Category Archive » Activism

Israeli activist wins int’l prize for his work against ape, elephant trafficking.

When Israeli photojournalist Ofir Drori began his post-army odyssey through Africa, delving alone into remote communities on camel and horseback, by canoe and on foot, he never thought he would end up pioneering the take-down of a regional animal trafficking industry.

“I was walking thousands of kilometers, and that’s what I specialized in, finding the most remote places in Africa, where communities still retain their cultures and are apart from Western culture,” he told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday. “I had my share of adventures and misadventures.”

Drori’s experiences snapping photographs in war zones and assisting in humanitarian operations turned him from an adventurer into an activist – a man “trying to give back to this continent that gave me so much.”

Drori, now 36, will receive this year’s World Wildlife Fund for Nature Duke of Edinburgh Conservation Medal, which he will accept directly from the duke of Edinburgh, Prince Philip, and WWF international director Jim Leape, at Buckingham Palace on Monday evening.

WWF has been awarding the Duke of Edinburgh Conservation Medal annually since 1970, honoring those have performed “outstanding service to the environment.”

The organization selected Drori as this year’s winner for his work over the past decade as founder and director of both The Last Great Ape Organization Cameroon (LAGA) and the Central Africa Wildlife Law Enforcement Network – organizations that have led to hundreds of arrests and prosecutions of wildlife criminals.

Drori, whom the WWF describes as a “tireless anti-corruption whistleblower,” has shifted Cameroon’s judicial system by curbing the organized wildlife trade that had escalated so sharply there in recent years, according to the awarding organization.

“It is thanks to people like Ofir Drori that we still have a hope of keeping vulnerable elephants and other wildlife populations thriving – and keeping a spotlight on the poaching crisis that threatens them. I applaud his bold and impactful work,” Leape said. “WWF urges world governments to crack down on wildlife poaching and illegal trade as a matter of urgency.”

While such hunting and trade has threatened gorillas, chimpanzees, elephants and other WWF flagship species, Drori’s efforts have “helped propagate a zero tolerance approach to illegal wildlife trafficking in Cameroon,” the WWF said.

Amid Drori’s African journey, his intention upon arriving in Cameroon was to turn to apes and “take a break” from writing about human rights in Nigeria, for which he had received death threats, he explained.

“It turned out that this break was becoming far longer than I thought and the extinction of apes was not such a simple story to write,” Drori said.

A primary reason for ape endangerment, Drori discovered in 2003, was the complex network of organized crime behind the animal trafficking system, which involved powerful people and the cooperation of the police. Despite the fact that a law had been in place against such practices for nine years, Drori found himself asking the question – how often was this law being enforced? “The answer was shocking – the answer was a complete zero,” he said, noting that the same applied to almost all Western and Central African countries.

After investigating the situation further, Drori said he also could not find any NGOs that focused on the enforcement either.

“What I found were castles of these organizations and SUVs driving around everywhere but no answers,” he said. “It seemed that conservation was fueling corruption.”

No article he could write or picture he could take as a photojournalist would be sufficient to capture the gravity of the situation, Drori decided.

One morning, however, he said he left the capital city of Yaounde in Cameroon to explore the trade in a rural town known for distributing chimpanzee meat and gorilla hands.

“The poachers were trying to sell me this baby chimp,” he said. “He was sick and abused, they were treating him like a rat.”

When Drori went to the police, the officers simply requested bribes and even offered to sell him an additional baby chimpanzee, he explained.

“That night I couldn’t sleep – I kept thinking of this baby chimp that would die soon,” he said.

“The face of this baby chimp was just haunting me. I took all my anger against corruption on a piece of paper and started writing.”

His writings turned into an outline for the NGO he was about to establish – LAGA – which would be a hands-on solution to enforcing the already existing laws, based on activism and passion, according to Drori.

The next day, he returned to the dealers and informed them that by law, they could face three years of imprisonment.

“They were totally unimpressed,” Drori said. “And that’s because they bribed their way out – the law doesn’t mean anything when it’s only in the book.”

Drori then took a different tactic, fibbing that he was already part of a big, new international NGO that fights corruption and that a car was on its way to arrest the dealers.

