News Watch » J.J. Kelley

1,000 Miles to Blister Town

J.J. Kelley — Mon, 13 May 2013 19:54:33 +0000

Two amigos on a National Geographic Expedition from San Diego to Cabo – one of the planet’s longest and most isolated peninsulas.

It always starts with a crazy idea, doesn’t it? Let’s quit our jobs. Then say goodbye to the comforts of home finding new horizons to experience each passing day. It’s a common enough story, but the path chosen to achieve this might be the most interesting detail. The amount of self-inflicted hardship folded into the equation speaks volumes about the constitution of the traveler.

This is a borderline insane adventure by all accounts. Let’s start with the numbers: 1,000 miles down a remote peninsula, traveling a coastline until it ultimately gives way to the sea. That sounds manageable enough, perhaps like a vacation many might be pining to take. Now let’s get into the terrain: mostly desert, covered in cacti and inhabited by more poisons creatures than people. The language: not your own. The method: walk the first half then swap boots for a stand up paddle board going headon into an intolerant and often tempestuous sea.

To track down the two unflappable individuals wild enough to attempt this extreme journey, I rent a car in Phoenix. Of course you never tell the rental agent that you’ll be taking their compact across 2,000 miles of undomesticated bush; it’s a secret they just don’t need to know. The long drive takes a little over 18-hours, a distance that has taken these two men 10-weeks to reach. Now, they’re half way to their goal.

Justin Deshields (left) and Bryan Morales eat surprisingly little, a result of conditioning their bodies to living without large meals during the remote expedition.

Justin Deshields and Bryan Morales have selected this path of uncertainty. They wait for me the a dusty forgotten town of Mulegé, Mexico (though I doubt the town was ever known by that many). My lovely girlfriend and I will join the friends as they walk onto their stand up paddle boards for the first time. Up to this point they’d traveled by foot from San Diego, CA. We break into their hotel room after midnight, the friends are quick to wake. Grizzled and happy despite the intrusion, they cheerfully offer a celebratory sip of tequila.

Not only will this be their first time on new boards, it’s their first time trying the sport! Stand up paddle boarding or SUP as its commonly known is a rapidly growing pastime seeing the same commercial growth that sea kayaking witnessed about 10 years ago. Deshields and Morales will attempt to SUP 600-miles along a coastline known for its punishing winds. In a kayak you sit lower to the ground, reducing the drag, and maximizing any kind of gain in a strong headwind. When you’re logging SUP miles without much experience, wind is fatal to progress.

Departing though this sleepy town at dawn, the men epitomize abnormality. Their glitzy boards offer a stark visual contrast to the muted pre-dawn streets. Smiles are exchanged by community members who are unaccustomed to such a site.

Feral dogs prove to be one of the greatest threats during a 600-mile walk down Baja California.

Ours is a shaky start. Everyone falls off their board as hours pass during a mounting wind storm. High pressure winds blow 30-knots and seas build to 8-feet. Each day is a battle endured with endless smiles. Evenings are spent cooking lobster on the fire and preparing chiviche with rationed limes (seafood the boys caught by hand). We see 100 pelicans for every person, and when the wind dies the warm air wraps around you like a favorite blanket. These are the insights between the hardships. The moments of bliss between the blisters.

Deshields and Morales expedition is sponsored by a grant from National Geographic. Above is a short video introducing the expedition. The boys will produce a documentary film that will highlight the beauty and mystery of Baja. To follow along visit What is West.

NEXT: Suburbs to Shantytowns: 1,000-Mile Trek Down Baja Mexico

Justin Deshields and Bryan Morales feel the full force of a Norte wind, Stand Up Paddling the Baja Peninsula.

Battle for the Elephants (Ep. 4): Massive Ivory Stockpile

J.J. Kelley — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 06:20:32 +0000

And you can smell it; it’s almost like dried blood. There is the smell of death in here. All of these are confiscated trophies,” reports investigative journalist Aidan Hartley. We’ve just been given exclusive access to an astonishingly vast warehouse of government owned ivory in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

For our series finale, Aidan meets with Khamis Kagasheki, minister of natural resources in Tanzania, which stores the world’s largest stockpile of elephant tusks in the world — 90 metric tons. Kagasheki agrees to allow us to take the first-ever footage of the vast warehouse that stores thousands of tusks, valued at $50 million.

Unlike Kenya, Tanzania, one of the poorest countries in the world, has not agreed to burn its stockpile, arguing that the money from a sale could support conservation efforts. An official told us that if an international agency were to buy the tusks with the intention of burning them, they would eagerly sell them. But who would support such an idea?

Many in Tanzania would like to sell the ivory inside the warehouse – it would bring millions of dollars to a desperately poor nation. Others worry that another sale would just drive demand for ivory higher, and that would lead to more poaching. One thing is clear, perhaps the final battle for the elephants is being fought right now.

WATCH THE FULL ONLINE SERIES:

Watch “Battle for the Elephants” on PBS

Aidan Hartley is given rare access to a massive ivory stockpile in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania / J.J. Kelley for National Geographic Television

Battle for the Elephants (Ep. 3): The China Ivory Market

J.J. Kelley — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 04:23:45 +0000

A curious juvenile elephant comes to inspect our camera crew / J.J. Kelley for National Geographic Television

Our investigation is revealing insights into why elephant numbers are falling to lower levels than ever recorded. An international ban on trading ivory has been in place since 1989. Since then, the body that governs the trade, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), has allowed two large auctions of stockpiled ivory.

According to Bryan Christy, these two sales gave cover to ivory smugglers in China, and the underground market exploded. According to CITES, 25,000 elephants were killed in Africa last year, though other observers say it could be many more. In Tanzania alone, poachers kill 30 elephants a day. The International Fund for Animal Welfare estimates that 84 percent of the ivory sold in China is illegal.

