GUNS ARE A PUBLIC HEALTH MENACE
Guns overtake cars as leading cause of death for US youth. ‘I just didn’t think it would occur so quickly’

2022/5/31 
© The Mercury News

Family members who lost a sibling place flowers outside Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, on Wednesday, May 25, 2022. 

- Wally Skalij/Los Angeles Times/TNS

For decades, the biggest threat kids faced growing up came from the automobiles they happily hopped into every day for a trip to school, the store or soccer practice.

Now, it’s gunfire.

As the country mourns its latest school shooting victims in Uvalde, Texas, it also has reached a grim milestone: Guns now kill more kids and teens in the U.S. than auto accidents do.

The trend has been building in recent years as automobile deaths have fallen with improved safety measures, while gun violence among the young has taken a growing toll. Figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that in 2020, the most recent year available, firearms passed motor vehicles as the leading killer of those ages 1-19.

“It was clear to me that it was just a matter of time,” said Dr. Lois Lee, a pediatric emergency medicine physician at Boston Children’s Hospital and an associate professor of pediatrics and emergency medicine at Harvard Medical School who has been studying the trend. “I just didn’t think it would occur so quickly.”

What’s spurred the violence? Experts point to many causes — the frustrations of entrenched poverty and discrimination, glorification of gun violence in popular culture and entertainment, and too-easy youth access to guns in many states like Texas — all kicked into overdrive by the stresses of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We live in a society right now where gun violence is becoming increasingly tolerated,” said Rutgers University-Newark psychology professor Paul Boxer. “What I’ve seen locally, personally, it’s a lot of anxiety and depression.”

But Boxer cautioned the factors behind the rising youth gun violence are as varied as the patchwork of gun laws and socioeconomic circumstances across a politically divided country.

In a New England Journal of Medicine paper published last month, Lee noted that firearms overtook automobiles as the leading killer among those ages 1-24 in 2017, as gun violence became deadlier among older teens and young adults.

For children and adolescents age 1-17, motor vehicles remain the top killer, the CDC figures show, though guns are closing in.

Motor vehicle deaths among youth ages 1-19 fell from 7,885 in 2002 to 3,512 in 2019 before ticking up to 3,913 in 2020. U.S. gun deaths among kids and teens had hovered around 3,000 annually since 2000, reaching a low of 2,450 in 2013. But they have risen since, spiking to 4,357 in 2020.

“I don’t really understand what happened or why we’re starting to see that inflection point in 2014,” said Lee, who notes in a May 26 article in The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health that while motor vehicle fatalities of youth younger than 20 have fallen 51% since 2000, firearm deaths have risen 83% since 2013.

Gun-worshiping MAGA 'cult' moves closer into GOP mainstream with Pennsylvania primary win: historian

Travis Gettys
May 31, 2022

Screen cap / YouTube

The Republican nominee for Pennsylvania governor has Donald Trump's backing and ties to a gun-worshiping religious sect.

State Sen. Doug Mastriano took part in the Jan. 6, 2021, "Stop the Steal" rally and went to the U.S. Capitol afterward, and his ideology can be summed up as Christian nationalism -- so it's not surprising that he has spoken at events hosted by the apocalyptic "Rod of Iron Ministries" founded by the Rev. Hyung Jin “Sean” Moon, wrote historian Thomas Lecaque for The Bulwark.

"American syncretic spirituality animates every part of Mastriano’s public profile and political career," wrote Lecaque, an associate professor of history at Grand View University. "Perhaps it should be no surprise that he associates with an extremist sect that places special emphasis on America’s most notorious gun."

Moon, the youngest son of Unification Church founder Rev. Sun Myung Moon, has forged ties to Mastriano and other far-right political figures, and high-ranking church leader Gregg Nall described their theology at a blessing ceremony for a new 40-acre compound in central Texas.

“We believe that the kingdom of heaven is a kingdom of armed citizens, so we believe that everyone in the kingdom should be armed,” Nall said. “The gun really does represent strength. Peace through strength. If you have a gun in self-defense, the criminal or the predator will back off. If you don’t have a gun the predator comes in and ravishes you or us as a nation.”

The church draws inspiration from QAnon conspiracy theories and Christian nationalism to go along with its fetishization of the AR-15 rifle, but Lecaque said their views are moving closer into the conservative mainstream.

