Animation · UNDP IRH

Illegal Wildlife Trade

Countries

Africa · Asia (Maritime Trade Routes)

Crew

Nessim Stevenson, Peter Anou, Fadi Tunefork

About

For the UNDP Istanbul Regional Hub, we produced a hybrid animation and B-roll awareness film tackling the maritime trafficking of wildlife between Africa and Asia — blending real port footage with dynamic animation to turn complex enforcement challenges into accessible visual storytelling.

Highlighting red flags for customs authorities and the urgent need for public-private collaboration, the film runs 3 to 5 minutes, with an accompanying 60-second teaser, serving as both a training tool and an advocacy piece: protecting biodiversity requires vigilance at every checkpoint.

The Global Wildlife Program is a GEF-financed, World Bank-led global partnership on wildlife conservation and crime prevention, spanning dozens of projects across Asia, Africa, and Latin America. This UNDP-led maritime trafficking initiative, developed with TRAFFIC, UNODC, WWF, and United for Wildlife, targets key wildlife trafficking routes and transit points between Africa and Asia.

A hand-drawn illustration of a rust-red elephant with a single ivory tusk, rendered in a loose, textured style against a pale cream background. The animal walks with quiet dignity, its tusk rendered in stark, creamy white.

An illustrated ivory tusk lies on a pale background, its curved form elegant yet stark, surrounded by a vivid pool of red. The image is spare and unflinching, beauty and violence distilled into a single frame.

Four illustrated shipping containers stand open side by side, each revealing a different form of contraband: drugs, a trafficked person, wildlife parts, and firearms. The composition is a grid of hidden horrors, clinical in its clarity.

An illustrated farmer in a yellow shirt holds a staff and smiles, standing before a pastoral scene of grazing cattle, a thatched homestead, giraffes, and elephants roaming freely. It's a vision of coexistence, wildlife and livelihoods sharing the same land.

An illustrated orange warning flag stands upright at the centre of the frame, with a target symbol and a dashed indicator line branching out beside it. The minimal composition conveys surveillance and risk detection with quiet urgency.

An illustrated cargo ship sits contained inside a glass bottle floating on water, set against a pale background of billowing grey smoke clouds. The ship-in-a-bottle motif suggests trade and trafficking sealed within a fragile, containable vessel.

An illustrated red delivery truck loaded with orange crates passes through a large grey scanning gate at a port checkpoint, as a worker in a yellow safety vest looks on. The scene depicts routine customs inspection, a checkpoint where hidden cargo could be detected.

An illustrated grey cargo ship with a red hull carries a stack of orange shipping containers on its deck, sailing across calm turquoise water beneath a hazy sky.

The Simple App

Resolve to Save Lives

Have an idea?Get in touch.

We exist on 5 continents with bases in New York, Barcelona, Stockholm, Baltimore, Beirut, Berlin, Buenos Aires, Nairobi, and Iceland.

FInquiries, job applications, internships info@whattookyousolong.org

Vimeo, LinkedIN, Instagram