Wild For Life

Elephants are honoured in my home country, Côte d'Ivoire. It’s our national animal and the name of our national football team. Demand for ivory is causing the killing of this species in the hundreds of thousands. I prefer my elephants alive and magnificent. To see one in the wild is to be awed. Let's stop this now, together.

Choosing to represent a creature like the mighty sperm whale is an easy choice. It might not be the sexiest, most charismatic or easy to love animal, but I have seldom spent time with more intelligent, keenly aware, and exquisitely sociable creatures. Made famous by Melville’s Moby Dick, its history is indeed, written in blood. Hundreds of thousands of sperm whales were slaughtered by whalers for their blubber, their ambergris and their spermaceti. The true value of this creature, however, may be in the things it can still teach us about how to live on this planet. Imagine what we can learn from a creature that can dive several miles to hunt in the dark! Its keen senses, adaptations and abilities are almost otherworldly and can hold the key to understanding our own life support system and our own place in the universe.

It breaks my heart that with all our knowledge and power we are still facing the possibility of extinction of so many plants, land and sea creatures at the hands of man. Knowledge is power and now is the time to end all illegal wildlife trade before the choice is no longer in our hands. I give my name to change the game for sea turtles.

The essence of our traditional culture lies in a belief of peaceful co-existence between humanity and nature. We must accept that we are contributing to the demise of this culture through our lifestyle choices. We don't need products that destroy species. We can find substitutes that are as beautiful and make a powerful statement about being an informed global citizen.

Elephants, rhinos and tigers are some of the best-known victims of the Illegal trade – killed by the thousands for their ivory, horn, skin, bones. But it also threatens many other species that you might not even have heard of, like helmeted hornbills, which are used for ivory substitutes. We don't need these products, let's enjoy these animals alive.

The adorable sun bear, called beruang madu (honey bears) in Indonesia, desperately needs our help! The smallest bear in the world, named for the golden patch of fur on its chest that resembles the rising sun, lives only in south-east Asia, but habitat loss and poachers are threatening their survival. Criminals are killing these precious creatures to sell their bile for traditional medicine, in a very cruel extraction process, and snatching their cubs to be sold as pets. It is heartbreaking, but join me to do something about it. Today, I am giving my name to change the game for the sun bear. Use your own sphere of influence to encourage people get better informed and to say no to products that threaten species!

If we don't start acknowledging our correct position as nothing more than a part of the planet as opposed to this perception that we're superior, then we won't have it much longer. We are all part of one great system for which trees are our lungs. Choosing wood products that are sustainably sourced is not that hard, but can make a huge difference.

Football unites us all in a common goal. Winning as part of a team. We need to think of ourselves as global citizens, one great team that can win against the greed and ignorance that is allowing wildlife crime to flourish. Being a global citizen means understanding how our personal choices can cause a ripple effect around the world--for good and bad.

Vu Pham Diem My

We don’t always realize how much personal power each of us has to influence those around us as long as we have the will to work hard, take action and lead by example. Let’s each go for gold by acting as environmental custodians to make the future healthy and in harmony for people and the planet.

We have a responsibility to be in harmony with nature. We can’t take more than what the planet can produce, but we are. This will have devastating impacts if we don’t ‘change our ways, today. My generation has made mistakes by not paying more attention. Young people can change this by raising their voices through social media and by influencing peers and parents.

At the heart of illegal trade in wildlife is too much demand for endangered wildlife products used for cuisine, fashion, gift-giving and investment. Let’s set new trends that don’t threaten our planet’s weird and wonderful species.