Rachel Nuwer has spent a decade writing about, reporting on, investigating, and going undercover in the illegal wildlife trade. She is a freelance journalist whose work often focuses on wildlife trafficking and poaching and appears in publications like the New York Times and National Geographic.

She also wrote the book Poached: Inside the Dark World of Wildlife Trafficking. It’s a book for anyone who is interested in a planet that still has tigers, elephants, rhinos and thousands of other species living on it a couple generations from now. Rachel takes the reader to trafficking hotspots in twelve countries shares an in person account from the frontlines of the trade.

Rachel and I met in Brooklyn in January, pre-pandemic, to talk about her book and her time spent reporting on the wildlife trade. She is a wealth of knowledge with a deep understanding of the incredibly complex world of wildlife trafficking.