Baraza

According to IFAW Tanzania has reportedly withdrawn her proposal to sell her ivory – though this has not yet been confirmed by CITES, the news has been met with elation by conservationists in Kenya.

Joyce Poole of Elephant Voices an organization that monitors elephants in the Masai Mara ecosystem stated

 

“Elephants are under extreme threat from an ivory trade spiraling out of control. Inserting more ivory into the mix would send the wrong message to consumers, and further stimulate the illegal trade. I congratulate the Tanzanian authorities for the wise decision to withdraw their proposal”.

Tanzania had proposed to downlist her elephant population from Appendix I to Appendix II and sell 137 tons of ivory at the next years 16th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of wild Flora and Fauna, CITES, which takes place in March 2013 in Bangkok. This is the third time that has failed to win support for a similar proposals to sell ivory at CITES. Apart from a few southern African countries and China, Tanzania’s proposal received virtually no support locally and had been termed “ludicrous” by some conservation organizations like the Environemental Investigation Agency, EIA – the government had admitted that 30 elephants were being killed each day to poachers, and together with Kenya, Tanzania is a major player in the illicit ivory trade an issue that has been linked to corruption in the government.

The decision to withdraw the proposal comes after other positive statements including a commitment to step up anti-poaching, and after the Chinese embassy in Dar es Salaam stated commitment to working with Tanzanian authorities to combat poaching, and ivory trafficking. The Kenya government will be welcoming this news wholeheartedly.

Through expert submissions from the Kenya Wildlife Service, Kenya’s position has been fiercely against Tanzania’s proposal. Despite huge investment in anti poaching and enforcement poaching is rampant in Kenya as a result of the demand for ivory which has been whetted by the limited renewal of legal trade.

And, this decision does not alter Kenya commitment to extend a 9 year moratorium on ivory trade to all elephant range states. This would prevent any country from proposing to trade in ivory until after 2017. Most conservation organizations back Kenya’s proposal including Save the Elephants, WildlifeDirect, Elephant Voices, the Amboseli Elephant Project, Born Free Foundation, IFAW, and others many of whom will travel to Thailand to lobby for Kenya.

For the first time in this dark period of elephant poaching, there is cause for hope. The Kenyan Minister for Forestry and Wildlife and the Director of the Kenya Wildlife Service have raised the alarm and renewed commitment to anti-poaching efforts. The US Secretary for State Hilary Clinton has raised the issue in congress, and the Tanzanian government has requested support from the USA improve park management.  While China is the main market for ivory, major markets also exist in other Asian countries like Thailand, Vietnam, and Malaysia. What we hope for now is for all of these countries to make a commitment by jointly denouncing illegal domestic ivory trade, and contributing to a fund that will enhance African elephant range states enforcement, investigations, and management of elephants.

Royal Malaysian Customs have just announced the seizure of 24 tons of ivory in Port Klang. This is the largest ever seizure of ivory in transit through the country, and is equal in size to all of the ivory seized in  2011 from Africa. The 1,500 pieces of ivory came from over 750 elephants were exported from Togo, a tiny west African country that has fewer than 200 elephants. The ivory was hidden in containers containing wooden crates that were built to look like stacks of sawn timber. The two crates were shipped from the port of Lomé in Togo, and was going to China via Algeria, Spain and Malaysia. Here are some reactions on text, twitter and facebook

“What the hell is going on?”

“Oh My God, this is Crazy! There must be some major crime ring in this. Chinese Mafia?”

“very sad”

“Folks, that’s 750 dead elephants right there! Completely atrocious.”

“When will these countries see the light? Money,money,Money thats all it is!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Disgusting”

While the rest of the world is in a state of shock at the scale of the seizure, Bonadventure Ebayi, CEO of the Lusaka Agreement Task Force the African Interpol for wildlife, says he is not surprised. Togo has virtually no law enforcement to speak of. It is a country through which timber from other central African countries is exported by both China and Malaysia. The ivory, he believes, came from several central African countries.

The size of this shipment reveals that it probably took months for the dealers to accumulate this volume of ivory and it was brought in on small boats plying the waters in this area. Togo is notorious for slack enforcement and is considered something of a free port with zero law enforcement.  The dealers of this ivory, clearly operated without any hindrance. They are probably a mafia like syndicate, took their time in packing the consignment, and the shipping route was not direct, but a rather lazy route via several other countries. Asked if there were officials involved Bonadventure laughed cynically “nothing would make a consignment of 1 ton, or even 500 kg of ivory through a port without corrupt practices”. He emphasizes that the smuggling of trophies is only possible through corrupt practices. The Togolese government seems not to care about the illegal trade going on at Lome and neither is it likely that the Malaysian or Chinese governments will do anything about this seizure.

