Join our fight against the Ivory Trade to save the Wild Elephant before it is too late!
The film
VANISHING ELEPHANTS
Killing African elephants for their ivory is devastating a species that’s already losing ground to a growing human population.
African elephant population and range have dramatically shrin since 1979, in large part due to poaching.
The price of one kilo of elephant ivory on the black market has reached $1,500, stimulating mass poaching.
Some facts about the film:
1. By October 8, 2014 we have filmed already in 22 countries. In Africa: Kenya, Tanzania, Cameroon, Zambia, CAR, Chad, Senegal, Gabon, and South Africa. In Europe and America: USA, Italy, France, UK, Russia, and Vatican. In Asia: China, Hong Kong, India, Philippines, Thailand, Israel, and Sri Lanka.
2. International and National Institutions, NGOs: СITES, KWS (Kenya), Sheldrick Foundation (Kenya), Save the Elephants (Kenya), Future for Nature's International Selection Committee (Kenya), SCI (USA), ETIS and TRAFFIC (UK), LAGA (Cameroon), EIA (UK), ANPN (Gabon), IFAW (South Africa), Interpol (France), WARA Conservation project (Guinea and Senegal), Conservation Justice (Gabon), Hong Kong for Elephants (Hong Kong), Zakouma National Park (Chad), Kruger National Park (SA).
3. Leaders: His Holiness the Dalai Lama, the 17th Karmapa, the president of Gabon Ali Bongo Ondimba, Tanzania's Minister of Natural Resources and Tourism Khamis Kagesheki.
4. Elephant conservationists: Daphne Sheldrick, Pratik Patel, Robert Obrain, Dr. Leakey, Charlotte Houpline, Iain Douglas-Hamilton's family, Rian Labuschagne.
Ivory Seizures
- Most of the world’s countries agreed to ban international trade in ivory in 1989. Yet demand has grown in Asia, driven by new wealth in China. Ivory seizures represent only a fraction of what gets through.
Urgency
- In recent years, elephant poaching in Africa and illegal ivory trade have spiralled out of control.
- According to experts, an average of nearly 35,000 elephants are killed annually on the continent, which means that one elephant dies every 15 minutes.
- Given that only 450,000-600,000 wild elephants have survived in Africa, if the same rate of poaching continues, this may lead to local extinction of elephants in some parts of Africa within 20 years.
- The price of one kilo of elephant ivory on the black market has reached $1,500, stimulating mass poaching.
- The international community has agreed that there is a direct link between the killing of elephants and terrorism. Such organizations as al-Shabaab (Somalia), The Lord’s Resistance Army (Uganda), Janjaweed (Sudan) kill elephants and illegally sell ivory to buy weapons and finance their activities.
Political context
- The problem of saving elephants is not only the duty of the NGOs and conservationists, but also a responsibility of the public at large.
- The UN General Assembly and the Security Council have repeatedly discussed this problem.
- For the first time it was put on the agenda at the US-China summit in 2013.
- The Barack Obama Administration allocated money to finance anti-poaching activities in Africa.
- Hillary Clinton initiated the establishment of a foundation to save African elephants.
- In 2014 Prince Charles initiated the Illegal Wildlife Trade Conference in London.The scale of illegal wildlife trafficking (including tusks, horns, and fell) has reached $10-20 billion (according to different sources), placing wildlife trafficking among the top five most lucrative forms of transnational organized crime, including trafficking in drugs, weapons, and humans.
- For the first time in history tens of tons of seized ivory were publicly destroyed (burnt or crashed by bulldozers) in France, USA, Chad, China, Hong Kong, and Philippines
To whom it may concern,
Taking into consideration our personal beliefs and the philanthropic nature of the film, we, the filmmakers as Producer and Director, are personally contributing to the financing of the film with part of our salary, author’s rights and overhead and have only included a fraction of our regular compensation in the direct costs of the film to keep the costs as low as possible.
What is vital at this stage is to raise the required missing funds as rapidly as possible in order to move ahead immediately. This is why we are looking for a small number of sponsors/private investors right now!
We hope we convinced you to join our fight against the ivory trade to save the wild elephants before it is too late.For all further question in relation to the expected financial contributions, contact directly Chris Bolzli (0033 6 99 04 88 90 chris@eurowide.fr)
Sincerely,
Sergey Yastrzhembskiy & Chris Bolzli
Letter from the producer and the director
