Poaching and Terrorism: The Race to Protect Wildlife and National Security

The illicit wildlife trade is now worth up to $20 billion a year. That's double what it was just a few years ago — worth far more than the weapons trade and approaching the rate of human smuggling. This has attracted the attention of Al-Shabaab, Boko Haram, the Lord's Resistance Army and other terrorist groups, African militias, and Asian criminal syndicates — all looking to capitalize on this high-value, low-risk venture. And it flies in the face of US officials and law enforcement who, since 9/11, have been doing everything in their power to cut off revenue to the world's terrorists. In this hour-long program, we look at poaching — once a conservation issue, but now a full-blown threat to national security.