“Africa and Asian elephants are in for tough times ahead” says Iain Douglas-Hamilton of Save the Elephants. After the ivory sales last year, elephant poaching has increased. Many conservationists believe it is being fueled by the demand in Eastern countries – yet nobody dares to say this. The money raised from the sales of ivory was supposed to go into elephant conservation. Some people who dare to call themselves conservationists argued that the ban on ivory was wrong, the burn was wasteful, and that the sale of ivory was the best way to generate funds and support for elephant conservation. Well, how come elephants are worse off today than they were before the sales?
And, how come ivory is now selling at US$ 1,888/kg in Vietnam? Isn’t it obvious that the one off sale has stimulated demand and prices are rising? Now even the IUCN is saying that elephantas are in trouble …but they are confining their concerns to Asian elephants …why??
It’s now apparent that the four southern African countries that sold their ivory to China and Japan were duped – their stock piles fetched prices in the range of 100 – 120$/kg! The real value of ivory in eastern markets is at least ten times this. Southern African countries were cheated by the East – but I’m not feeling sorry for them!
Even more worrying however that the CITES conference that approved the one off sale did so on condition of a 9 year moratorium. Kenya led that campaign and the conference adopted it. But they made a MASSIVE BLUNDER. The wording of the agreement only binds the countries that sold their stocks. It does not include countries like Sudan, Tanzania and Zambia that have massive (and some illegally acquired) stockpiles . With renewed demand in Asia, these countries are likely to demand for sales of their stockpiles too at the next CITES conference.
Iain Douglas–Hamilton and I discussed this problem with his researchers at his house last night. He showed me the maps of elephant killings in Kenya in 2008 – the image is frightening. the country is covered in dots- each one representing a dead elephant. He says it isn’t as bad as it was in the 1960,s but I reminded him that back then we had ten times as many elephants. Based on genetic evidence from tusks, Sam Wasser believes that the proportion of elephants we are losing today is far greater than any time in history.
I met Iain about 30 year ago when as a young volunteer recruited to measure Kenya’s ivory stockpile. It as a morbid job but we had to know what was happening. We weighed and measured every single tusk and estimated the age of the elephant that had died. We processed 30 tons of ivory in 2 days. The information showed us that poachers were going for younger and younger animals. At that point, I had never seen an elephant in the wild, but I was so disgusted with the killings and disillusioned about the future of elephants that I turned down a project on ele’s and went on to study primates. Later I did study elephants for my PhD, when the ivory ban was working and guns had fallen silent.
These are the 30 tons of ivory that I measured in 1989. Kenya’s president burned the lot and the world praised him for it.
Sadly, those guns are back in action and Africa’s elephants are once again at risk because we were persuaded by greedy people to run a risky experiment.
It feels like the precautionary principle has gone extinct. If we aren’t careful, we will soon be seeing the nightmarish scenes of hacked off faces of elephants that dominated the conservation news in the 1980′s.
Iain asked me ‘what are we going to do about it?” and I looked at him blankly, I didn’t have an answer.
What would you have replied – what can we do?
5 Comments
What a great article Paula and what an incredible memory you have about the ivory burn….wish I could have been there.
“What are we going to do about it?”…..that’s a tough one. As long as CITES allows these sell off’s and doesn’t do anything about it now……I don’t know…. one feels so helpless.
Thanks Siggi, I’m so furious about the situation – impunity in Africa has made conservation worse than a joke – our leaders involved in the ivory trade have never been booked, or paid for their crimes. That’s why they support the CITES proposals for downlisting and enabling trade…GREED is a devilish thing
As bad as the situation has become, there are still things that can and should be done. First of all, now is the time to campaign against any further legal sales of ivory. It’s becoming more and more apparent that ivory sales sanctioned by CITES contribute to an increase in poaching. Looking back as far as 1992, it seems clear that even the discussion of the possibility of legal ivory sales has at times triggered a wave of elephant poaching. It’s also becoming more and more difficult for countries that have argued for “sustainable utilization” in the past to continue to say that their elephant populations are safe from poaching – the increase in both elephant and rhino poaching in Southern Africa is both apparent to and acknowledged by wildlife authorities in that part of the continent. Now is also the time to target potential consumers of ivory. Recall that information campaigns directed towards consumers of ivory in destination countries had a great deal of success 20 – 25 years ago, and they need to begin again. These campaigns need to be directed not only towards those countries receiving ivory from the legal auctions, they should also target the parts of the globe where the black market in ivory seems to be thriving – for example, the quantities of illegally imported ivory that have been confiscated in North America over the last 5 years suggest that more ivory is pouring into the continent now than at any time since the mid to late eighties. Additionally, more trade studies need to be undertaken to pinpoint where the problem occurs, and the results of those studies need to be widely disseminated. Signatories to CITES need to express their displeasure with those countries that allow a huge domestic trade in ivory to occur within their borders. It is clear that the majority of ivory being traded domestically in a few countries in Africa – including countries like Egypt that have no elephants – ends up leaving the country of purchase, often in the possession of tourists who have no idea what they’ve done. The incredible sums currently being paid for ivory in some parts of Asia create a scenario where, much like rhino horn trophies from South Africa that are legally obtained at the point of origin, speculators may begin to purchase ivory from shops in places where a domestic trade is either sanctioned or tolerated, and export it to consumer countries where vast profits can be realized. Conservationists, elephant researchers, concerned people working in range states in both Africa and Asia need to continue to sound the alarm and make sure that the rest of the world clearly understands what’s happening to the world’s elephants – the situation is devastating in almost every country where elephants are found, and where it’s not, poaching pressure is bound to increase unless something is done globally, and done soon.
