Sign in

Yann Bigant

@yannbigant.com
354 followers 402 following 180 posts

Conservation/environment photographer Birds, wildlife trade, etc. in SEAsia Video | Fine art photography DM for assignments 📷📝 SCMP, Dialogue Earth, Mongabay 📍Phnom Penh, Cambodia 🌐 yannbigant.com/links 📷 instagram.com/yannbigant

PostsRepliesMedia
Yann Bigant @yannbigant.com · 12h
Great, thanks!
000
Yann Bigant @yannbigant.com · 16h
I can imagine. Any researcher or paper name to recommend? Especially for non-iconic wildlife and/or Southeast Asia
100
Yann Bigant @yannbigant.com · 17h
Does any researcher have any information/paper into how supply and demand comparatively drive wildlife poaching and trade?
101
Yann Bigant @yannbigant.com · 17h
One seller, thousands of birds. A handful of photos taken at the same stall over a few months. All sorts of waterbirds, weavers, storks (including hidden under the lotus leaves). Phnom Penh, but takes place all over Cambodia #birds 🌏
142
Yann Bigant @yannbigant.com · 28/09/2026
Thanks @kiripost.bsky.social for shining some light on my photos and the silent crisis of bird hunting in Cambodia #birds
021
Yann Bigant @yannbigant.com · 28/09/2026
Opportunity is a key driver of wildlife crime: "40% of respondents said it was the driving factor in their involvement." Only 16% say circumstances were their main motivation, which questions the livelihoods argument as a poaching driver (without denying it). news.mongabay.com/2026/09/how-... 🌎
news.mongabay.com
‘How did you come to be here?’ Study digs into origins of Zambian wildlife crime
The man in the Zambian prison recalled how he ended up there. He’d been approached by someone who had an uncle in the capital, Lusaka, who was willing to buy ivory and pangolin scales. He gave the man...
053
Yann Bigant @yannbigant.com · 27/09/2026
Meta, one of the world's largest wildlife market, settled for billions of dollars and agreed to change its apps for child safety. As Facebook provides all the key functions wildlife poachers and traders need, Meta should do the same for wildlife. gitoc.substack.com/p/metas-171-... 🌏
gitoc.substack.com
Meta's $17.1 billion settlement could reshape Facebook's wildlife market
Meta can redesign the systems that enable several harms at once, or adopt narrow privacy measures that give traffickers better cover
0115
Yann Bigant @yannbigant.com · 23/09/2026
Thank you, appreciate that! Hopefully exposure can in the long run bring some changes - situation in Thailand changed a lot in past 30 years and Vietnam is now on a good trajectory. The hardest is to get the authorities to care - for now they don't.
010
Yann Bigant @yannbigant.com · 23/09/2026
Protecting #birds starts by banning certain tools like mist nets from physical and online markets, strengthening laws, *enforcing* them (ahem Cambodia) and supporting economic alternatives in hunting communities 🌏
082
Yann Bigant @yannbigant.com · 23/09/2026
Southeast Asia as whole really needs to look into the protection of #birds beyond protected areas - notably in farmland and wetlands 🌏 Full investigation dialogue.earth/en/nature/bi...