"Just as Moon’s church has developed a larger and larger platform through partnerships with bad actors, the cult of the AR-15 has insinuated itself in communities where traditional faith has been displaced by the miasma of Christian nationalism," he wrote. "Rod of Iron might be the most explicit proponent of the cult, but those who see political opportunity in the business of fearmongering about gun rights have become its secret missionaries, bearing messages of salvation through implements of destruction."

"Like Moon and Mastriano, they desire an apocalypse, which is another word for revelation," Lecaque added. "The Book of Revelation — also known as the Apocalypse of John — is the final book of the Bible and the place where Moon came to his beliefs about the cosmic significance of the AR-15. What he and other cultists should consider is that the apocalypse they desire might reveal a different deity than they expect."

Republicans melt down after Canada cracks down on guns after mass shooting

Igor Derysh,

 Salon
May 31, 2022

Justin Trudeau (Al Jazeera)

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Monday announced a new proposal cracking down on "military-style assault weapons" and handgun sales, triggering alarm among Republicans in the U.S. who have resisted any gun restrictions in the wake of deadly mass shootings.

Trudeau announced a mandatory buyback program targeting assault weapons and new regulations that will ban sales and imports of handguns. The legislation is expected to pass.

The announcement triggered right-wing lawmakers and pundits south of the Canadian border.

"The dystopian future Trudeau is manifesting in Canada is coming to America if US citizens don't get involved," tweeted Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky.

"Canada is turning into New Zealand and they are also trying to do it here," wrote Republican Arizona state Sen. Wendy Rogers, one of the most extremist lawmakers in the country. "Sound the alarm we must never give up our guns."

Fox News host Mark Levin lamented that "Canada is gone." Bernie Kerik, the ex-New York police commissioner pardoned by former President Donald Trump, called the restrictions "Trudeau's final push toward Communism."

The Republican pushback comes as right-wing lawmakers again fight a growing push to enact gun safety legislation after yet another series of mass shootings in the United States. Some GOP officials have instead suggested arming teachers or sending armed officers to schools even though an army of cops failed to stop the Uvalde shooter. Others have floated "one-door" policies and other security measures that already failed in Texas.

RELATED: Ted Cruz thinks he has a better solution to Uvalde school shooting than gun control: Door control

Canada, on the other hand, has taken a series of steps to restrict guns after a 2020 mass shooting in rural Nova Scotia killed 22 people. Shortly after the shooting, Trudeau used his power to ban the use and sale of more than 1,500 types of rifles, including AR-15s. Trudeau then pushed for a voluntary buyback of assault weapons before ultimately announcing Monday's proposal to require most assault weapon owners to participate.

"As a government, as a society, we have a responsibility to act to prevent more tragedies," Trudeau said at a news conference, adding: "We need only look south of the border to know that if we do not take action, firmly and rapidly, it gets worse and worse and more difficult to counter."

Trudeau's move took on more significance days after a teen gunman armed with an AR-15-style rifle killed 19 children and two teachers in Uvalde just days after another teen gunman armed with an AR-15 style rifle and inspired by white supremacy killed 10 people at a Buffalo supermarket.

Trudeau's mandatory buyback is similar to a program launched by New Zealand in 2019 after a gunman armed with an AR-15-style rifle killed 51 people and injured dozens of others at two mosques in Christchurch. Australia similarly launched a buyback program after a gunman armed with an AR-15-style rifle killed 35 people in Port Arthur.

Those countries all have deep gun cultures, as does Canada. There are about 12.7 million guns owned by civilians in the country, or about 34.7 per 100 residents. But those numbers pale in comparison to the United States, which has more than 300 million guns in circulation, or about 120 guns per 100 people.

Canada's program will include some exemptions but will require owners to obtain a permit to keep their assault weapons and mandate that the firearms be modified to make them inoperable. The country already restricted magazines for semiautomatic weapons, requiring that no gun may shoot more than five rounds without reloading.

But Trudeau is going even further, targeting handgun sales as well. The proposal is not an outright ban but aims to restrict the number of handguns in circulation.

"In other words, we're capping the market for handguns," Trudeau told reporters. "Other than using firearms for sport shooting and hunting, there is no reason anyone in Canada should need guns in their everyday lives."

Handguns are already strictly restricted in Canada but a recent report found that they account for about 60% of gun-related crimes.