Somehow, the public (worldwide) need to be better informed and brought into the process. I support Dr. Douglas- Hamilton’s work at “Save the Elephants” via the Wildlife Conservation Network (WCN), so am well aware of the plight in various habitats. Public awareness is critical here. The American media is just about hopeless now. Tabloid garbage, special features, and the “Michael Jackson” fixation have just about taken over the nightly news. The media doesn’t focus on stories that have the most gravity for people and the world. Thank God we have the BBC and WorldFocus on Public Television in America. These networks provide daily coverage of important matters of world importance to us all, including good environmental coverage. I’ve seen the elephant dilemmas covered regularly on these programs. The only time I heard anything about elephants on mainstream American TV media were a couple well done segments, one on Zakouma National Park in Chad (on CBS 60 Minutes), a segment on Sheldrick Trust Orphanage (also on 60 Minutes), and another segment on Zakouma on CNN’s “Planet In Peril: Battlelines”. Anderson Cooper is a great journalist when CNN will let him cover real news stories instead of the tabloid garbage. But in 2 years, those were the only 3 stories I saw on American network TV regarding the plight of Africa’s elephants. I’ve never seen anything on Asia’s elephants. Most people just don’t know what’s going on. I’m a junior high social studies teacher. Let me assure you all that the 100 or so students I instruct are “acutely” aware of this issue, and are very disturbed about it. They all love the elees! I think their reaction would probably reflect the public, in general, if we could just get the American media to do its job and start informing the public, instead of gossiping about celebrities and dumbing the public down to the level of a toadstool.
The time to turn the tide on poaching is now, whatever we do! To me, the unthinkable is a situation where elephants will be in the same precarious state the rhinos are presently. That is where things will head for elephants in the coming decade, if the tide is not turned. Rhinos worlwide are in their present, desperate state because poaching went unchecked for to long, until it was almost too late. It may still be too late for the rhino, longterm, if we can’t safeguard the existing living animals. Let’s not let things get to that point for elephants. If we do, that will be yet another shame for the human race to bear on it’s legacy. Best Wishes To All Working To Save the World’s precious pachyderms! -TheTeach
Well posted Paula and well said The Teach, can’t comment to much on the US media but I think you are not far from the truth, I do watch inside Africa on CNN, and would love WLD to have a slot on one of their weekly shows. They cover a lot of different issues from the continent but in the case of spreading the words on poaching everything will help….I think the European medias are easier to influence and can help, living in London the BBC is always my first source of news. I was sitting in an airport terminal at Heathrow and few weeks back the BBC News 24 showed a clip about the poaching of Elephants in Africa (the sound was off so could not hear what was said) but they have picked up on the situation..
Following the blogs here on WLD and following the work at ATFE, Safe the Elephants and DSWT (and others) there is such a clear pattern and the warning signs have been there for some time now, with the CITES decision last year so many knew what would follow and this is now happening (but I think even the people in the know are surprised at the escalation of poaching and to what extent it is taking place)…
To add to this we have the drought and the economic climate (reading updates from Amboseli) the older females and Matriarchs are now dying (in addition to the young calf) due to the prolonged drought and the bigger bulls are being poached, ….. We know the droughts comes in waves and this is by far the worst for Amboseli during the last 50 years…. The timings are grim and when you add these factors together you have a very unfortunate mix of events ….. The Elephants need all our help…