Yao Ming had spent years being watched by millions of people, but nothing in his basketball career prepared him for what he encountered in Africa. In August 2012, the former NBA star travelled through Kenya and South Africa to see the impact of the illegal wildlife trade firsthand. He watched elephants in the wild, then came across the remains of five elephants killed by poachers. Later, he saw a rhino that had suffered the same fate. The scenes gave a human face to statistics about ivory and rhino horn that could otherwise feel distant to consumers thousands of kilometres away. Yao also met conservationists, government officials and children whose education benefited from wildlife tourism. When he returned to China, he carried those experiences into a public campaign against the trade. His celebrity gave the message unusual reach, but it was the animals he had seen that gave him a personal reason to speak.
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