text: Image copyright AFP Image caption Esmond Bradley Martin had risked his life to secretly photograph and document illegal sales of ivory and rhino horn 
   
   One of the world's leading investigators of the illegal trade in ivory and rhino horn has been killed in Kenya. 
   
   Esmond Bradley Martin, 75, was found in his Nairobi home on Sunday with a stab wound to his neck. 
   
   The former UN special envoy for rhino conservation was known for his undercover work investigating the black market. 
   
   The US citizen had recently returned from a research trip to Myanmar. 
   
   Bradley Martin was in the process of writing up his findings when he died, reports the BBC's Alastair Leithead from Nairobi. 
   
   His wife found him in their house in Langata. Police are investigating the circumstances but suspect it was a botched robbery. 
   
   Our correspondent says Bradley Martin had spent decades risking his life to secretly photograph and document illegal sales of ivory and rhino horn, travelling to China, Vietnam, and Laos to pose as a buyer and establish the details of black market prices. 
   
   He first went to Kenya from the US in the 1970s when there was a surge in the number of elephants being killed for their ivory. 
   
   Image copyright AFP Image caption Conservationists believe that the ivory trade is largely responsible for the world's declining elephant numbers 
   
   'A sharp dresser and passionate campaigner' 
   
   Alastair Leithead - BBC News, Nairobi 
   
   Image copyright Getty Images 
   
   Always sharply dressed with a colourful handkerchief falling from his top pocket, Esmond Bradley Martin would immediately cut to the chase, honing in on the latest issue that was consuming him. 
   
   He was a well-known and highly respected character in the conservation community - passionate and unwavering in his efforts to crack down on illegal wildlife crime. 
   
   In a major report last year from Laos, he and his colleague Lucy Vigne established that the country had the world's fastest growing ivory trade. 
   
   They risked their own safety staying at a Chinese casino inhabited by gangsters and traffickers in order to visit the illegal markets and find out the latest prices by posing as dealers. 
   
   His life's work was combating the illegal trade of wildlife and he produced a huge body of highly respected research and investigative reports. 
   
   He will be a huge loss to the international conservation community. 
   
   Bradley Martin's work on illegal wildlife markets helped pressure China to ban the rhino horn trade in the 1990s and later, domestic sales of ivory. The latter ban came into force this year. 
   
   His last report was published by conservation group Save The Elephants last year. The findings said that there had been a slowdown in the ivory trade in China. 
   
   Fellow conservationists have been paying tribute to him on social media. 
   
   Skip Twitter post by @savetherhino Shocking & sad news: Esmond Bradley Martin, investigator into the illegal trade in elephant ivory & rhino horn, found murdered in his home in Nairobi. Our thoughts are with his wife Chryssee https://t.co/YzfRAIkWcb pic.twitter.com/BeYYsFzVfd — Save the Rhino (@savetherhino) February 5, 2018 Report ||||| Esmond Bradley Martin, one of the world's leading ivory trade investigators living in Kenya, was on Sunday found stabbed to death in his Nairobi house. 
   
   The 75-year-old, who was alone in the Nairobi house, had a stab wound in the neck. 
   
   Esmond has authored several ground-breaking investigative reports on rhino and ivory smuggling in Kenya and the trade in China, Vietnam, and Laos. 
   
   He was said to have been working on a new expose on trafficking in ivory and rhino horns. 
   
   Nairobi DCI boss Ireri Kamwende said they are yet to identify Esmond's attackers. 
   
   His wife, who reported the death, said she found her husband's lifeless body after coming from a nature walk at around 4pm. 
   
   "We have already questioned a gardener and a cook who are employed at the home," Kamwende said. 
   
   Read: Inside China where smuggled ivory meets second death 
   
   Esmond, an American geographer, had been travelling all over the world with his wife, Chryssee Martin, and colleagues Lucy Vigne and Dan Stiles. 
   
   They were on a mission to identify ivory and rhino markets, the traffickers and the modern-day uses. 
   
   He was a one time UN special envoy for rhino conservation. 
   
   Among his achievements was helping persuade China to shut down its legal rhino horn trade in 1993 and ivory trade last year. 
   
   His last report, Decline in the Legal Ivory Trade in China in Anticipation of a Ban, was published by conservation group Save The Elephants last year. 
   
   The 88-page report was co-authored by consultant Lucy Vigne. 
   
   It revealed that the 130 licensed outlets in China have been gradually reducing the quantity of ivory items on display for sale, and recently have been cutting prices to improve sales. 
   
   "With the end of the legal ivory trade in China, the survival chances for elephants have distinctly improved. We must give credit to China for doing the right thing by closing the ivory trade," Esmond told the Star last year. 
   
   He first came to East Africa in the 1970s when there had been a huge slaughter of elephants in the region, followed in the 1980s by rhinos. 
   
   "In Kenya, there were around 20,000 rhinos in 1970, but by the 1990s, most of the rhinos had been eliminated. The puzzle was: why were all these rhinos being killed, and where was the horn going?" Esmond told the Nomad Magazine last year. 
   