dialogue.earth
Bird hunting in Cambodia driven by poverty and lax enforcement
Conservationists are raising the alarm on an overlooked crisis across the country and Southeast Asia
173
Yann Bigant @yannbigant.com · 23/09/2026
Happy to see my photo on the bird meat trade in Cambodia recognized in this year's Bird Photographer of the Year competition! Yellow bitterns and other waterbirds on sale in downtown Phnom Penh - our investigation found #birds available across most markets of the capital and several provinces 🌏
296
Yann Bigant @yannbigant.com · 21/09/2026
Bird hunting with mist nets is a serious threat to avian populations in Southeast Asia. 'Empty farmland and wetlands' loom, say conservationists. My work on mist net hunting was exhibited at the 2026 @deltabirdingfest.bsky.social - conservation story finalist @birdlifeglobal.bsky.social 🌏 #birds
Samnang* uses a stick to stretch mist nets to their full height at night in Kampong Chhnang province, CambodiaA cinnamon bittern is caught is a mist net at night in Kampong Chhnang province, CambodiaBitterns & other waterbirds are sold in a market in downtown Phnom Penh, Cambodia
1124
Yann Bigant @yannbigant.com · 18/09/2026
“If you have seabirds, your atoll has a better chance of surviving projected sea level rise” But coconut farms not only mean fewer seabirds, they also prevent islands from naturally moving and growing - their natural defense against rising seas. Fascinating: civilbeat.org/2026/06/colo... #birds 🌏
civilbeat.org
Colonial-Era Coconut Farms Pose Risks To The Survival Of Pacific Atolls
The copra industry keeps remote economies afloat while also threatening to undermine the land it depends on.
0132
Yann Bigant @yannbigant.com · 15/09/2026
(2/2) "I believe Cambodia and ASEAN should explore legal action. If compensation were ultimately recovered, it should help fund the rangers, investigators, communities and conservation organisations bearing the enormous cost of keeping Southeast Asia’s wildlife alive."
010
Yann Bigant @yannbigant.com · 15/09/2026
(1/2) "Cambodia should now lead ASEAN in demanding accountability from Meta: effective moderation in Khmer and other regional languages, rapid removal of illegal wildlife sales and repeat offenders, cooperation with law enforcement and transparency about [how its algorithm fuels the trade]"
120
Yann Bigant @yannbigant.com · 15/09/2026
Facebook is a huge wildlife market, where the company's algorithm fuels the trade and generate profits from it. Southeast Asian countries, a key biodiversity hotspot, must pressure Meta to stop its rampant wildlife trade and held it accountable for reparations. phnompenhpost.com/opinion/meta...
phnompenhpost.com
Meta Must Do More to Protect Cambodia’s Wildlife - Phnom Penh Post
Meta — the company behind Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp — allows some of Cambodia, and the region’s most precious and vulnerable wildlife to be openly
121
Yann Bigant @yannbigant.com · 28/08/2026
Great newsletter as always! Just noticed the conservation in palm oil plantations article on Eco-Business is labelled 'Brought to you by Wilmar', one of the largest palm oil company that is also featured in the article and supplied the images...
110
Reposted by Yann Bigant
Gloria Dickie @gloriadickie.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
In less than one year, Japan killed more than 14,000 bears. That amounts to one of, it not THE, largest cull of a large carnivore this century. And most were moon bears, a species deemed vulnerable to extinction. My latest feature for @theguardian.com: www.theguardian.com/environment/...
theguardian.com
Japan killed 14,000 bears after a rise in deadly attacks on people – but will it work?
Bears killed 13 people in Japan last year, as a lack of forest foods increased conflicts. Yet some say the country’s controversial cull could threaten the endangered species
074
Yann Bigant @yannbigant.com · 28/08/2026
Move to EuroSky and keep using BlueSky as before - just with European data protection and privacy laws. Migration takes a few minutes 👇
030
Yann Bigant @yannbigant.com · 27/08/2026
010
Yann Bigant @yannbigant.com · 26/08/2026
Banned from China, wildlife farms have moved to Southeast Asia where some of them supply both the pet trade and wild meat consumption (nice cognitive dissonance!) and risk triggering the next pandemic. @sneweyy.bsky.social www.telegraph.co.uk/global-healt... 🌏
telegraph.co.uk
032
Yann Bigant @yannbigant.com · 24/08/2026
Apex predators save human lives by keeping deer on edge - and away from roads and cars. news.mongabay.com/2026/08/coug... @mongabay.com 🌎
news.mongabay.com
Cougars cut deadly vehicle-deer collisions in the US by up to 76%, study shows
If you’re a black-tailed deer on the Olympic Peninsula in the U.S. state of Washington, you’re always surrounded by friends and family. You are free-range, with abundant food to forage in familiar woo...
