User:Stevengalster/sandbox

Steven R. Galster is an environmental and human rights investigator and counter-trafficking solutions designer. Since 1987, he has designed and participated in investigations and remedial programs to mitigate wildlife trafficking, human trafficking, and corruption in Africa, Asia, Russia, and the United States. He co-founded a number of civil society organizations and protection networks, including: Global Survival Network, Phoenix, WildAid, Freeland, and ASEAN Wildlife Enforcement Network. He currently serves as Global Director of Freeland, a counter-trafficking organization. Galster's work has been featured on CNN, National Geographic, Discovery, and in TIME Magazine and the New York Times.

Education
Galster graduated from Green Lake High School in Wisconsin in 1980. He went onto Luther College in Iowa to study biology, and transferred to Grinnell College in 1982 where he graduated in 1984 with a B.A. in Liberal Arts, focusing on Political Science and International Relations. (He was awarded the Alumni Award 25 years later). (1) In 1984/85 he took a year off to travel and work in Europe before returning to the United States to take up a Masters Degree at George Washington University, where he graduated in 1988 with an M.A. in Security Policy Studies. He focused on US-Soviet Cold War relations, with an emphasis on superpower competition along the 3rd World periphery (proxy wars).

Career
Galster's career goal from the time he left graduate school was to advance the notion of mutual security, which he defined as "nobody being secure, regardless of nationality, or species, unless we're all secure, because we are all connected."

Career Chronology:

- 1986-1990: Led National Security Archive Afghanistan project. Through the declassification of security documents and his first hand accounts from travels into war torn Afghanistan and Pakistan's borders, Galster documented the trafficking in guns & heroin among all combatants. (2) He accurately predicted a protracted war and strengthened fundamentalists due to skewed covert assistance program that the CIA ran through Pakistan's ISI, which favored Islamic hardliners. (3) Galster was mentored by experts Selig Harrison, Dr. Eric Hooglund, and investigative journalists Scott Armstrong and Ahmed Rashid in his research. With his colleagues, he produced an encyclopedic document set on US Policy toward Afghanistan from 1947-1990, which was published by National Security Archive and Chadwyk Healy in 1991. (4) He also published articles on the war in Afghanistan in The Nation, San Jose Mercury News, Third World Quarterly, and a small book on arms dealers with Lawrence Lifschultz and Rabia Alia. (5)

- 1991-1993: Feeling despair that his research findings led to no impact on the war in Afghanistan, Galster joined the NGO Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) to help stop poaching and learn how to use intelligence findings to effect change. To learn how to power an effective reform campaign, Galster joined EIA's Africa team, led by Kathi Austin, to examine elephant and rhino poaching in southern Africa. Eventually Galster led investigations for EIA into rhino horn trafficking between Africa and Asia. Together with Rebecca Chen, they uncovered the world’s biggest stash of illegal rhino horn in southern China, which was being held by an organized criminal gang that had tried to monopolize the rhino horn trade. Galster's undercover film of their enormous stocks of horn acquired from criminals, including North Korean diplomats, was aired on international television, and used by Chinese police to arrest the gang. The Chinese Government then destroyed the stockpile and reaffirmed their support for a ban on rhino horn trade. (6)

- 1993: Led investigation for EIA into illegal whale meat trade between South Pacific and Japan. Featured on BBC "Whale Wars", timed to air before the International Whaling Commission in order to educate governments on the true nature of "scientific whaling". (6.b)

- 1993-1994: Helped Russian Government design and launch "Operation Amba" to reduce poaching of Siberian tigers in the Far East. Amba went on to reduce poaching of the tiger population (7)

- 1994: He was lead author of report "Crimes Against Nature: Organized Crime and the Wildlife Trade", published by Endangered Species Project (ESP), which was presented at the 9th UN CITES meeting in Florida. Report was commissioned and used by ESP Leader, Sam LaBudde to campaign for wildlife enforcement reform. - 1995: Launched Global Survival Network (GSN), a Washington,DC-based NGO focusing on wildlife and human trafficking. (8)

- 1996-1998: Led investigation into sex trafficking in the former Soviet Union, which resulted in the campaign tools, “Bought and Sold” (documentary) & report “Crime and Servitude”, which were produced with GSN colleague Gillian Caldwell and used to support awareness and policy and legal reform in Eastern Europe and the United States. (9)

- 1999: Led investigation into human trafficking in Saipan, which became the focus of an ABC 20/20 expose’ that was used in US Congressional hearings resulting in labor reform in the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands. (10)

- 2000: Re-branded Global Survival Network as "WildAid", joining Suwanna Gauntlett, Peter Knights and Steve Trent to co-run the organization, which now focused on wildlife crime. Galster had wanted to maintain the counter human trafficking department, but was outvoted.

- 2001-2003: Galster ran WildAid's Bangkok office where he led a campaign to stop people from eating shark fin soup, with support from JWT Advertising Firm. He was sued by shark fin dealers for $3 million, but after 3 years he and his office won the suit. (11) He also started a ranger anti-poaching training and support program in Khao Yai National Park, which evolved into a regional nature protection training center. (12)

- 2004: WildAid split into 2 organizations: WildAid and Wildlife Alliance. Gauntlett ran the latter and Galster stayed with her operation. In October 2004 he wrote the opening speech for the 13th UN Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (CITES) delivered by then Thai Prime Minister Taksin Shinawatra, proposing the creation of a Southeast Asian Regional Wildlife Enforcement Network. The development of the network was immediately funded through Wildlife Alliance by the US State Department, and then US Agency for International Development (USAID), with Galster serving as the program head. Together with related US State Department projects, Galster went on to supervised $30 million of USG-sponsored governance, law enforcement, and behavior change activities to reduce wildlife crime in Southeast Asia and China. (13)

- 2006-2007: Hosted Discovery Channel TV series “Crime Scene Wild”. (14)

- 2008: Still wanting to return to the broader mandate of counter wildlife and human trafficking, Galster started Freeland. He served as Director, and stayed in the role of USAID's Chief of Party for 3 consecutive USAID programs for the next 10 years while also hosting several TV shows that followed Freeland's counter-trafficking investigations and field operations.