Apart from one seizure of ivory in Singapore from several African countries which was returned to Kenya and later burned, none of seizures of African ivory in Asia have been returned to the country of origin. Investigations are not carried out, and there is no system of monitoring the specimens. At the end of the day this ivory will become “owned” by Malaysia.

The reason for this apparent lapse in investigations and monitoring of illegal ivory is money, or rather, lack of money. The law enforcement agencies of Africa are extremely poorly resourced in terms of man power, equipment and funds considering the work that they are expected to do.  The ivory syndicates are operating on mega budgets of tens or hundreds of millions of dollars. African enforcement agencies which are expected to monitor all ports, and all wildlife, are cash strapped.

Moreover, there is a general lack of political will in the governments concerned. Many African countries wildlife agencies are dependent on support from the US Fish and Wildlife Agency, which is its self a national agency in USA, not an international agency. The US Fish and Wildlife Agency receives it’s funding from the US government. Why aren’t African governments financing their wildlife agencies adequately? International agencies and CITES agencies are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on monitoring elephants and writing reports for CITES conferences – their budgets often exceeding those of the government agencies. The reports often say that the problem is that law enforcement is lacking in Africa. It’s a tail chasing exercise. Hillary Clinton has raised concern in Congress about the scale of illegal trade of wildlife in Africa, but the silence from African leaders is deafening. Not one of them has echoed her call for addressing the problem.

AFrican governments have lamented for too long that there is inadequate funding for wildlife conservation, enforcement and security. We need to rethink our priorities in Africa and recognize the colossal economic loss due to criminal syndicates that are illegally exploiting our natural resources and national heritage.

 

To turn things around Africa must take responsibility.

1. Quantify the economic impact of illegal trade of African wildlife. It is estimated that only 10% of exported natural resources from Africa are legal! It’s not just elephants and rhino that are being illegally exported from Africa everyday. Many other mammals, insects, plants, reptiles and birds are also being illegally exported but nobody notices them because we are all looking at elephants and rhinos.  In fact, Africa is losing most of her natural wealth to criminals, and is hemorrhaging her heritage. Wildlife agencies tend to be positioned low on the economic ladder and are minimally resourced.  Moreover, the impact of poaching on nascent eco tourism outfits threatens investments and therefore jobs and revenues.

2: Reform law enforcement: Poaching and ivory dealing is not just a wildlife crime which is treated as a misdemeanor in most countries.  It is an economic crime that is deeply associated with corruption. Handling of wildlife crime cases as economic and organized crimes needs to be prioritized. This will take sentsitization of leaders, and bringing all the relevant agencies together nationally and internationally. And it will require a lot of money.  The criminally organized and militarized nature of elephant poaching and ivory trading in Africa, means that the syndicates are extremely well resourced. African governments must invest in raising these funds to reform the judiciary and educate the relevant agencies.

3: Create effective communication and collaboration between different security wings: It is generally known that the ivory and rhino horn trade is controlled by high level cartels who also deal in drugs, money laundering, human trafficking and gun smuggling.  The revenues generated are believed to be contributing to armed conflicts which threaten communities and significantly impact on tourism.  To deal with wildlife crime will mean collaborating with agencies involved in dealing with corruption arms  dealing, money laundering and other forms of organized crime.

4: Initiate effective monitoring: The impact of elephants poaching in Africa is very poorly documented and must be stepped up. In addition, investigations of the ivory seizures must be conducted, and ivory seizures must be monitored and national stockpiles across Africa and Asia audited to ensure that ivory does not escape into the illegal markets.

I asked Mr Ebayi what he thought of the recently announced Memorandum of understanding between Vietnam and South Africa. Would it make a difference for rhino, and should we pursue a similar arrangement with China on ivory. He wondered aloud what a piece of paper would achieve. “So long as the culture of consuming ivory and rhino horn are not addressed the demand will remain”.  He asked for proof that Vietnam was serious in the form of a government statement banning the use of rhino horn in country, and a significant contribution towards anti-poaching in South Africa. China will need to do the same for ivory if she expects her promises of support to be taken seriously.

