“Wildlife Trafficking Can’t be Eradicated Just by ‘Nice, Nice’ Campaigns”

Suwanna Gauntlett, founder and CEO of Wildlife Alliance, likes to call herself “a direct action conservationist.” For over three decades now, Gauntlett has been working on the frontlines of efforts to protect endangered species and forests across the world.

Born in San Francisco and raised in Brazil and Europe, she has worked on a diverse range of conservation efforts — from fighting to protect dolphins from drift nets in the South Pacific, to saving the Amur (Siberian) Tiger population in the Russian far east (where she worked with Global Survival Network to bring the tiger population back from only 80 individuals in 1994 to nearly 400 by 2000), to helping reverse the steep decline of Olive Ridley turtles along the eastern coast of India. For the past decade, Gauntlett has been based in Cambodia where she has been leading a sustained effort, in collaboration with Cambodian Government, to curb illegal wildlife trade and consumption.

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