19427
Yann Bigant @yannbigant.com · 15/08/2026
"I don’t know what Ba makes of these converging lines of flight: our escape from Vietnam as political refugees over forty years ago, and our return to the country as birdwatching ecotourists." A tale of human & shorebirds migration: mekongreview.com/letter-from-... @mekongreview.com #birds
mekongreview.com
Letter from the mudflats - Mekong Review
A father and son travel to experience Vietnam through the birds that call it home, even if only for a little while.
022
Reposted by Yann Bigant
Earthsight @earthsight.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
📢 A new study from Cornell University & New York University debunks leather tanneries’ claims that their sector has no direct impact on deforestation. Researchers found hides make up 8% of a cow’s value at the slaughterhouse level – which can be instrumental to profitability when margins are tight.
111
Yann Bigant @yannbigant.com · 02/08/2026
Climate change and dams on the Mekong are slowly killing the Tonle Sap, the world's largest inland fishery. But changing the way dams operate could reverse some of the damage. ✍️ @vantha.bsky.social 📷 @rounry.bsky.social for @mekongindependent.bsky.social mekongindependent.com/2026/08/floa... 🌏
mekongindependent.com
Floating houses stuck aground as climate change takes hold
Cambodia’s monsoon is weakening, and dams are siphoning water away, researchers say. Residents who fish the Tonle Sap lake’s floodwaters are struggling to survive.
022
Yann Bigant @yannbigant.com · 29/07/2026
Cambodia's wildlife trade: traffickers raising lions, tigers & primates on their properties, supplying anything from elephants, rhino horns and pangolins, to corals, bears and sea turtles, sourcing from suppliers in Africa, Europe, Russia and South Asia 🌏 Must read news.mongabay.com/2026/07/repo...
news.mongabay.com
Report reveals Cambodia’s appetite for tigers, rhinos and other endangered wildlife
Tiger bone wines in exquisite bottles. Tiger cubs sold alive as pets or served as a culinary delicacy alongside pangolin and cobra meat at exclusive restaurants. Rooms filled with rhino horns and elep...
043
Yann Bigant @yannbigant.com · 29/07/2026
Thailand has delisted Red-whiskered bulbuls in order to please voters & the captive breeding industry. This is sure to increase laundering of wild birds in the caged bird trade, and poaching in countries like Cambodia & Laos where enforcement is lax. 📷 RWB escapee nesting in Phnom Penh 🌏 #birds
093
Yann Bigant @yannbigant.com · 25/07/2026
It won't save them overnight, but we could have birds on future Euro banknotes. Vote at the link below! And maybe that makes sense given the EU Bird Directive is a strong piece of legislation protecting birds from whatever environmental backtracking member states try to do 🌏 #birds
1187
Yann Bigant @yannbigant.com · 20/07/2026
Some inefficiency of government action (not just in Laos) lies in the 'per diem' culture: asking extra money for work seen optional: "...just 7.5% of the tips it received in 2025 resulted in seizures by authorities, with Laotian authorities demanding per diems for time spent on wildlife seizures."
000
Yann Bigant @yannbigant.com · 20/07/2026
A network of well-guarded shops selling pangolins, ivory and rhino horns in Laos has nearly doubled in size since last year, according to @geraldrflynn.bsky.social and undercover Chinese investigators, with local law enforcement not even making a dent. news.mongabay.com/2026/07/laos...
news.mongabay.com
Laos’s illegal wildlife shops keep growing despite enforcement, investigators find
BANGKOK — Schemes funneling Chinese tour groups through illegal wildlife shopping sites in Laos appear to be persisting and even expanding in spite of some law enforcement action by authorities, Monga...
122
Yann Bigant @yannbigant.com · 06/07/2026
If you're an EU citizen, you can request the European Commission to fully suspend the EU-Israel Association Agreement and stop supporting a State that commits war crimes and crimes against humanity. Sign here eci.ec.europa.eu/055/public/
eci.ec.europa.eu
European Citizens' Initiative
Give your support !
