What’s Barbie doing now? Margot Robbie to produce movie inspired by ‘Saving the Wild’
Often working undercover and facing constant threats, Saving the Wild founder Jamie Joseph has spent eight years exposing the corruption that has devastated South Africa’s rhinos – a country that was home to around 80 per cent of the world’s population, but has been in an astonishing decline for the past decade – all for a horn that nobody needs.
Now her story, and that of Saving the Wild, the New Zealand charity she founded in 2015, is the inspiration for a fictionalised movie to be produced by two times Academy Award nominated actress Margot Robbie and her LuckyChap production banner, the company she co-founded.
Because rhino poaching in South Africa is high reward and low risk, the huge amounts of cash from the sale of rhino horn funds many other criminal enterprises, while at the same time terrorising communities. Saving the Wild has relentlessly pursued the rhino mafia, fighting organised crime and exposing massive corruption in the two most important high stakes battlegrounds of Zululand and Kruger National Park.
In October 2017 Joseph exposed what she calls her ‘Blood Rhino Blacklist’ – a crooked cabal of justice o icials taking bribes on rhino poaching, child rape and other crimes against humanity.
Robbie met Joseph in June 2018, and this ongoing saga of injustice moved her deeply. At the time of their meeting, a Saving the Wild intelligence operation was underway, leading to the arrest of Kruger rhino poaching kingpin Petros Mabuza.
“I am just the face of activism, and for this story, a way in,” says Joseph. “The unsung heroes are the rangers and police o icers and whistle-blowers I work with, persecuted by their state employers for exposing corruption and pursuing high level targets. If we are to honour them, we should honour them with justice, and the courts of South Africa continue to fail us.”
Saving the Wild’s team of pro bono attorneys at Norton Rose Fulbright South Africa Inc are now preparing for a case against the South African government on the basis of the constitutional right to the environment and the state’s failure to adequately prosecute environmental crimes. It’s currently pursuing U. S. sanctions against corrupt South African justice o icials, a campaign supported by former NZ PM Helen Clark.
Throughout the month of February, Saving the Wild is running a ' Win a Luxury African Safari' competition in collaboration with bee partner Comvita. All expenses paid, dreamlike accommodation, and very real on the ground conservation experiences hosted by Saving the Wild director Jamie Joseph. Follow @saving_the_wild and @jamie_ savingthewild on Instagram to find out more details.