What on Earth?

The threatened species in traditional medicines and the big names investing in them

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.

Why are World Heritage Sites such a vital tool for saving endangered species and habitats?

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.

On World Rhino Day 2023, how is this magnificent species is doing versus illegal trade?

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.

Iceland has resumed its slaughter of whales, but what future does the industry have?

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.

As negotiations for the first Global Plastics Treaty continue, what about the Big Oil lobby?

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.

Cultivating Plastics – how the use of agriplastics sows the seeds of pollution in farming

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

Methane madness – why the EU must tackle harmful emissions from its energy imports

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/

How we’re using artificial intelligence to help tackle the illegal trade in tigers

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.

What can we expect from the opening negotiations for the world’s first Global Plastics Treaty?

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.

CITES meetings are a big deal in the environmental calendar, but just what is it and what does it do?

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.