] - We need to change the way in which we do law enforcement.
[00:11:15.73] - Put your hands on your head!
[00:11:17.47] - Stop!
[00:11:18.07] - Turn around! Put your legs on top.
[00:11:20.65] - We need local anti-poaching units trained up. We keep the illegal firearms that we've recovered. They'll take a shotgun shell, they'll empty out the little bullets and put a piece of rebar inside there with a bit of wax. Now you've got a projectile that will kill an elephant or a patrol officer.
[00:11:38.41] - Yes, we heard some shots.
[00:11:40.23] - But it was shooting?
[00:11:41.04] - Was it very clear? Was it loud or...?
[00:11:44.32] We have three rapid response teams. But we only have two vehicles.
[00:11:53.48] These are officers that are very dedicated. But they'll hear on the TV, and they'll see in the newspapers all the talk about,
[00:12:00.01] "We've got to save the wildlife."
[00:12:01.69] Well, how are we going to save the animals if we don't
[00:12:03.97] have even a vehicle to do a patrol?
[00:12:07.41] (RADIO CHATTER)
[00:12:14.69] Ahh. That's the reality of where we are. These people have left their villages to give their effort towards conservation. It's a basic existence, but it's allowed us to catch almost 400 poachers in just under three years.
[00:12:46.00] I grew up in Zimbabwe. We had to leave because of Mugabe and his politics.
[00:12:52.02] I was very lucky that I could join the British Army, but my heart was still very much in Africa. We have a saying here, which is "Panuno panuno." It means "little bit by little bit" or "slowly slowly." What's most important in protecting wildlife is to help the more vulnerable members of communities living contiguous to the park.
[00:13:36.42] (SPEAKING ZAMBIAN DIALECT)
[00:13:41.20] - If you add up all the local Zambians that we work with and the village scouts who actually do the work of conservation, it's making a difference. Most scouts are local villagers. The communities we work with, ultimately they are in charge.
[00:14:08.15] - We have to make sure that they trust us.
[00:14:11.36] (SPEAKING ZAMBIAN DIALECT)
[00:14:13.52] - If we don't work as a team with the people, we cannot manage to curb poaching.
[00:14:23.55] (RADIO CHATTER)
[00:14:25.97] - Where are you now? OK. Is the pangolin alive or is it dead? We've received some intelligence that there's someone trying to offload pangolins.
[00:14:38.69] - We have a domestic market for pangolin and an international market for pangolin. There are a lot of Chinese people in Zambia who will use pangolin scales for traditional medicine. They use the flesh to make soup.
[00:15:00.98] - This is Fish Eagle Team. They'll go undercover and pose as a buyer, try and get him to bring the pangolins to that area.
[00:15:12.20] - Yeah, just keep me updated. Good luck.
[00:15:19.57] - Two ladies and four men.
[00:15:22.72] - Remember, number one is safety here.
[00:15:26.02] - There's nothing like "this is a woman," "this is a man." The moment there is a lady in the group, they know that they'll come with results.
[00:15:38.77] - The farmer that finds a pangolin on his farm, that could be thousands of dollars. And that's a nice amount of money. That pangolin ends up in the same pipeline where ivory ends up, and rhino horn, and gets shipped all the way to the Far East. Sometimes animal spends a week in a bag. So we lose a lot of pangolin from trafficking.
[00:16:07.22] - Uh, roger, go.
[00:16:11.72] - We will set up a strike zone to pounce and arrest the guys.
[00:16:16.48] (INDISTINCT SHOUTING)
[00:16:19.28] (MUSIC PLAYING)
[00:16:30.26] - Yeah.
[00:16:33.02] - OK.
[00:16:36.82] - OK. Bye, bye.
[00:16:38.22] - Bye.
[00:16:41.87] - See the holes?
[00:16:44.90] - Well, they drill holes in the scales so they can put ropes through the holes.
[00:16:50.10] - The poachers tie the animal so it can't unroll.
[00:16:53.87] Just keep it wrapped up like a football.
[00:17:27.37] (GUNSHOT)
[00:17:28.27] (ELEPHANT CRYING OUT)
[00:17:29.30] (INDISTINCT SHOUTING)
[00:17:46.35] - Sometimes we see poachers when you are outnumbered. We are given 7.2 millimeters of ammunition. Those are AK-47s. We look for tree cuttings, footprints,
[00:18:05.46] the tracks from bicycles,
[00:18:07.63] even bush fires.
