Two years ago I was lucky enough to receive a New Colombo Plan Scholarship to travel on a study tour to Harbin, China. The focus of the trip was to learn about China’s illegal wildlife trade, and the Siberian Tiger.
I spent the majority of the time at Harbin’s North East Forestry University, where we learnt about forensic genetics – ways of tracking illegal animal products to their source. I was also lucky enough to head into the beautiful Harbin forest, right near the Russian border.
Here I lived in a tiny snow-covered village with a local family. We trekked through the forest with specially trained rangers, including an infamous ex-poacher turned conservationist. This trip was without a doubt one of the best parts of my degree, and has made me so much more open minded and culturally aware.
Check out some of my pictures from the trip below!
Emma Matthews 
This is such an amazing opportunity, Emma! It is so important to be able to track the origin of illegally traded specimens – CITES has only really succeeded in pushing the trade underground and done nothing to prevent it. If it can be tracked then maybe it can be prevented.
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Agreed. If people can’t be held accountable then seizing illegal exports/imports won’t stop them. Some super exciting forensic methods for identifying the origin of furs is coming out of Harbin!
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