“This time the bluff was working – they got hysterical,” Drori said, noting that he was making fake phone calls to alleged NGO authorities. “I said, ‘Listen, if you will remain my informants and give me information to arrest bigger traffickers, I will see what I can do for you.’” Ultimately, the dealers cooperated and Drori took custody of the chimp, who quickly began hugging him.

“I found myself as a father and a mother to a baby chimp,” he said. The chimp’s name would go on to be “Future,” and he stayed with Drori for a few months in a rented Cameroonian apartment, where he began his fight for the large apes.

“This baby chimp made me do it,” he said.

Although they had no seed funding, Drori and his new agents managed within seven months to bring about the firstever prosecution against animal trafficking for nearly all of Central and Western Africa. Since then, LAGA workers have been putting their own lives at risk to get a new major wildlife poacher or trafficker arrested approximately every week for the past seven years. In Cameroon alone, LAGA’s work has led to the arrest, prosecution and imprisonment of more than 450 criminals, he said.

Out of LAGA grew the Central Africa Wildlife Law Enforcement Network, through which Drori and his team were able to export and replicate their system to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (the former Zaire), the Central African Republic, Gabon and Guinea. Three more countries will join this list by next year, according to Drori.

Drori details all of these experiences in an April 2012 book he wrote with co-author David McDannald, called The Last Great Ape: A Journey through Africa and a Fight for the Heart of the Continent.

In addition to LAGA and the Central Africa Wildlife Law Enforcement Network, Drori also established a humanitarian NGO called Anti Corruption in 2005.

For Drori, receiving the WWF award at Buckingham Palace on Monday indicates “a certain recognition from the conservation establishment that there is a need to change. Conservation has to react to this wildlife trade crisis,” he said.

The prize, he explained, demonstrates “a certain acceptance of our messages and our approach which is very different from mainstream conservation.”

In 2007, Drori received the Clark Bavin Award for outstanding achievements in law enforcement, as well as the Interpol award for LAGA’s investigation, and the Golden Heart Award. He won 50,000 euros in 2011 from the Netherlandsbased Future for Nature Foundation, and in a few weeks, he will receive the $20,000 Conde Nast Traveler Environment Award in the United States.

Thinking back about Future, the baby chimpanzee that thrust him into a career of activism, Drori said he has never visited his primate friend after the few months they lived together. Realizing that Future did not belong in a domesticated home, Drori brought him to a wildlife center that united him with an ape family and offered him rehabilitation. Soon, Future will leave that center and return to the wild.

“There’s too much rejection looming,” Drori said. “I’m afraid to see him. He’s wild and I want him to be wild.”

Source: Jpost.com

The Internet is a great place for arguments, and a new startup called Deeyoon aims to take bring arguments to video. Of course, there are a bunch of other startups working on video chat. However, none of them seems to have become a huge, sustainable hit yet, and Deeyon CEO Joe Kalfa says he’s taking a different approach — not just general, unstructured conversations, but “live, real-time video debates.” (Airtime recently moved closer to this model with the launch of topic chatrooms .

So when you visit the Deeyoon website, you can watch live video of any debates that are happening at the moment, and browse archived versions of older ones. You can start a debate of you rown that ohter users can join, or join a debate that suggested by someone else. You choose the length of the debate, but Deeyon then actually structures the discussion (opening statements, rebuttals, etc.) so that it’s not just two people shouting at each other.

If you want to example of the kinds of conversations can have on Deeyoon, here’s a particularly impressive example: Jose Canseco (yes, that Jose Canseco, the legendary baseball player) actually jumped on Deeyoon to debate someone who argued that he doesn’t belong in the Hall of Fame due to his steroid use. Watching Canseco address these criticisms directly is super-fascinating, even for a non-baseball fan like me.

Kalfa doesn’t want to limit the debate to the company’s site — his team has also created a publishing widget, allowing other sites to point their readers to Deeyoon, where they can start a debate related to whatever they were reading about.

Deeyoon is being funded by Kalfa for now. He says made his money in the medical and dental supply business, although he’s getting more involved in the tech world, with investments in Wahooly, Caplinked, and TweetTV.