[00:18:12.28] Poachers start fires to disguise their movements. We don't make noise. We have a language that helps us camouflage,
[00:18:31.18] just like maybe a bird is crying.
[00:18:33.15] (MIMICKING BIRD CALL)
[00:18:35.65] (BIRDS CHIRPING)
[00:19:56.43] (SINGING IN ZAMBIAN DIALECT)
[00:20:40.47] (VOCALIZING IN ZAMBIAN DIALECT)
[00:21:00.86] - I've got to try and pretend to be a pangolin. So, the baby's going to go right by me so it can get my body heat and also by my heart. He's got a long, long, long, long, long, long way to go,
[00:21:12.41] A bit of a battle on your hands,
[00:21:13.85] haven't you little one? He needs some food, so we'll get the milk into him. It's very difficult to see him breathing. Do you want me to leave him with you?
[00:21:41.78] - Yeah, I'll take him.
[00:21:43.37] - He's really weak and really cold.
[00:21:44.83] - Yeah.
[00:21:47.54] - I don't think he's warming up.
[00:21:48.83] - OK.
[00:21:56.72] - He didn't eat for two days because the mother didn't look after him. The stress, the poaching. So he might even be premature. The mother didn't have anything to eat, and she was too weak or too stressed, so she rejected him. So yeah, he just-- he just died. OK, over here. OK.
[00:22:51.30] Earlier, she was looking for him.
[00:23:04.57] It's the fault of no one except for the poachers.
[00:23:15.65] (INDISTINCT SHOUTING)
[00:23:17.39] - When you see poachers, we ambush them.
[00:23:20.15] (GUNSHOTS)
[00:23:21.47] They retaliate.
[00:23:24.42] - The poachers have just killed three rangers.
[00:23:26.73] - In the DRC, five wildlife rangers have been killed by--
[00:23:30.03] - Last year six rangers
[00:23:30.87] were ambushed and shot--
[00:23:32.10] - His patrol was ambushed by 40 men--
[00:23:33.60] - Forest rangers were attacked with machetes.
[00:23:36.05] - Together, they leave behind 14 children.
[00:24:21.17] - Got some vultures in front there. There's a lot of people that just poach wildlife right from the road. The vultures are like the unpaid policemen, because they give away carcasses. We're trying to work with the Zambia traffic police to do some speed trapping. We've done that, and it worked. Here we go. Someone's speeding. This year, we've had more than 90 animals killed from speeding.
[00:24:52.28] That's luxury timber going out. That's all going to China. There's so many challenges that you've got to overcome, working through some of the local politics, that by the time you actually step into the ring to do conservation,
[00:25:06.02] I mean, sometimes you almost feel
[00:25:09.26] like you've already had a 10-round fight.
[00:25:13.08] (RADIO CHATTER)
[00:25:15.60] Just confirm, do you have a visual on the lion? With poaching on the increase,
[00:25:20.80] there were going to be more orphaned elephants.
[00:25:34.66] Once a little elephant gets sick,
[00:25:36.22] within 24 hours it can be dead.
[00:25:38.50] So whenever we rescue a small elephant, if it's still suckling, it goes to Lilayi.
[00:25:48.91] - Morning.
[00:25:49.40] - Morning. How are you?
[00:25:50.35] - Fine, thank you.
[00:25:51.22]
[00:25:51.65] - Are we ready to go, guys?
[00:25:52.81] - Yup.
[00:25:53.16] - 3, 2, 1, up.
[00:25:57.89] He's not a light one.
[00:25:59.29] (BABY ELEPHANT RUMBLING)
[00:26:01.29] - Rescuing every single elephant counts.
[00:26:05.77] (INDISTINCT CHATTER)
[00:26:18.19] - Our elephants are doing fine, and everyone is happy. We are happy. I've been with the elephant for over six years. They killed the mother. They want to kill both the mother and the baby. She started using the leg,
[00:27:02.53] but she had no muscles to support the ankle,
[00:27:05.30] which damaged the leg.
[00:27:36.30] (MUSIC PLAYING)
[00:27:39.76] I went closer. I started touching her. The elephant accepted. I took a bottle of milk to feed that elephant. Oh, this elephant, why she's been accepting my bottle after she has been injured by the human?
[00:28:06.97] (MUSIC PLAYING)
[00:28:29.39] I stayed with her all the time. She didn't want to leave me. She fully understood what kind of love I give to her. If I go out, she'll be screaming till I go back, and she'll stop screaming and she'll be just standing nearby me.
