Blood Ivory

‘masterly account of the massacre of the African elephant’ The Spectator It is more than a thousand years since the exploitation of the elephant began, when they were most commonly used as war elephants. However, it is only in the last hundred years, with the coming of the ‘great white hunters’ and their special elephant guns, that the very existence of the African elephant has been threatened. ?With an update by John Hanks, WWF’s former leading elephant scientist, this new edition of Blood Ivory tells the story of how the professional hunting fraternity was the first to realise the threat to the elephant and how it kick-started the whole conservation movement. It is not a story with a happy ending, however. It is a tale of war: colonialists against traditional practices and customs; newly independent African countries against each other; poachers and smugglers against any kind of constraint. Robin Brown draws on his depth of knowledge and understanding of Africa and his career as a leading wildlife film-maker to paint a vivid picture of hunting’s impact on Africa’s elephant population, vividly portraying the powerful personalities of those involved on both sides of the massacre.

It is more than a thousand years since the exploitation of the elephant began.

Meticulous research, chilling facts.... an important and much needed book. -- Dr. Jane Goodall, DBE, Founder, The Jane Goodall Institute If it is understanding you seek, turn these pages. -- Virginia McKenna, OBE, Founder, The Born Free Foundation If you care about elephants and rhinos, and the poaching onslaught that threatens their extinction in the wild, this is the book for you. -- Ian Redmond, OBE, Ambassador, UN Great Apes Survival Program As recently as ten years ago, out of every ten African elephants that died, four fell at the hands of poachers. The figure today is eight. Over sixty percent of Africa's Forest Elephants have been killed by poachers since the turn of the century. Rhinoceroses are being slaughtered throughout their ranges. The Vietnamese One-horned Rhinoceros and the Western Black rhino have become extinct in the last decade, and the Northern White Rhinoceros, the largest of them all, barely survives in captivity. This alarming book tells a crime story that takes place thousands of miles away, in countries that few of us may visit. But like the trade in illegal drugs, the traffic in elephant ivory and rhinoceros horn has far-reaching implications not only for these endangered animals, but also for the human victims of a world-wide surge in organized crime, corruption and violence. Since the worldwide ban on commercial ivory trade was passed in 1989, after a decade that saw half of Africa's elephants slaughtered by poachers, Ronald Orenstein has been at the heart of the fight. Today a new ivory crisis has arisen, fuelled by internal wars in Africa and a growing market in the Far East. Seizures of smuggled ivory have shot up in the past few years. Bands of militia have crossed from one side of Africa to the other, slaughtering elephants with automatic weapons. A market surge in Vietnam and elsewhere has led to a growing criminal onslaught against the world's rhinoceroses. The situation, for both elephants and rhinos, is dire.

Who was Kindrie's father? What triggered the massacre of the Knorth women? What happened the night Jame got driven out by Ganth? Jamethiel Priest's-Bane first entered our lives when she walked out of the Haunted Lands on the opening page of God Stalk in 1982 with the haunts on her trail, searching for her ten-year older twin brother Tori to give him their father's sword and ring. But what was she doing in the Haunted Lands in the first place? What happened that caused her to leave her home? For the past 20 years, this has been one of the biggest mysteries of Jame's background. The answers to those questions¾and others¾are found in the pages of this collection. Blood & Ivory: A Tapestry presents eight original stories by P. C. Hodgell, three of them written especially for this collection. These stories explore different facets of Jame's life and background and weave a lush and complex picture of this enigmatic figure. Also included are new introductions to the stories, as well as maps and drawings by P. C. Hodgell. At the publisher's request, this title is sold without DRM (Digital Rights Management).

Modern day pirates on a quest to save an African treaure Ivory Alex Tremain is a pirate in trouble. The two women in his life – one of them his financial adviser, the other his diesel mechanic – have left him. He’s facing a mounting tide of debts and his crew of modern-day buccaneers, a multi-national band of ex-military cutthroats, are getting restless. They don’t all share his dream of going legit, but what Alex really wants is to re-open the five-star resort hotel which once belonged to his Portuguese mother and English father on the Island of Dreams, off the coast of Mozambique. A chance raid on a wildlife smugglers’ ship sets the Chinese triads after him and, to add to his woes, corporate lawyer Jane Humphries lands, literally, in his lap. Another woman’s the last thing Captain Tremain needs right now – especially one whose lover is a ruthless shipping magnate backed up by a deadly bunch of contract killers. What Alex really needs is one last, big heist – something valuable enough to fulfil his dreams and set him and his men up for life. When the South African government makes a controversial decision to reinstitute the culling of elephants in its national parks, Alex finds the answer to his prayers, but at what cost?

Half of Tanzania's elephants have been killed for their ivory since 2007. A similar alarming story can be told of the herds in northern Mozambique and across swathes of central Africa, with forest elephants losing almost two-thirds of their numbers to the tusk trade. The huge rise in poaching and ivory smuggling in the new millennium has destroyed the hope that the 1989 ivory trade ban had capped poaching and would lead to a long-term fall in demand. But why the new upsurge? The answer is not simple. Since ancient times, large-scale killing of elephants for their tusks has been driven by demand outside Africa's elephant ranges - from the Egyptian pharaohs through Imperial Rome and industrialising Europe and North America to the new wealthy business class of China. And, who poaches and why do they do it? In recent years lurid press reports have blamed mass poaching on rebel movements and armed militias, especially Somalia's Al Shabaab, tying two together two evils - poaching and terrorism. But does this account stand up to scrutiny? This new and ground-breaking examination of the history and politics of ivory in Africa forensically examines why poaching happens in Africa and why it is corruption, crime and politics, rather than insurgency, that we should worry about.

Two long time friends find themselves thrust into a political power play by two European countries. They find themselves in a strange land they have only read about. Now they are caught between the danger of their exposed secret and a monster with a primordial history that has risen from the depths, their only savior is a unknown women named Jane who knows this monster's history and that of Africa that has drenched the soil with the blood of its people.