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The Last Animals - Film screening on illegal ivory trade

Wed 23 May 2018

Babbage Lecture Theatre

THE LAST ANIMALS
A film by Kate Brooks
The Last Animals follows the conservationists, scientists and activists battling poachers and criminal networks to save elephants and rhinos from the edge of extinction.

Conflict photographer Kate Brooks turns her lens from the war zones she is used to covering to a new kind of genocide - the killing of African Elephants and Rhinos - in this sweeping and sobering expose. As the single-digit population of Northern White Rhinoceros ticks closer to zero, Brooks outlines the myriad factors contributing to the current epidemic of highly effective poaching and trafficking syndicates, drawing startling connections between the illegal wildlife trade, drug cartels, international terrorism and border security. But all is not yet lost - at the same time, Brooks documents the heroic efforts of conservationists, park rangers, and scientists to protect these animals in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds.

The screening is 1.5 hours following this there will be a Q&A session with the director, Kate Brooks, Professor Sam Wasser, University of Washington, and Professor Bhaskar Vira, Director of the University of Cambridge Conservation Research Institute. We anticipate this session to be around 45 minutes to an hour.

Kate Brooks, Writer, Producer, Director Kate Brooks is an American photojournalist who has chronicled conflict and human rights issues for nearly two decades. She began her career in Russia at the age of 20 while documenting child abuse in state orphanages. The resulting photographs were published worldwide and used by the Human Rights Watch to campaign for orphans’ rights.

Sam Wasser, Director, Centre for Conservation Biology, University of Washington. He is acknowledged worldwide for developing noninvasive tools for monitoring human impacts on wildlife. Sam's work work
has led to prosecutions of major transnational ivory traffickers and nurtured key collaborations with the International Consortium on Combatting Wildlife Crime, INTERPOL, US Homeland Security Investigations, the Task Force on Combatting Wildlife Trafficking, US Fish and Wildlife Service, US Department of State and wildlife
authorities in numerous source and transit countries across Africa and Asia.

Bhaskar Vira, Director, University of Cambridge Conservation Research Institute. Bhaskar's research interests centre on the changing political economy of development, especially in India; and on political ecology, focusing on forests, wildlife and landuse change and the social and political context for biodiversity conservation.

Cost: Free