   Also read: Laos a thriving market for Kenyan trophies 
   
   Click here for the latest political news ||||| An American conservationist regarded as the world’s foremost investigator into the illegal trade in ivory and rhino horn has been found stabbed to death in Kenya. 
   
   The body of Esmond Bradley Martin was found by his wife Chryssee at their home in Langata on the outskirts of Nairobi with at least one stab wound in his neck, police said. 
   
   Raising fears that politically connected wildlife mafias were seeking to eliminate campaigners exposing their networks, Mr Bradley Martin was the second conservationist investigating the ivory trade to meet a violent death in six months. 
   
   Last August, Prince William gave warning that campaigners investigating serious wildlife crime had become targets following the murder of Wayne Lotter, a South African conservationist whose work led to the arrest of Chinese ivory traffickers. 
   
   “Wayne Lotter’s violent and apparently targeted murder shows just how dangerous the situation has become in relation to the big money associated with the illegal ivory and rhino horn trades,” the Prince, who is patron of the wildlife charity Tusk Trust, said. 
   
   “Rangers and conservationists put themselves in harm’s way every day to stop organised criminals destroying Africa’s natural resources.” ||||| One of the world’s leading researchers into the illegal ivory and rhino horn trade was found dead at his Nairobi home on Sunday, multiple news outlets reported. 
   
   Esmond Bradley-Martin, a 75-year-old American citizen, had worked for decades researching the markets for wildlife products across Africa and Asia, most recently in Myanmar. He had once served as the UN Special Envoy on rhino conservation. 
   
   "Esmond was known for absolute rigour and painstaking precision in his methodology and reporting," said Lisa Rolls, who leads UN Environment's Wild for Life campaign. "He was always willing to lend his decades of expertise to explore approaches to tackling the illegal wildlife trade with complete objectivity. Esmond's commitment to securing a future for wild rhinos and elephants was steadfast. To lose such a gentle and wise conservationist in this way is a shocking tragedy." 
   
   Bradley-Martin's meticulous work on the dynamics of illegal wildlife markets provided countries - including China - with the hard data they needed to shut those markets down. His research also informed many of the decisions of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, a global agreement that regulates trade in wildlife products. 
   
   His research, most of which was published by conservation group Save the Elephants, included a 2017 report that found that the Lao People’s Democratic Republic was home to the world's fastest-growing retail market for ivory, as well as a 2016 study that detailed how demand for ivory in Viet Nam was threatening elephants in Africa. 
   
   Bradley-Martin dedicated his life to investigating the trade in wildlife products, including rhino horn. (Source: Shutterstock) 
   
   "Esmond has been at the forefront of rhino horn and ivory trade research issues, gleaning much valuable information on both legal and illegal trade," said UN Environment's Maxwell Gomera. "Very few knew much about these issues better than Esmond. Even fewer have pursued these issues with such dedication and commitment. The fight to save wildlife has lost one of its most committed soldiers." 
   
   Conservationist Paula Kahumbu described Bradley-Martin as “a global authority on ivory and rhino horn trafficking”, adding that he was “at the forefront of exposing the scale of ivory markets in USA, Congo, Nigeria, Angola, China, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Laos and recently Myanmar.” 
   
   Iain Douglas-Hamilton, the founder of Save The Elephants, paid tribute to his longtime friend and colleague: “Esmond was one of conservation’s great unsung heroes. His meticulous work into ivory and rhino horn markets was conducted often in some of the world’s most remote and dangerous places and against intensely busy schedules that would have exhausted a man half his age... He played a key role in revealing the price of ivory in China had fallen prior to the Chinese Government committing to close its legal domestic market, and was working on important research on Myanmar when he died. He was my friend for 45 years and his loss is a terrible blow both personally and professionally.”
target: – "Pachyderms have lost a great champion." That's the tribute of one elephant expert for Esmond Bradley Martin, one of the world's most well-known ivory investigators, who was found killed in his home in Nairobi, Kenya, per the Telegraph and BBC. The 75-year-old had a stab wound to his neck, and investigators believe his death was the result of a robbery gone wrong. His wife says she went out for a nature walk and discovered his body upon returning home around 4pm Sunday, per the Star. Bradley Martin, identifiable by a colorful handkerchief he often had peeking out of his jacket pocket, was a major figure within the wildlife conservation movement who'd risen to prominence by going undercover, usually posing as a buyer, to expose the illegal market for ivory and rhino horn. A former UN special envoy for rhino conservation, Bradley Martin began his efforts in earnest in the 1970s, when the number of elephants being slaughtered for their ivory spiked. That's when he left the US for Kenya, and his work helped put an end to the sales of rhino horn and ivory in China. His travels also took him to Vietnam and Laos, where last year he and another researcher revealed the latter country's ivory trade was the fastest growing in the world. Their work there involved the dangerous ploy of pretending they were buyers and staying in a casino frequented by organized-crime members and traffickers, all so they could find out what the going price for ivory was. Local police say they've already questioned a cook and gardener at Bradley Martin's home and have come up empty so far on suspects.