Source: TechCrunch

Boualem Sansal, boycotted in his country due to criticism of radical Islamists, speaks to Ynet about Israel, Arab Spring and literature. ‘We can argue about a certain Israeli policy, but the most important thing is to be friends,’ he says

The Algerian author had only good things to say about Israel and its residents after his visit: “Israelis have all the reasons in the world to be proud of what they have achieved in their country in such a short period of time.

“In so many fields, Israel is at the international forefront and it is very impressive. Tel Aviv’s modernity blew me away, literally, and as for Jerusalem, there are not enough words to describe it.”

“I wanted to see everything, and to meet as many people as possible – Jewish Israelis and Arab Israelis. But unfortunately, I didn’t have enough time. My visit in Israel was only five days long,” Sansal said.

“I would like to see an Israeli writer visit Algeria one day. I would welcome him or her,” Sansal confesses, adding that he would be honored if it were Amos Oz, David Grossman or A.B Yehoshua. He is nevertheless realistic, stating: “I doubt the Algerian government would grant a visa to an Israeli writer, as the Israeli government has done for me.”

Sansal’s previous visit to Israel must not have contributed to his sense of security, but he prefers to focus on the visit’s positive aspects. “I have many friends in Israel, and I am grateful for that. I felt very welcome in Israel. I’m not only referring to official representatives; I’m referring to everyone who came to listen to me and the people who invited me to their homes. It was heart warming.”

Regarding Lieberman’s support of him following the cancellation of the Parisian prize Sansal he was supposed to receive, Sansal commented: “Lieberman’s gesture moved me. When word of his support reached me, I couldn’t believe it. His statement was so gracious in comparison to Arab governments. He told them: ‘You’re persecuting intellectuals. We embrace them and care for their safety. That is why your citizens are rebelling against you.’ That is a harsh blow to Arab governments.”

Hamas officials in Gaza leveled harsh criticism against Sansal’s visit to Israel. “I wouldn’t wish Hamas upon my worst enemy. It is a terrorist movement of the worst kind. Hamas has taken Gazans hostage. It has taken Islam hostage,” the writer said.

Full article via Ynet

After bringing the benefits of solar power to a total of  over 250,000 people in Africa, Jewish Heart for Africa, a non-profit organization that brings sustainable Israeli technologies to African villages, announced that their organization has been granted Special Consultative Status to the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).

Special Consultative Status provides non-governmental organizations with access to ECOSOC and its many subsidiary bodies. This status provides select civil society organizations with the opportunity to participate in nearly all inter-governmental processes at the UN dealing with economic and social development.
Of 624 applications for Special Consultative Status in 2012, Jewish Heart for Africa was one of 241 applicants selected. The decision was adopted unanimously by all members of the Council.

Jewish Heart for Africa will have access to all meetings of ECOSOC as well as other UN bodies, agencies and special events organized by the President and Secretary General. Seven representatives of Jewish Heart for Africa will be granted annual passes for access to UN premises; short-term and group passes for the organization’s supporters will be available as well.

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Three years after the shooting spree in a center for GLBT youth, in which two people were killed and six were wounded, a center for gays who were subjected to violence was launched this evening. The center will receive complaints, in hopes of coping more efficiently with hate crimes against GLBT. (Gilad Morag)

Source: Ynetnews.com

New legislation may see Israel become first country worldwide to bar fur trade altogether

A new bill that aims to place a ban on fur sales in Israel was brought before the Knesset last week for a preliminary reading.

The bill, supported by eight Knesset members from across the political spectrum still has to undergo reviewed by several Knesset committees, before it will be ready for a vote.

Should the legislation mature, Israel will become the first nation worldwide to officially ban fur sales.

While no country has officially barred fur sales by law, many have localized consumer bans on fur trade, such as Dublin, Ireland and West Hollywood in the United States; and more and more nations worldwide are instating anti fur laws.

Each year millions of animals all over the world are killed for their fur.

Jane Halevy, chairperson of the International Anti-Fur Coalition, said: “Fighting for people’s consciousness is a daily undertaking, and this legislation may yet save millions of animals.

“It’s time to do this at last and finally end the fur trade in Israel. Such legislation should gain immense respect for Israel and its citizens. Another important point to note is that… the new bill doesn’t suggest a ban on fur imports, hence the bill is an entirely internal matter and any intervention by foreign furriers will be neither ethical nor justified.”

Source: Ynetnews.com

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