Trudeau's proposal would also make it a crime to modify magazines to increase their capacity, increase criminal penalties for gun smuggling, and enacts "red flag" triggers that allow police to seize guns from people a court determines are a risk to themselves or others.

"Gun violence is a complex problem, but at the end of the day the math is really quite simple: The fewer the guns in our communities, the safer everyone will be," Trudeau said. While most gun owners are law-abiding abiding, he added, "we don't need assault style weapons that were designed to kill the largest number of people in the shortest amount of time."

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M USUAL SUSPECTS

Deutsche Bank, DWS raided by German police in 'greenwashing' probe

Jake Johnson, Common Dreams
May 31, 2022

People are silhouetted next to the Deutsche Bank's logo prior to the bank's annual meeting in Frankfurt, Germany, May 24, 2018. 

REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach/File Photo

German police on Tuesday raided Deutsche Bank headquarters and the offices of asset manager DWS—which is 80% owned by Deutsche Bank—as part of an investigation into whether the firms have presented investments and products as more climate-friendly than they really are, a notorious practice known as "greenwashing."

The Frankfurt public prosecutors' office said in a statement that the raid—which reportedly involved around 50 law enforcement officials—was "triggered by reports in the international and national media that the asset manager DWS, when marketing so-called 'green financial products,' had sold these financial products as 'greener' or 'more sustainable' than they actually were."

"Investing in fossil fuels is a dead end. No amount of greenwashing or spin can change that."

"After examination, sufficient factual evidence has emerged that, contrary to the statements made in the sales prospectuses of DWS funds, [environmental, social, and governance factors] were not taken into account at all in a large number of investments," the statement continued.

DWS said in response to the raid that it is cooperating with authorities and regulators.

While Deutsche Bank and DWS have both committed to achieving net-zero emissions by 2050, both have been accused of misleading clients about the sustainability of their business practices.

Last year, Desiree Fixler—a former environmental, social, and governance (ESG) officer with DWS—accused the asset management firm of greenwashing in its 2020 annual report, prompting the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the German regulator BaFin to investigate.

"This incident with DWS has rippled through the market and is a wake-up call to approach ESG more accurately and scientifically and dial down the propaganda and rhetoric," Fixler told Financial News in September.

Fixler went further in an interview with the Financial Times last month, saying, "ESG today is meaningless."

According to a recent study led by Oil Change International, Deutsche Bank provided $85.95 billion in financing for the fossil fuel industry between 2016 and 2021.

"We still see funding for coal and fossil fuels from some of the biggest names in finance, hedge funds, and private equity," United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said over the weekend. "Investing in fossil fuels is a dead end—economically and environmentally. No amount of greenwashing or spin can change that."

China Is Trying To Silence Activists In America Who Oppose The CCP



ByStavros Atlamazoglou

Image: Creative Commons.

One American and four Chinese intelligence officers have been charged with spying and conspiring to silence critics of the Chinese government on American soil.

Last week, the U.S. Department of Justice unsealed an indictment charging one U.S. and four Chinese citizens with conspiracy and espionage, and transnational repression charges.

Spying On American Soil

On May 18, the Justice Department charged and identified the American asset and four Chinese intelligence officers.

According to the Department of Justice, the five men participated in an espionage and transnational repression program in the U.S. and abroad.

The five men are: Wang Shujun, of Queens, New York; Feng He, also known as “Boss He,” of Guangdong; Jie Ji, of Qingdao; Ming Li, also known as “Elder Tang and Little Li,” of Guangdong; and Keqing Lu, also known as “Boss Lu,” of Qingdao.
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Wang, the American citizen, wasn’t an intelligence officer but rather an asset that was working with the four Chinese intelligence officers.

“We will not tolerate efforts by the PRC or any authoritarian government to export repressive measures to our country,” Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen, who is assigned to the Justice Department’s National Security Division, said in a press statement.

“These charges demonstrate the Justice Department’s unwavering commitment to hold accountable all those who violate our laws in seeking to suppress dissenting voices within the United States and to prevent our residents from exercising their lawful rights,” Olsen added.

Out of the five individuals, only Wang has been arrested. The four Chinese intelligence officers remain at large—most likely safe in China.

“As alleged, Wang acted as a covert intelligence asset in his own community, spying on and reporting sensitive information on prominent pro-democracy activists and organizations to his co-defendants, who are members of the Chinese government’s Ministry of State Security,” U.S. Attorney Breon Peace for the Eastern District of New York said.