Since the opening up of the Chinese market and the growth of its economy, ivory, once a precious material available only to the ruling elite, has become increasingly available to the growing Chinese middle class.

A luxury goods store in Beijing allowed our cameras into their showroom where Christy explains how those auctions complicate what’s for sale legally and what’s not.

WATCH THE FULL ONLINE SERIES:

Watch “Battle for the Elephants” on PBS

Bryan Christy visits a high end retailer in Hong Kong to investigate the legal ivory market / John Heminway for National Geographic Television

Battle for the Elephants (Ep. 2): Criminal Traders Exposed

J.J. Kelley — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 12:16:15 +0000

Aidan Hartley poses next to a giant confiscated tusk in Dar es Salaam / J.J. Kelley for National Geographic Television

Through a taxing series of twists and turns, I find myself on assignment in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, about to go undercover with Aidan Hartley. Hartley is a seasoned war correspondent and investigative journalist, and no greenhorn when it comes putting his life on the line to get a story.

Our goal is time sensitive and dangerous: capture video of criminal ivory traders selling poached ivory. Once embedded, we have just a 3-day window to operate in the city; we fear pushing our investigation further could trigger the slaughter of more elephants.

Complete figures are not yet available for 2012, but TRAFFIC reports ”17 large-scale ivory seizures in 2011 alone—more than double the highest previous figure of eight seizures in 2009, and totaling an estimated 26.4 tonnes of ivory.”

While a second film team attempts to capture the demand for ivory in China, we are scouting one of the world’s main ports for smuggled ivory, acutely aware that our lives could be on the line. As the events play out, we’re forced to decide whether to follow the sellers on their terms or abort the mission.

WATCH THE FULL ONLINE SERIES:

Watch “Battle for the Elephants” on PBS

Aidan Hartley meets with an undercover informant before posing as an ivory buyer / J.J. Kelley for National Geographic Television

Battle for the Elephants (Ep. 1): The Plight of the Elephant

J.J. Kelley — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 18:30:44 +0000

With just seven days remaining before Bryan Christy‘s Blood Ivory article hits the newsstands, we’re down to the wire. A complete story is within our grasp, but it’s uncomfortably obvious that we don’t yet have enough. Our legal team insists that we remove ourselves from the field before “Blood Ivory” is released. Sensing the pressure, the reality is that we either deliver now or come up short.

An ivory sculpted Buddha / John Heminway for National Geographic Television

Anticipating the scramble, we had split into two teams. I’m on the ground in Dar es Salaam posing as an ivory buyer with Aidan Hartley. Our goal is simple: capture the bad guys on film, red handed. Our second team is in China, their objective is much more complex: explore the driving forces behind the growing demand for ivory.

Since the opening up of the Chinese market and the growth of its economy, ivory—once a precious material reserved for the ruling elite—has become increasingly available to the growing Chinese middle class. To help tell this story our team is with one of the top experts in the world, and the author of the upcoming article that coincidentally could get them kicked out of the country, if exposed. Bryan Christy takes the film team to an artisan carver who has been working for two years on one piece, valued at more than a million dollars.

Hearing my colleagues describe the ornate detail that went into this one carving, I feel the complexity of this problem hit me like a ton of bricks. Bryan tells me, ”When I see craftsmanship like Mr. Leung’s and learn how many years he spent creating his masterpiece, I am overwhelmed with the mathematical equivalency between the beauty of ivory carving in China and the beauty of an elephant in the African wild. But the beauty on one side of the scale is bought with the blood of the other. That’s how I know the scale is not equal—elephants and people who protect them are dying. And that’s how I know one side must be stopped.”

WATCH THE FULL ONLINE SERIES:

Watch Battle for the Elephants on PBS

See “Blood Ivory” author Bryan Christy in National Geographic’s “Battle for the Elephants” on February 27 at 9 p.m. Check local listings.

Old bulls gather in the Chyulu hills of eastern Kenya / J.J. Kelley for National Geographic Television

Battle for the Elephants: Web Series Intro

J.J. Kelley — Wed, 06 Feb 2013 17:01:40 +0000

According to CITES experts, more than 25,000 elephants—an estimated 12 percent of the world’s elephant population—were killed in Africa last year alone, and some say the numbers could be much higher. In a new Web series, National Geographic filmmakers share their experiences documenting the illegal ivory trade. Follow journalists Bryan Christy and Aidan Hartley as we go undercover and inside the criminal network behind ivory’s supply and demand.

One of the film’s producers, J.J. Kelley (right), films Soila Sayialel (left) at Amboseli National Park, Kenya. / John Heminway for National Geographic Television

As a producer on the upcoming PBS Special, Battle for the Elephants, I was part of an international team that went undercover to investigate the illegal ivory trade. Our team knew early on that we had to take a holistic approach to documenting this story. The ivory trade—and it’s devastating impact on elephant populations—doesn’t just come down to “evil” poachers in Africa killing elephants without regard, nor is it merely a lust for ivory in Asia. Poachers and consumers are major factors, of course, but the problem is much more historically rooted and complex. After all, Western cultures caused similar devastation to the elephant population due to an intense desire for billiard balls, piano keys, and combs; a desire so insatiable that by 1913, the United States was consuming 200 tons of ivory a year.

For these reasons, we divided our team to gather as many perspectives as we could pack into our six-week production window. After ten-weeks of editing, what emerged is a highly contentious issue that needs even more attention than we estimated at the onset. The startling truth is, if we do not do something now, there is a a very real chance future generations will not see elephants in the wild.

Tune in right here at A Voice for the Elephants as we explore what may be the final battle for the elephants.

WATCH THE FULL ONLINE SERIES:

Watch “Battle for the Elephants” on PBS