Financial Transparency Coalition

  Richard Ruggiero, Chief, Branch of Near East, South Asia and Africa of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, discusses how poaching for ivory negatively affects a “keystone species” in Africa’s environment.  This video is a part of a larger video series from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service entitled “Save Vanishing Species” and focusses

Senator John Kerry and the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations conducted a hearing yesterday regarding the challenges of illegal ivory trafficking from Africa. While the topic may seem less urgent in times when widespread unemployment, poverty and global economic crisis receive the bulk of officials' attention, Senator Kerry believes that “we never have the right to turn our backs on the values that define us.” Poaching for the purpose of selling illicit ivory is a travesty, and responsible for the deaths of countless elephants every year: