'The Ivory Game': Exposing the illegal trade pushing elephants to extinction
http://edition.cnn.com/2016/11/03/af...inkId=30666750
http://edition.cnn.com/2016/11/03/af...inkId=30666750
(CNN) An elephant is killed every 15 minutes.
That's the blunt statistic closing "The Ivory Game," Netflix's latest foray into original documentary. Directed by Richard Ladkani and Kief Davidson, and executive produced by Leonardo DiCaprio, the figure makes for a brutal full stop to their breakneck exposé of the global ivory trade.
It's also a statistic that puts the African elephant on course for extinction. By Ladkani and Davidson's calculation, 35,000 are being killed a year. In August, the Great Elephant Census revealed it had found just 352,271 animals in the countries it had surveyed.
Thriving on corruption, subterfuge and greed, the ivory trade is not just an African problem. Sprawling and nebulous, its complex web connects Zambian poachers and basement dealers in Hong Kong, Kenyan reserves and Vietnamese carving factories. Never far from the surface is the presence of organized crime.
That's the blunt statistic closing "The Ivory Game," Netflix's latest foray into original documentary. Directed by Richard Ladkani and Kief Davidson, and executive produced by Leonardo DiCaprio, the figure makes for a brutal full stop to their breakneck exposé of the global ivory trade.
It's also a statistic that puts the African elephant on course for extinction. By Ladkani and Davidson's calculation, 35,000 are being killed a year. In August, the Great Elephant Census revealed it had found just 352,271 animals in the countries it had surveyed.
Thriving on corruption, subterfuge and greed, the ivory trade is not just an African problem. Sprawling and nebulous, its complex web connects Zambian poachers and basement dealers in Hong Kong, Kenyan reserves and Vietnamese carving factories. Never far from the surface is the presence of organized crime.
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