030
Yann Bigant @yannbigant.com · 02/07/2026
petitions.assemblee-nationale.fr/initiatives/... Pétition contre la loi sur le site de l'assemblée nationale.
petitions.assemblee-nationale.fr
Contre la présomption de légitime défense pour les forces de l'ordre. - Contre la présomption de légitime défense pour les forces de l'ordre. - Plateforme des pétitions de l’Assemblée nationale
Le 7 juillet 2026, l'Assemblée Nationale est appelée à se prononcer sur la proposition de loi n°691, portée par le député Eric Pauget (LR), visant à reconnaître une présomption de légitime défense pou...
000
Reposted by Yann Bigant
Dan Stiles @kenyadan.bsky.social · 29/06/2026
A report by several NGOs released Monday accuses Meta of hosting the world's "largest single known illegal wildlife trade market" and effectively encouraging the trade by sharing advertising revenues with users and allowing them subscription models. www.france24.com/en/live-news...
france24.com
For sale on Facebook: monkeys, rhino horn and dead pangolins
The ghostly white creature curled up on a weighing scale is almost unrecognisable in the Facebook post offering it for sale. Only closer inspection reveals it to be a dead pangolin.
032
Reposted by Yann Bigant
The Guardian @theguardian.com · 25/06/2026
Edge of Armageddon: why does one of the world’s top thinkers believe we’re nearing nuclear apocalypse?
theguardian.com
Edge of Armageddon: why does one of the world’s top thinkers believe we’re nearing nuclear apocalypse?
In a chilling new book, theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli says we’re back on the brink – and this time, leaders chronically lack the nous of Kennedy and Khrushchev. So why is he against rearming?
155828
Yann Bigant @yannbigant.com · 20/06/2026
Mobilization recently managed to divert a highway in China from another Spoon-billed sandpiper stopover. Will the same success happen in Thailand?
000
Yann Bigant @yannbigant.com · 20/06/2026
Migratory feeding grounds critical for the survival of critically endangered Spoon-billed sandpipers are at risk from a proposed oil refinery and powerplant in Thailand www.birdlife.org/news/2026/06... (petition to sign) #birds 🌏
birdlife.org
Protecting Pak Thale for the Future of the Flyway
Thousands of birds depend on this site, but now it’s in danger. Your voice can help.
184
Yann Bigant @yannbigant.com · 17/06/2026
Follow the new @mekongindependent.bsky.social media for investigative stories from the Greater Mekong
010
Reposted by Yann Bigant
Kiripost @kiripost.bsky.social · 12/06/2026
A year-long undercover investigation by Earth League International alleges that Cambodia has become a major hub for the trafficking, sale and consumption of endangered wildlife products, linking criminal networks involved in wildlife crime, online scams, drug trafficking and corruption across the...
kiripost.com
Cambodia Named Key Hub in Major Southeast Asian Wildlife Trafficking Network
A year-long undercover investigation by Earth League International alleges that Cambodia has become a major hub for the trafficking, sale and consumption of endangered wildlife products, linking criminal networks involved in wildlife crime, online scams, drug trafficking and corruption across the...
012
Yann Bigant @yannbigant.com · 15/06/2026
Phnom Penh is the Southeast Asian capital city with the least public space per person. Parks are near inexistents and surrounding #wetlands are filled in at a steady pace. Checking a few spots last weekend with people supporting 'urban wetland parks' for both people and wildlife 🐦🐢🌏
002
Reposted by Yann Bigant
Eoghan Daltun 🌍 @irishrainforest.bsky.social · 12/06/2026
It's almost a month now since I read this EXCELLENT piece by @jonathan-watts.bsky.social, and I still can't get it out of my head. In fact, I probably never will, it explains so much about the times we're living through. That's a mark of the very best journalism. www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-i...