“Today’s indictment exposes and disrupts an operation by the PRC that threatens the safety and freedom of Chinese nationals residing in the United States on account of their pro-democracy beliefs and speech. Our office and our law enforcement partners will remain vigilant to thwart foreign espionage activities aimed at our citizens and residents,” Peace added.

The indictment was unsealed in a federal court in Brooklyn, New York City.

Targeting Dissidents and Activists

According to the Justice Department, Wang was using his position as a reputable academic and author who advocated for a pro-democracy organization to actually collect information on members of the Chinese diaspora who were supporting activism and human rights in China. Wang then passed the information to the Ministry of State Security (MSS), China’s main intelligence agency.

“If anyone doubts how serious the Chinese government is about silencing its critics, this case should eliminate any uncertainty. The Chinese government’s aggressive tactics were once confined to its borders. Now, the PRC is targeting people in the United States and around the world. The FBI and its partners remain committed to combatting transnational repression,” Acting Executive Assistant Director Alan E. Kohler Jr. from the FBI’s National Security Branch stated.

1945’s New Defense and National Security Columnist, Stavros Atlamazoglou is a seasoned defense journalist specializing in special operations, a Hellenic Army veteran (national service with the 575th Marine Battalion and Army HQ), and a Johns Hopkins University graduate. His work has been featured in Business Insider, Sandboxx, and SOFREP.

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

Political control, money and firepower: Latin American 'maras' evolve beyond gangs, a new report warns

MS-13 is now "among the largest non-state armed groups in the Western Hemisphere," according to a new report.


POR::DAVID C ADAMS
PUBLICADO 30 MAY 2022 

A former MS-13 gang leader is pictured at Santa Ana prison, 60 km northwest of San Salvador. 

Crédito: OSCAR RIVERA/AFP via Getty Images

Gangs in Central and South America are growing so powerfully connected to state institutions that they have morphed from their traditionally isolated, street-level criminal activities to become dangerous “community-embedded transnational armed groups” with corrupt ties to the police and political parties, according to a new report published the National Defense University in Washington.

“If you look at their territorial control, financial power, military control, political influence, they've really you know, they've gone far beyond just gangs,” one of the authors, Douglas Farah, told Univision Noticias.


“They're not really organized crime or cartel owners, but they're certainly not just gangs any more like what they were in the early 1990s, guys were still earrings on busses who rip off your purse and sell crack on the street. These guys are now structures, coherent military and political economic forces that need to be viewed in a different light,” said Farah who is a former journalist a veteran regional security analyst who was conducted research for the U.S. government.

Members of the "Mara 18" and "MS-13" gangs are seen in custody of guards at a maximum security prison in Izalco, Sonsonate, El Salvador on September 4, 2020, amid the new coronavirus pandemic. Crédito: YURI CORTEZ/AFP via Getty Images

"Gangs No Longer" - a new report on MS-13

Groups like MS-13 in Central America and First Command of the Capital (PCC) in Sao Paulo, Brazil, “are growing in power and influence while the state is in retreat” and are in large part responsible for the growing waves of corruption and instability in theregion, adds the report, titled ‘Gangs No Longer: Reassessing Transnational Armed Groups in the Western Hemisphere’.

Their “vise-like territorial control” developed over three decades of existence, has allowed them to co-opt state entities through corruption and intimidation, while establishing the groups as legitimate governing entities, the 44-page report concludes. This new maturity of leadership and a willingness to end economic gain from extortion and other hated practices in exchange for political support have in fact led to economic and political gain.

MS-13's political influence in El Salvador and Honduras

The report highlights the political influence of MS-13 in El Salvador and Honduras, including allegations of ties to the government of Nayib Bukele in El Salvador and the former government of Juan Orlando Hernandez in Honduras. In El Salvador, media reports have alleged that MS-13 negotiated the homicide rate with government officials, in exchange for money, access to cabinet-level positions, and favorable prison conditions.


In Honduras, MS-13 has moved into the cocaine trade including trans-shipments from South America as well as developing the ability to process coca paste into refined cocaine in its own laboratories, in order to cash in on the much higher value for the finished product. This has also involved the corruption of the police, military, and judicial structures to guarantee its political control over its territories.

Yulan Adonay Archaga Carias, the alleged leader of MS-13 for all of Honduras—and a member of the FBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives List. 

