I’ve just had a conversation with Iain Douglas-Hamilton of Save the Elephants which I would like to share.
Like me, Iain feels that we need to do much more to raise awareness about the impact of the legal sales of ivory (which will take place later this month) on the illegal ivory trade and the rate of elephant poaching in Africa. I have a soft spot for Iain, he introduced me to elephants years ago at the height of the poaching in Kenya, I’ve been in love with them ever since. He reminded me of our efforts to prevent CITES from re-establishing the ivory trade in the 1990’s, and he expressed great anxiety at the recent decision to allow the one off sale to China and Japan which is due to happen from the 28th of October.
Some people think we are too emotional in Kenya which has always taken a principled position on the ivory debate. We hold that the legal trade anywhere has always contributed to illegal trade, and therefore poaching. The Kenya Wildlife Service has already announced that Kenya is experiencing a surge in poaching around the places where Chinese companies are conducting roadworks. Esmond Bradley-Martin and Lucy Vigne who are the only people doing detailed field studies of ivory trade have reported in SWARA magazine of the East African Wildlife Society, that they found significant amounts of ivory in markets in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital, just north of Kenya. Much of this ivory is coming from Kenya.
‘They are selling chopsticks Paula, who do you think is buying chopstics?“ he asked me. For no good reason I felt guilty! How come the culprits don’t feel guilty?
Though he had no hard figures, Iain confirmed that northern Kenya is feeling the brunt of the Ethiopia ivory trade. He told me that he is seeing an increase in the proportion of illegally killed elephants around his study area in Samburu in northern Kenya.
It’s not just Kenya and Ethiopia though. Earlier this year, the Economist reported that Elephants in the Congo are helpless. The report suggested that the price of ivory is increasing and so is the incentive to kill elephants everywhere in Africa, but especially in lawless places.
Like many scientists, we believe that forest elephant populations are declining rapidly due to rising demand from China. Dr Sam Wasser from Washington University suggests that the rate of off take may be the highest on record. He too believes that the ivory sale this month is prompting more poaching in central and eastern Africa, as criminals will mix illicit ivory with the legal ivory to avoid detection.
Shame on CITES
The scientific community should be ashamed for ignoring the warning signs and agreeing to the ivory sales under the pretext that the funds raised would help elephants.
The idea that the sale of ivory will help elephant conservation by ploughing funds back just doesn’t make sense to me. If we agree with that argument, then should we commercialize the highly lucrative child pornography industry to make money to protect children? No? I didn’t think so.
TRAFFIC, the IUCN body that monitors trade in wildlife said that the Congo is “haemorrhaging elephants”. In Virunga National Park 24 elephants have been poached so far this year. That’s 12% of the parks entire population gone in one year! Virunga had 2,900 elephants when Congo became independent in 1960, 400 in 2006, and has fewer than 200 today. At this rate there will be none left in just a few years time.
The politics of conservation disgust me 
Why has CITES given China the green light to buy ivory despite facts about the lack of controls in China, against the backdrop of escalating poaching? How come the IUCN has just down graded elephants in the red data list suggesting that they are in fact better off than before.
Killing elephants to kill people
Who is doing the poaching? It’s no secret that ivory is financing wars in Africa. The poachers are mostly militias who sell the ivory to middlemen and then to Chinese staff working for infrastructure projects such as road building and logging who then smuggle it to China. According to The UK Independent, elephants are being killed by the FDLR militia, comprising members of the former Rwandan Interahamwe, the Congolese military, the local Mai-Mai militia, as well as villagers. In Sudan it’s the Janjaweed.
Sudan in particular is a major transit point for shipments to China and the world’s largest center of illegal ivory trade is in Omdurman near Khartoum.
Elephant Poaching leaves long term scars on families
Some people like Sam Wasser think that elephant poaching is at an all time high and if he is right, then this could spell serious problems for elephants across Africa. Already restricted to less than 30% of their original habitat, populations of these socially complex animals area already severely affected by poaching. Like humans, and any long lived species, elephant society is designed to learn and adapt over generations. Interrupting this knowledge and gene transfer can have serious effects. Indeed, many cases of human -elephant conflict arise because disrupted herds are not as ‘wise’ as those that have been left alone. Leadership can be messed up leading to rogue behaviour, knowledge of resources and migration routes lost, and impacts on habitats in ’safe places’ can be devastating. Elephants are also very emotional and aware of death, they spend ages sniffing the bones of the dead. Joyce Poole who writes for elephantvoices blog is an expert on elephant behaviour and has found that the traumatic effects of losing individuals can felt for decades especially when adolescents are affected. Working in Tarangire National Park in Tanzania, Charles Foley has also documented how the loss of a matriarch has direct effects the survival of other individuals in the family, especially during tough years.
We need new thinking to save elephants.
We can’t just let the economics of trade or the political correctness of culture understanding (eg. ivory chopsticks and Chinese traditional medicine) drive the worlds largest land mammal to extinction. We will be forced to use plastic chopsticks by then anyway, why not start now and save our elephants? We need to give elephants rights, the right to exist, the right to not be hunted, the right to keep their own tusks. We need to accept that animal species should not have to pay for their way or right to survive. We need to accept that not everything has a cash value – after all, isn’t our love affair with money the reason why we are in so much financial trouble right now?
Ebay have made a good start, but I wish we could do more. But What? What do you think we can do to put elephant conservation back on track?
Donations made here are
Feb 28th Liza H USD 11.00
