Jailed Birds - Asian Songbirds in Crisis

Serene Chng is a wildlife trade researcher and a program officer with TRAFFIC in Southeast Asia. Her work involves recording wildlife traded in many of the region’s most notorious markets, and she has brought many emerging wildlife trafficking issues to light through her research and collaborations with others. A bird lover herself, Serene is a co-coordinator with the IUCN Species Survival Commission Asian Songbird Specialist Trade Group, which was instrumental in highlighting the fact that the world is facing an Asian songbird crisis - a result of a frenzy of illegal trapping and unsustainable trade to supply demand for them as caged birds. Serene joins us to talk about her work, including what she did as a "National Geographic Explorer" from 2019 - 2021, which, among other stories, is now immortalised in a podcast series, Expedition: Earth.

Image credit: A stall in a bird market, Bali. ©Serene Chng/TRAFFIC