Crédito: Twitter - FBI Most Wanted

Porky case, an example of MS-13's political influence in Honduras

As an example of their growing political influence, Farah pointed to the case of a notorious Honduras MS-13 leader, Yulan Andony Archaga Carías, alias ‘Porky,’ the Leader of MS-13 in Honduras who was named to the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives List in November 2021 and charged with trafficking multi-ton shipments of cocaine into the U.S. and multiple murders.

Honduran and U.S. investigators believe Porky enjoyed the protection of Honduran government officials, possibly including former Honduran president, Juan Orlando Hernandez, Farah told Univision. He escaped in broad daylight while being transferred under heavy armed guard to a supposed court hearing in 2020 and has not been seen since.

Hernandez is being held in the United States on charges in federal court in New York for cocaine and arms trafficking.

MS-13 members were also allegedly responsible for the murder of a key witness against Tony Hernandez, the president's brother.

Hernandez, and Bukele in El Salvador, have both strongly rejected any ties or negotiations with MS-13.

The Porky case “shows the deeper reach MS-13 has to government structures. They're no longer outsiders, they can negotiate directly with power,” said Farah who spoke directly with U.S. and Honduras officials investigating MS-13 and its political links.

“For the Porkys of this world this allowed them for the first time to develop direct political access where they could negotiate their highest desires at a very senior government level and get something concrete in exchange for it,” he added.

Members of the criminal gang Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) are escorted by officers of the National Police in Tegucigalpa on February 19, 2021, after the dismantling of an operations centre of the organisation found in the mountains of the department of Olancho, north of Honduras.

 Crédito: ORLANDO SIERRA/AFP via Getty Images

Gangs are an existential threat to Central American countries

Like MS-13, the PCC in Brazil has become increasingly active in the global cocaine trade, expanding to control key ports and trafficking routes across the hemisphere. The revenue from this cocaine trade has also given the PCC the means to pursue political protection at the local, regional, and national levels in much of the country.

MS- 13 is smaller and not as well structured as the PCC is Brazil, but poses a more existential threat in Central America as well as to the United States. “They control towns in El Salvador and Honduras and they operate in chunks of Guatemala, and along Mexico border,” said Farah.

Less interested in crossing the border themselves, MS-13 is more dedicated to trafficking drug into the United States, as well as profiting from migrants smuggling rings.

The authors point out socioeconomic factors such as police violence and poverty in Central America as well as racial discrimination against Blacks in Brazil have made the groups harder to defeat.

The report warns that unless new policies are adopted to tackle these groups their territorial control could give them the ability to deliver large blocks of votes with the corresponding political influence as a result.

So far, solutions such as repression and mass incarceration have failed to undermine the maras and has only made them stronger and helped them recruit new members across the prison systems.

The authors of the report said recommended adopting the Biden administration’s double-pronged approach of combating corruption and its root causes, including police reforms and prosecution of corrupt politicians, while also combating transnational organized crime.

Police officers guard Tokiro Ramirez Rodas (C) aka "Komander", leader of the Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) gang, required for extradition to the US for alleged drug trafficking in Tegucigalpa, on March 18, 2022.

 Crédito: ORLANDO SIERRA/AFP via Getty Images

Glyphosate not carcinogenic, says EU chemicals agency


The opinion is set to influence decision on whether to reauthorize the controversial herbicide in the EU.

A French farmer sprays Monsanto's glyphosate herbicide "Roundup 720" on his crop | Jean-Francois Monier/AFP via Getty Images

BY EDDY WAX
May 30, 2022 

The controversial herbicide ingredient glyphosate does not cause cancer in humans, according to a scientific opinion published by the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) Monday.

The agency's Committee for Risk Assessment found that "the available scientific evidence did not meet the criteria to classify glyphosate for specific target organ toxicity, or as a carcinogenic, mutagenic or reprotoxic substance."

The opinion does not deviate from the stance ECHA took in 2017, when it also did not classify glyphosate as carcinogenic. Then as now, ECHA said glyphosate can cause serious eye damage and is toxic to aquatic life.

The committee will publish its report by mid-August.

ECHA's opinion will influence the EU's decision on whether to ban or re-authorize the herbicide for use, with the European Commission expected to make a recommendation by July 2023 at the earliest, after delays.

