Gambling on Extinction

Germany/Canada Co-production | Year: 2016 | Duration; 52 MINS English and German

In “Gambling on Extinction”, director Jakob Kneser, takes the viewer on a horrific journey, starting from the killing fields in Kenya and South Africa to the trading hubs of Vietnam and China. Joined by undercover investigators, rangers, ex-poachers, conservationists and buyers, Jakob exposes the lethal mechanisms of the global trade in endangered species, the terrorist connection, the customers, and the champions working to end this environmental disaster. As numbers go down the prices go up, making it a perverse futures market in extinction. Poaching is an international crime. It will take a concerted international response to stop it. As Allan Thornton, President of the Environmental Investigation Agency, says: “The world has two choices. We can have elephants. Or we can have ivory trade. We can’t have both.”

Director

Jakob Kneser

Writers

Anne Pick and Jakob Kneser

Producers

Anne Pick and Tristan Chytroschek

Executive Producers

Anne Pick and Robert Tasso Putz

Story Editor

Anne Pick

Narrator

Jeff Douglas

Co-Production Partners

A&O Buero and Real to Reel Productions

Distribution

Java Films, France, Real to Reel Productions, Canada

Camera / DOP

Russell Gienapp

Sound

Chris Miller, David Jalenga, Andre Feldman, Lisa Higgins

Music

Mark Korven

Editor

Rob Rusic

Additional Photography

Robin Dimbleby, Joan Poggio, Ian Miller, Andrea Nebeling, Steven Cassidy