- 2010: Hosted National Geographic’s 4 part TV series, “Crimes Against Nature”. (15)

- 2011: Hosted National Geographic's “21st Century Sex Slaves” TV documentary about Uzbek & Thai organized criminal trafficking rings. (16)

- 2013: Provided key insights to the New York Times expose on Asia’s biggest known wildlife trafficker (Xaysavang Trading Company) in a front page spread (Asia edition) that came out on the 1st day of the 16th UN CITES Convention, held again in Bangkok in early March 2013. The US State Department's Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement and US Secretary of State John Kerry cited the article's research when 6 months later they launched the US Government's first Transnational Organized Crime Reward ($1 million) for information leading to the dismantlement of the Xaysavang Trading Company network. (17)

- 2014-2015: When nobody turned in the Xaysavang Trading Company, Galster and the Freeland team went on to investigate the matter further and discovered a wider syndicate encircling the company, including Vietnamese Organized Crime members, corrupt officers from Laos, Thailand, South Africa, and Mozambique. He coined the syndicate "Hydra". Continued attempts to dismantle Hydra ran into bureaucracy, indifference and corruption. (18)

- 2016: Galster provided key insights to The Guardian newspaper's 3-part series on global wildlife trafficking that identified members and modus operandi of Hydra, including senior member Boonchai Bach. The series ran during the 17th CITES Convention of Parties held in South Africa. (19)

- 2018: Along with Freeland's investigation team, Galster provided key insights to Thai Police to identify and finally arrest Boonchai Bach in Nakorn Panom, Thailand on January 18. (20) Bach was released on bail and has denied the charges. The case continues.

Selective listing of news and documentary programs in which Galster featured:

•	Time Magazine, “Animal Mob: Organized Crime and the Wildlife Trade” (1994). •	CNN’s “In-Focus” on Human Trafficking, former Soviet Union (1997). •	ABC’s 20/20 “Shame of Saipan” (1999) •	Outside Magazine, “War on Wildlife” (2004); •	BBC’s “Tiger Traffic” (2005); •	CNN Anderson Cooper’s “Planet in Peril” (2007); •	Host of Discovery Channel/Animal Planet (2007-2010) series, “Crime Scene Wild” (2007-2008) •	New York Times, author of “Tigers Need Conservation, Not Conversation,” November 2010. •	Host of National Geographic TV series “Crimes Against Nature” (2011) •	Host of National Geographic Explorer Program’s “21st Century Sex Slaves” (2012). •	Featured in New York Times on wildlife kingpins (March 2013) •	Featured in New York Times Sunday Magazine (February 2016) •	Featured in The Guardian Newspaper series and follow-ups, September 2016 and January 2018.

References:

1. https://magazine.grinnell.edu/news/human-and-wildlife-trafficking 2. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB57/essay.html 3. https://www.questia.com/magazine/1G1-6919838/waiting-in-afghanistan-what-will-follow-the-pullout 4. https://books.google.co.th/books/about/Afghanistan.html?id=NRubjwEACAAJ&redir_esc=y 5. https://www.questia.com/magazine/1G1-6919838/waiting-in-afghanistan-what-will-follow-the-pullout; and https://books.google.co.th/books/about/Bordering_on_Treason.html?id=-mGoAAAACAAJ&redir_esc=y 6. https://www.thestar.com.my/data/archives/2013/07/10/03/42/cuttingedge-conservationists/ 6.b: http://bufvc.ac.uk/dvdfind/index.php/title/23427 7. http://www.nfwf.org/finalreports1/10580_1997-0082-039.pdf and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Amba 8. http://www.tigers.ca/Tigerworld/stevengalster.htm 9. https://www.ncjrs.gov/App/publications/Abstract.aspx?id=176850 and https://www.amazon.com/Bought-Sold-Investigative-Documentary-International/dp/B002FL3I9W 10 http://www.friends-partners.org/lists/stop-traffic/1999/0397.html 11. https://www.thestar.com.my/data/archives/2013/07/10/03/42/cuttingedge-conservationists/ 12. https://www.outsideonline.com/1822476/see-last-clouded-leopard-see-last-clouded-leopard-die-see-last-clouded-leopoard-skin-black-market 13. http://www.wildsingapore.com/news/20051112/051201-4.htm and https://sidw.org/steve-galster 14. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1339221/ 15. http://natgeotv.com/asia/crimes-against-nature-s1/about 16. https://www.natgeotv.com/za/21st-century-sex-slaves 17. https://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/04/world/asia/notorious-figure-in-animal-smuggling-beyond-reach-in-laos.html AND https://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/14/world/asia/us-to-offer-reward-in-wildlife-trafficking-fight.html 18. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/sep/26/bach-brothers-elephant-ivory-asias-animal-trafficking-network 19. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/sep/26/bach-brothers-elephant-ivory-asias-animal-trafficking-network 20. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jan/20/thai-police-arrest-notorious-wildlife-trafficking-suspect