theguardian.com
The American epoch of oil is collapsing. What comes next could be ugly | Jonathan Watts
China is dominating the energy transition with astonishing results, while fossil fuel fascists in the US try to turn back the clock
1111548
Yann Bigant @yannbigant.com · 10/06/2026
(3/3) Check the full video presenting Earth League International latest IWT investigation in Cambodia www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sl76... Video by www.wildlight.global 🌏
youtube.com
Operation SANDOKAN: An Undercover Investigation into Cambodia’s Wildlife Trafficking Networks
YouTube video by Earth League International (ELI)
010
Yann Bigant @yannbigant.com · 10/06/2026
(2/3) The criminals Earth League Intl found in Cambodia were some of the most prolific they encountered to date, some slaughtering at least a tiger a week for local demand, with Cambodia being both a consuming country and a smuggling hub Full report earthleagueinternational.org/operation-sa... 🌏
earthleagueinternational.org
Operation SANDOKAN: an Investigation into Cambodia’s Wildlife Trafficking Networks
Operation SANDOKAN is an intelligence operation into wildlife trafficking networks in Cambodia and across the Lower Mekong.
121
Yann Bigant @yannbigant.com · 10/06/2026
(1/3) Where the most gruesome wildlife trade takes place: a few drone stills I shot last year in Sihanoukville for Wildlight & Earth League International for a video highlighting their undercover investigation into wildlife trade networks in Cambodia 🌏
121
Yann Bigant @yannbigant.com · 08/06/2026
Is it too early to reintroduce #tigers in Cambodia? “It’s ironic that we are sending one of the most protected animals in India — our flagship species — into a country with one of the worst records of wildlife protection, rampant snaring, and wildlife trade” news.mongabay.com/2026/06/beng... 🌏
news.mongabay.com
Bengal tigers in Cambodia? Reintroduction plan raises questions
Sat Born, 56, recalls freezing at the forest’s entrance when he first saw it. “Its head was this big,” he says, wide-eyed, spreading his hands to show the animal’s size. Recollecting that eventful mor...
055
Reposted by Yann Bigant
Nicola Crockford @numenini.bsky.social · 02/06/2026
Fab news from China! Congrats to citizens & scientists who saved a key Spoon-billed Sandpiper wintering site, shared with 20,000 waterbirds of 46 species, from a new highway in Guangxi! Thanks Beijing for halting it & local government for seeking alternatives. www.sixthtone.com/news/1018593 #birds
sixthtone.com
How a Rare Bird Stopped a Highway Project in South China
The road was planned to cut through a critical spoon-billed sandpiper habitat. By first organizing online, and then taking action offline, amateur activists halted its construction.
01712
Yann Bigant @yannbigant.com · 27/05/2026
So beautiful! Happy to see some birds enjoy the weaver ants bounty 🙃
010
Yann Bigant @yannbigant.com · 22/05/2026
More on orangutans: what to do with legally 'protected' individual animals when we refuse to give up the products (consumers) and money (farmers) provided by replacing forests with plantations. There's no easy answer 🌏 www.theguardian.com/news/2026/ma...
theguardian.com
‘Should we leave them to die?’ The battle over how to save orangutans from the curse of palm oil
The long read: As new settlers clear their forest habitat, the apes are coming into conflict with humans. But simply moving them to another part of the forest may not be the answer
031
Yann Bigant @yannbigant.com · 19/05/2026
“Half the people we work with, they eat orangutans. Orangutans eat your fruit. They steal from your gardens.” 'Now ... observers can sit back, take a photo and make some money.' Interesting new conservation idea, though it does feel there's room for many things to go wrong 🌏
183
Yann Bigant @yannbigant.com · 18/05/2026
In other words, we need to put "nature" back into the environmental movement. Reducing Earth to a "carbon processor" overlooks "nature’s other gifts, such as fresh water and 8.5 million wild species." Without forgetting that most wild places left today are home to millions of Indigenous People 🌏
062
Yann Bigant @yannbigant.com · 18/05/2026
'climate eclipsed other environmental concerns such as land, water, wildlife, and local pollution; “climate” conceptually swallowed “environment.”' So many good points in this commentary that retrace 30 years of narrative drift in the environmental movement 🌏
1105