Feds Bust Organized Crime Ring Trading in Shark Fins and Drugs

Feds Bust Organized Crime Ring Trading in Shark Fins and Drugs

The New York Times reported late last week that federal prosecutors are pressing charges against a ring of a dozen people and two businesses on opposite coasts for running a multimillion-dollar organization involved in international money laundering, drug trafficking, and illegal wildlife trade in shark fins.

Why This Matters:  As the World Wildlife Fund reports, around 100 million sharks may be killed annually for their fins and many are sold on the black market. Illegal wildlife trafficking is growing because international criminal networks are able to exploit weaknesses and gaps in international law enforcement.

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New Study Finds That Many Dams Are Located In Protected Areas, Many More Planned

New Study Finds That Many Dams Are Located In Protected Areas, Many More Planned

A recent study published in Conservation Letters found that over 500 dams in planning stages or already constructed are located within protected areas. As Yale E360 reported this week, this study is significant in that it is the first to measure how many dams are being built in protected areas, including in national parks, nature reserves, indigenous areas, and more. 

Why This Matters: As the article in Conservation Letters lays out, these protected areas are an “essential tool” in the conservation of freshwater biodiversity.

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