[00:28:50.73] (MUSIC PLAYING)
[00:29:39.82] The love I had with her was different. I need to teach other people to have that love, to translate that love from me to another person, to another person.
[00:30:16.00] We keep them out as much as we can, because it's always about getting them back into the bush, getting them used to the wild.
[00:30:22.37] (INDISTINCT CHATTER)
[00:30:25.99] We don't want them to get used to people being close to them. We want them to see them and go, "Whoa, human,"
[00:30:32.32] and go the other way. Watch your heads.
[00:30:47.65] - After Suni, I moved from elephants to education. Here you are going to see three baby elephants, and they are all coming from different national parks in Zambia because of poaching. We reach over 3,000 children per month.
[00:31:17.92] - Correct.
[00:31:18.52] - A lot of these children,
[00:31:20.38] they've never seen an elephant in their life.
[00:31:23.74] But once the children have seen them for the first time, they're completely entranced by elephants.
[00:31:40.75] - We need to empower them so that they can protect these animals once they're fully grown up.
[00:31:52.28] - This is Brenda. Good girl. I have one daughter, and I'm keeping two nieces from my late sister. The youngest niece of mine, she says, "I want to be like you." She sees a zebra, she says, "Who was writing on that animal?" "I want to see this animal." "So what does it eat?"
[00:32:14.25] All those questions.
[00:32:17.19] She wants to understand what is happening to animals.
[00:32:23.94] - I'm a family man, actually. I have two babies, a boy and a girl. I love them very much, and I need them to have my job.
[00:32:34.61] (MUSIC PLAYING)
[00:32:41.86] These animals are the future for our children.
[00:32:49.85] - Hi, guys. Did you enjoy the elephant?
[00:32:53.05] - (ALL) Yes.
[00:33:01.96] (CATTLE MOOING)
[00:33:06.91] (DOG BARKING)
[00:33:18.79] - Wildlife is a critical resource. And in these areas where you have forests or fisheries, people need to have ownership. I am Zambian. I was born and raised in Zambia
[00:33:40.50] in the copper mining town of Kitwe.
[00:33:43.27] (SPEAKING IN ZAMBIAN DIALECT)
[00:33:46.50] - The Nature Conservancy is very much involved and a partner in the conservation effort.
[00:33:54.44] - The Nature Conservancy hired me to develop
[00:33:56.60] a community conservation program.
[00:34:02.36] - Lord, because you have shone your mercies, oh God,
[00:34:04.31] upon us, your children,
[00:34:08.66] whatever you have spoken, my Father,
[00:34:08.72] let it be done.
[00:34:14.63] - (ALL) Amen.
[00:34:46.64] - Zambians know and can be extremely clear
[00:34:50.48] about what the problem is.
[00:34:55.96] In these areas, three months out of the year, they have enough food. Nine months, they don't.
[00:35:15.81] - I can understand if your people are dying because of starvation and-- yeah. Then wildlife is a low priority.
[00:36:14.33] - You know poverty is poverty.
[00:36:26.52] - Our organization works to generate benefits for men and women...
[00:36:32.34] - It's called a MoneyMaker Max.
[00:36:34.38] - ...who are just trying to create an existence.
[00:36:37.47] - There's crocs in the river.
[00:36:38.91] - Yes.
[00:36:39.42] - And there's hippos in the river. So they've got to be careful getting the water
[00:36:43.74] out of the river.
[00:36:47.86] Now with the MoneyMaker, no problem.
[00:36:51.92] - No problem, yes sir.
[00:36:53.53] (LAUGHING)
[00:37:00.18] - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:37:11.80] - The local communities are continually expanding
[00:37:14.65] and pressing up against the parks.
[00:37:42.66] - Every night, the elephants would come.
[00:37:48.03] (PRETENDING TO SHOUT)
[00:37:54.03] - The community will just rise up and physically chase the elephants out of their community.
[00:38:04.26] - The main herd just bolts at 100 miles an hour...
[00:38:07.95] (PRETENDING TO SHOUT)
[00:38:14.27] - ...and the little elephants just can't keep up.
[00:38:17.91] - The elephants come in and raid his crops. So, just checking the voltage on this outside fence. Around 5,000 will stop an elephant.
[00:38:40.21] - In sub-Saharan Africa, you do have a growing middle class that is educated. They have economic privileges, but they need to hold their political leaders accountable.
