Ginette Hemley - vice president of the World Wildlife Fund Ginette Hemley - Interview

E: The Environmental Magazine, May, 1999 by Jim Motavalli

Wildlife Warrior

In a photograph she furnished to E, Ginette Hemley, vice president for species conservation at the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), is casting a practiced eye on the goods for sale at an Asian market, undoubtedly on the lookout for products containing tiger bone, rhino horn or other endangered species ingredients

From 1986 to 1994, Hemley was the director of TRAFFIC, an arm of the WWF devoted to stopping the persistent and hugely damaging worldwide trade in protected species. She was trained in field biology, but most of her time these days is spent in the wilds of Washington, where she coordinates WWF's legislative lobbying with its on the-ground programs. "My role here is to knit together initiatives for endangered species at the international level, so the policy side works with the field side," she says.

Hemley, a 15-year veteran of WWF's U.S. operations who has also worked for Defenders of Wildlife and the World Conservation Union, says that ironically, the word "wildlife" just doesn't translate all that well in some of the more than 100 countries where WWF has operations. And that's why, in most of the world, WWF is called The Worldwide Fund for Nature.

Fighting for endangered species has taken Hemley all over the world, where she helps document the heartbreaking loss of some of our most important plants and animals. She is a former U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service enforcement officer, and was one of the principal authors of WWF's 1997 tiger report, which concluded that "tigers have disappeared or become severely depleted over large tracts of habitat across Asia." Coming up with workable plans to reverse that trend, for tigers and many other species, is what Hemley and WWF are all about.

E: Elsewhere in this issue, we identify 10 species in deep trouble. It's hard not to come to the conclusion that most of these animals are doomed by the policies that made them endangered in the first place. Is WWF at all optimistic that we can turn the situation around?

HEMLEY: People ask me all the time, `Don't you get depressed in your job?' and I have to say, especially now that I've been at it for quite a few years, that the progress you make allows you to retain a certain amount of optimism. I use the tiger as an example, a species that has been subjected to a crisis in conservation fairly recently. Throughout this century, the tiger has been on a steep decline, but if you look broadly, you'll see fluctuations in its populations that happened because of specific actions taken in this century.

One of those real dips in tiger numbers took place in the 1970s, when they were hit by a number of things at once. Habitat loss is one of the big problems, of course, and is the backdrop issue for all of these species. But the trade threat became real back then, not so much for the traditional medicine trade, but because skins and trophies were being sought. There was at one time virtually no regulation of tiger hunting as a sport in India, and tiger skin coats were actually being sold.

But, largely because of the high-level support of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, tiger numbers that had dwindled to as few as 2,000 animals came back in 10 years--due to habitat protection and strict anti-hunting laws. Everyone thought the tiger was doing fine, but by the early 1990s, while we in the international community weren't paying attention, tiger poaching started picking up again--because of a sudden increase in demand for medicinal tiger bone.

The dissolution of the Soviet Union also resulted in a decline in support for conservation, and the Siberian tiger was hit hard by poaching pressures. We later learned that China had literally run out of tiger bone stockpiles that had accumulated in earlier decades, and was looking for new sources.

But now, several years later, despite the fact that we lost lots of tigers, the situation has stabilized, and we see the direct result of consistent and sustained international support over three or four years. So that shows me that when you are focused, when you are strategic in your response and the community comes together, you can make a difference, even for a species like the tiger, which obviously requires large habitat areas to survive and which has a high commercial value.

But it seems that you have to have eternal vigilance. You can't assume at any one point that the tiger has been saved, be. cause a new crisis is probably looming.

You're absolutely right. Another lesson learned. If we want to see tigers left in the wild for future generations, we have a direct responsibility to try and secure that future, and we can't let down our guard.

I agree it's our responsibility, but do you think the average person feels like they have any power to affect events in Russia, India and places abroad? What is the best thing the average person can do to stop the loss of endangered species?

I have seen a growth in public awareness and sensitivity. We have tried to let people know not only when things are bad, but when they improve. Direct action, even if it seems like it's not worthwhile, does turn out to be very significant. If you are an American citizen and you want to save endangered species, you can help by writing letters in support of specific legislation. A couple of actions that would otherwise have gone unnoticed in our Congress have paid big dividends for both tigers and rhinos. One was in 1994, when Congress passed the Rhino and Tiger Conservation Act, which set up a grants fund for these species. It's only half a million dollars at this point, but small grants that go out into the field have been instrumental in helping countries that were facing major tiger poaching.