Experts

Rachel Kramer

Deputy Chief of Party, Targeting Natural Resource Corruption

Media inquiries: News And Press Page

Rachel is committed to sustaining natural resources for the future of people and wildlife. To achieve this, she’s working with partners to build anti-corruption knowledge in conservation and natural resource management. Before joining the Targeting Natural Resource Corruption project, Rachel’s work with TRAFFIC, the global wildlife trade monitoring network, focused on strategies to stop wildlife crime. She also played a vital role in advancing technology for conservation, through WWF’s Google-funded Wildlife Crime Technology Project and WILDLABS.NET.

Raised in Africa in the U.S. Foreign Service, Rachel served three years in the Peace Corps in Madagascar where she worked on community-based conservation and development initiatives in the Makira and Marojejy landscapes. Her research at the Yale School of Forestry & Environment Studies focused on evaluating the impacts of conservation sector investments on forest-bordering communities and mapping rural household economies.

“I have experienced first-hand the real and positive impacts on communities and wild species when conservation priorities and markets are successfully wedded. Sustainable use of resources is vital to a living planet.”

What I’m Working on Now

The US Elephant Ivory Market: A New Baseline

A new trade study led by TRAFFIC, with support from World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), has established a baseline for the status of the US elephant ivory market around the time that a series of changes to federal regulations were imposed by the US Fish and Wildlife Service.

A Rapid Assessment of U.S. Physical Ivory Markets

A rapid assessment by TRAFFIC of selected domestic ivory markets in the U.S. finds that state bans appear to be having an impact on reducing the open availability of elephant ivory in formerly significant urban markets.