[00:38:51.56] (CHEERING)
[00:38:54.31] - Everyone always points to the Chinese. But I always say, if us Zambians really loved our wildlife, and someone, whether it's Chinese
[00:39:02.05] or South African or English person,
[00:39:05.29] comes and asks for that thing,
[00:39:07.09] we should chase them away. But we don't. We say, "Sure, how much do you want?" Because it's an opportunity to make some money.
[00:39:15.61] - President Jacob Zuma stands trial tomorrow for corruption, racketeering, money laundering, and fraud.
[00:39:22.27] - When China's president visited Tanzania, Chinese delegates went on an ivory buying spree.
[00:39:27.40]
[00:39:32.77] - In Zimbabwe, wildlife photographer Adrian Stern says he uncovered a poaching and smuggling syndicate
[00:39:38.89] led by former First Lady Grace Mugabe during the presidency of her husband, Robert.
[00:39:49.13] - Yeah, please. That would help a lot.
[00:40:00.85] - This game is for the birds, I'll tell you.
[00:40:03.37] - The UN estimates African countries lose $50 billion a year to corruption.
[00:40:09.20] - The amount of money that departs the continent
[00:40:11.74] far surpasses the amount of aid
[00:40:13.78] that Africa receives a year.
[00:40:23.78] - We are the generation that are allowing the African elephant to go extinct, and the rhino. If you can't bring economical value to the local people to protect animals, then you will never win this war.
[00:40:41.44] - When people don't have alternatives, there's little incentive for people
[00:40:45.22] to actually look after the wildlife.
[00:40:49.55] (CAMERAS CLICKING)
[00:40:51.37] But where it's used for photographic tourism,
[00:40:54.97] where it's generating some income,
[00:40:58.42] the communities can be the key stewards
[00:41:01.24] of the resource.
[00:41:02.67] (CAMERAS CLICKING)
[00:41:05.66] (MUSIC PLAYING AND BIRDS CHIRPING)
[00:41:37.53] (VOCALIZING IN KENYAN DIALECT)
[00:41:55.56] (VOCALIZING IN KENYAN DIALECT)
[00:42:13.01] I've lost some few livestock in the past to wildlife.
[00:42:28.03] How many rhinos our parents, our grandparents killed, destroying our own future?
[00:42:33.82] (MUSIC PLAYING)
[00:42:43.36] But today, we are empowered. We know more about conservation.
[00:43:15.13] - It's really about putting local communities at the forefront of conservation for their own benefit.
[00:43:21.94] (BELLS RINGING AND CATTLE LOWING)
[00:44:15.33] - It is not very easy for a young man to try to assist the community.
[00:44:30.82] - (SPEAKING IN NAMIBIAN DIALECT)
[00:44:46.37] - Yeah, two lions went past.
[00:45:07.48] (MUSIC PLAYING)
[00:45:57.20] - This area is endowed with a lot of natural resources. So how is that helping the community?
[00:46:21.37] This place is richly blessed with wild animals, grass, and trees.
[00:46:31.51] It's a hardwood. The solutions can come from here at the community level. The headmen and the leadership are in a position to organize people.
[00:46:45.52] - So can that idea be also brought here? A venture that can give them the more returns while protecting the natural resource?
[00:48:25.41] Now we have a big, big challenge.
[00:48:28.47]
[00:48:33.17] - Someone has to think,
[00:48:34.28] "If I go poaching,
[00:48:35.78] I'm going to get caught by SAPU, and then I'm going to go to jail."
[00:48:58.12] - It is also our responsibility.
[00:49:41.37] - You can see the photos there.
[00:50:04.58] (MUSIC PLAYING)
[00:50:56.98] I see the profit and the goodness of the animal. My mind, it's come open. We are aiming now to conserve.
[00:51:27.61] - An orphaned elephant is a very emotive thing. But when it gets big enough, it must be reintroduced
[00:51:33.58] back in the wild. And so we started building a release camp on the Nkala River, in close proximity to the wild elephants. Once the camp was built, we walked the elephants across. It was about a five-kilometer walk. Slowly, slowly, we walked them and took them to the new camp.
[00:51:55.85] - OK.
[00:51:59.59] - And that now became Camp Phoenix, named for our first orphaned elephant.
[00:52:14.99] He just runs.
[00:52:36.37] Good boy.
[00:52:50.32] (GUNSHOT)
[00:53:14.26] - Here, the team spirit is understood. They all love football, and it brings people closer together. You can take two enemies, put them into a situation which is life-threatening, where they have to rely upon one another for survival. At the end of that experience,
[00:53:36.03] they'll come out as best friends.
