Once there was a group of journalists who set out to expose the illicit pangolin trade in Malaysia with hard-hitting videos and sharp news copy. But they returned with a collection of stories that would not sit inside the neat black-and-white columns of news publication, so they just wrote stories and made them less about accuracy and more about truth, and kissed them with pretty paintings and hoped they would speak to everyone young and old.

And so The Pangolin and The Dark World of Trafficking was born.

Produced by R.AGE.

Found by a group indigenous hunters after she carelessly left her tracks across the logging road near the hunters’ village. She was released because the hunters decided not to sell her or eat her. Although the forests in that area are ever shrinking due to logging and plantation activities, we like to think she continues to amble among the trees, where she sometimes comes across the one other pangolin the villagers say roams the same area.

In honour of her survival spirit and freedom, we made her the symbol of our story. Read the full story to find out how she got her name.