In the U.S., thousands of litigants have gone to court alleging that their non-Hodgkins' lymphomas was cause by Roundup, a herbicide sold by Monsanto and now owned by German chemicals' giant Bayer, which contains glyphosate. The World Health Organization’s cancer research arm concluded in 2015 that glyphosate is a probable carcinogen, prompting the EU to renew it for five years instead of 15 in 2017.

ECHA's remit is only to look at the inherent hazardousness of the substance, not its real-world risk of causing harm. The European Food Safety Authority in Parma, Italy, is looking at that as part of a parallel study, expected to be ready in July next year.

 

First Monkeypox Death in Nigeria in 2022

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The Washington Post

30 May 2022 

The Washington Post published this article:

Nigeria has recorded its first death from monkeypox this year in a patient with underlying medical conditions, the diseases control agency said.

The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention announced Sunday that in 2022 it has confirmed 21 out of 66 suspected cases of the disease, which is usually endemic in Nigeria and other parts of West and Central Africa.

“The death was reported in a 40-year-old patient who had underlying co-morbidity and was on immunosuppressive medications,” the Nigeria CDC said.

Nigeria has not had an outbreak of monkeypox since September 2017 but it continues to report sporadic cases of the disease. At least 247 have been confirmed in 22 of its 36 states since then with 3.6% fatality rate, the disease control agency said.

A spike in monkeypox cases reported in Europe and the U.S. has generated concerns among those countries, many of whom have not recorded a single case of the disease in years. Nearly 200 cases of the disease have been reported in more than 20 countries not usually known to have outbreaks, the World Health Organization said.

Monkeypox has not previously triggered widespread outbreaks beyond Africa, where it is endemic.

One of the new cases in the U.K. was recorded in a man days after his arrival from Nigeria on May 4. Nigeria has recorded six confirmed cases of the disease the British citizen left the country.

Dr. Ifedayo Adetifa, head of the country’s Center for Disease Control, told The Associated Press that nothing shows the British citizen contracted the disease in Nigeria and that the country remains prepared to respond to an outbreak of monkeypox.

“The biggest challenge that you have with a disease such as monkeypox is that it is uncommon and the perceived risk by the population about how dangerous this condition is has been very low … that is why ... we have conducted awareness training and advocacy training to increase the level of awareness of health care workers,” Adetifa said.

Gabon launches anti-poaching operation

VIDEO Anti-poaching operation in Gabon -

 
Copyright © africanewsLUSA
By Africanews


Authorities in Gabon have launched an operation in search of weapons and game belonging to potential poachers.

The operation is a response to reports of increased poaching activity in some areas.

The anti-poaching unit was formed two years ago and results from a partnership partnership between Gabon's ministry for Water and Forests, a Belgian NGO called Conservation Justice and a Swiss-Gabonese sustainable forestry firm, Precious Woods CEB.

"We've observed strong poaching activities in these areas so we had to be present on the ground to regulate these activities", said brigade leader Jerry Ibala Mayombo.

Forests cover 88% of the surface of this small central African nation that has made the protection of biodiversity a priority.

Since 2002 that Gabon has been investing in nature conservation and raising awareness.

Last year, the anti-poaching unit seized 26 weapons, several dozen items of game and arrested eight individuals for ivory smuggling.

"It is necessary because we have a lot of animals in the area and then the natives. It's true that there are people who try to make a living out of it (hunting), but there are those who do a little more. I think it's often good" said truck driver Alain Moussavou whose vehicle was inspected by the authorities.

Despite the efforts, sometimes problems occur when humans and animals clash.

"Elephants are more important than us. So we are just going to die as they come to eat our food in the village... We don't have the means! We don't work.
I don't have money to buy the rice, the crops are destroyed..." laments local villager Hélène Benga who has experienced problems in the past.

Around 30 locals attended a session organised by Belgian NGO Conservation Justice who are explaining the hunting restrictions and how to deal with these.

Many however remain unconvinced.

"We can preserve them. But what if I'm going to go to the bush and a gorilla confronts me. I have my rifle. Am I going to let him do it? An elephant destroys my plantation, I have a bullet in my rifle, do you think I'll take pity on the elephant?", asked defiantly Léon Ndjanganoye, a local villager.

The conservation of forest elephants is a success story in Gabon. In 10 years the elephant population doubled to 90,000.

But despite Gabon's success in conservation, there remain many challenges on the ground that are yet to be tackled.

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