[00:53:40.32] (INTERPOSING VOICES)
[00:53:44.97] - Ahhh! We can talk when I get back.
[00:53:49.68] - Those orphaned elephants have come from
[00:53:51.18] very traumatized backgrounds.
[00:53:54.15] - He was the one who was almost collapsing three nights in a row, thum, thum, thum.
[00:53:57.48] And look at him now.
[00:53:59.02] There's no more, it's finished.
[00:54:18.56] I've got nothing.
[00:54:32.27] - An elephant is God's creature. People believe what they want to believe. But the people who are buying carved ivory
[00:54:43.81] and who are buying pangolin scales...
[00:54:49.09] ...they have to accept that things are changing.
[00:54:55.49] - Somewhere in the Far East, they found 3,000 dead pangolins last week. With undercover work and these sting operations, we have to be smarter than our opponents.
[00:55:06.78] - The pangolins had a good night.
[00:55:09.19] - Hopefully, there's going to be a healthy population.
[00:55:11.65] - Yeah. They're going to do really well, I think.
[00:55:14.67] (PERCUSSIVE MUSIC)
[00:55:17.02] And they were-- they were flying. So we were out running through the bush
[00:55:22.15] to keep up with them.
[00:55:30.05] - The best bit is knowing that tomorrow afternoon, they're going to be back in the park snuffling around, eating ants like they shoud be.
[00:55:38.62] It doesn't get any better than that.
[00:56:10.46] - Success is when one of the female elephants has a young elephant calf in the park and is walking with a wild herd. It'll never be 100% pure wild elephant, but it could be 99.9%.
[00:56:28.53] (MUSIC PLAYING)
[00:56:58.79] - A glimmer of hope from scientists, we need to act immediately to save scores
[00:57:03.71] of animal and plant species.
[00:57:06.38] - We have not lost the battle. And if given a chance, nature will reconquer its rights and will prevail.
[00:57:13.55] - If we choose the right policies, if we change our behavior,
[00:57:17.63] we can have a more sustainable future.
[00:57:23.02] - So long as your breeding herds are intact, wildlife recovers very quickly.
[00:57:35.47] So by securing the protected areas in the national parks, all the wildlife has an opportunity to increase. Oh, there's an elephant with a little baby. We need to pay attention. (CHUCKLING)
[00:57:54.21] - We are still struggling. If I got enough money,
[00:57:57.92] I can buy one cattle, four ox. It can help me in my future. I can educate my childs. If they're learning, they can't come to that poaching system where I come from. And I wish my child to join in this game. That is my wishing.
[00:58:35.47] - We need to disrupt the flow from source to destination across the whole world.
[00:58:40.22] (MUSIC PLAYING)
[00:58:57.26] And stop a lot of people from even considering going out and poaching. The national parks have each got an organization like ourselves, but one of the projects must be about connecting the green spaces together,
[00:59:13.46] like the Kavango-Zambezi Kaza landscape,
[00:59:16.85] which connects national parks in Zambia,
[00:59:19.22] Angola, Namibia, Botswana, and Zimbabwe.
[00:59:36.99] So just "Panuno, panuno," and we'll get there.
[00:59:39.92] (PERCUSSIVE MUSIC)
[01:00:03.23] The animals, this is their environment, not ours.
[01:00:19.87] (LAUGHING)
[01:00:23.33] - Good to see you again.
[01:00:34.42] (CONVERSING IN ZAMBIAN DIALECT)
[01:00:39.13] (MUSIC PLAYING)
[01:01:09.16] (APPLAUDING)
[01:01:13.85] - If it's your property, you will invest in that. And that also helps the next generation and the next generation, so that they are the ones in the driving seat.
[01:01:27.05] - Reaching out to the younger generations and to the communities,
[01:01:38.39] that's the way to ensure that these great areas
[01:01:41.48] that we all have been charged to look after
[01:01:46.09] continue to exist.
[01:01:47.45] (MUSIC PLAYING)
[01:02:01.61] It's going to be no easy task. But if we can get it to work, how amazing would it be?
[01:02:12.58] (BIRDS CHIRPING)
[01:02:25.69] (MUSIC PLAYING)
[01:03:41.36] Chamilandu had a baby. Full circle.
[01:03:51.78] (MUSIC PLAYING)
Distributor: Bullfrog Films
Length: 66 minutes
Date: 2020
Genre: Expository
Language: Not available
Color/BW:
Closed Captioning: Available
Interactive Transcript: Available
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Explores the changing face of conservation in Kenya.