 

The recent signing of a memorandum of understanding between Vietnam and South Africa stunned the world – it revealed Vietnam’s recognition of her role in the record poaching levels of rhino in South Africa.  It is estimated that Vietnam consumes 75% of the worlds rhino horns. It is true that rhino are once again facing extinction due to poaching for the horn and it’s not just Vietnam and South Africa or even rhino that are affected by the wave of poaching and illegal trade. Many species are threatened by Asian demand including elephants, to lions, rhino, chimpanzees, gorillas, snakes, turtles, sharks, pangolins and many other species. Indeed it is surprising that Vietnam was the first country to step up and take leadership in this crisis, after all, it is well known that China is the main market for illegal wildlife trade from Africa.

Is it too much pressure from trade, or too little resistance against poaching in rhino range states?

Last weekend 4 rhino’s were shot dead in Lewa Conservancy, and another one was killed at Oserian Wildlife Sanctuary in a devastating weekend for Kenya.  Are rhino’s being massacred due to demand in Asia or is it failed enforcement in Africa? Much time has been wasted in debates about what is driving the poaching and attempts to enforce the provisions of the Convention on International trade in Endangered Species (CITES) have been fruitless. The convention made up of member states, tip toes around and behaves as if all are helpless against the giant, China. Once a powerful convention, CITES seems rather toothless nowadays and sanctions against countries that violate the provisions of the convention are rarely used.  CITES and even some scientists even argue that the science does not prove the links between legal trade in rhino horn in Asia and illegal trade, and they push responsibility to poor African countries which they blame for enabling the illegal trade by failing to curb corruption. We agree that corruption is a problem but lets be honest, if there was no demand for rhino horn, there would be no killing of rhino’s.

Think of it as pressure vs resistance. Imagine a dam wall under the pressure of rising water levels. If there was no pressure, the dam wall would not need to be heavily reinforced. However, under increasing pressure the wall will requires greater investment to resist. It becomes an arms race. But the wall can also be breached if someone chips away even the most highly reinforced dam wall.

Similarly, the pressure to poach rhino’s comes from demand for rhino horn in Asia. African countries have invested heavily in enforcement, but corruption reduces the effectiveness of the antipoaching and enforcement measures. We argue that it is in fact the demand for horn has led to such an increase in price that rhino horn now rivals gold and it is this demand and price which has created the opportunity for corruption and this in turn has led to the breeding of organized crime. The water in the dam is filling up at a dizzying pace, and though dam wall has been reinforced, in most countries there are busy people drilling holes into it and in some countries, the entire wall has collapsed and rhino’s have been poached to extinction.

We are losing the arms race to keep rhino’s safe

Black rhino’s (Diceros bicornis) were declared critically endangered in the 1980’s after they had suffered catastrophic declines reducing Africa’s rhino from 65,000 in 1972 to fewer than 2,500 by 1992. Kenya was hit particularly hard, her population of 20,000 black rhino crashed to fewer than 400 between 1970 and 1990. To reverse the trends, Kenya adopted an intense rhino program to rebuild the rhino populations. The strategy included the creation of a rhino program with massive investment in security and paramilitary training for a special rhino force, intelligence, enforcement, training, monitoring, and equipment, ring fencing all remaining populations of wild rhino, individually tagging each individual, and keeping a 24/7 vigil on every single rhino. Kenya is particularly key in rhino conservation because she holds 85% of the world’s population of the eastern black rhino, (D. b. michaeli ). Kenya is also home to a larger population of southern white rhino’s which were introduced after the northern whites went extinct. Last year, Kenya imported the last remaining 4 northern White rhino. The investment paid off and over the last 20 years, Kenya’s elephant populations have grown. The situation in South Africa has been critical and to protect her rhino’s, the South African Parks have taken an extreme position of engaging the army in anti-poaching in Kruger National Park which is particularly vulnerable.

Despite the investment and reinforcement of rhino anti-poaching, record numbers of rhino’s are being poached across Africa and Asia. This year the last Javan rhino in Vietnam was been poached and the species is now extinct. The West African black rhino has also been declared extinct, the Sumatran rhino is on the verge of extinction in Indonesia. South Africa has been losing more than 2 rhino per day to poachers for the last 18 months.

Is poaching driven by ancient tradition or recent rumours?

Like ivory, rhino horn has been used traditionally for millennia in the Middle and Far East. In the Yemen, rhino horns have been used for the handles of curved daggers called “jambiya,” which are given to muslim boys at the age of 12 as a relious sign of manhood. The daggers are extremely valuable and are often studded with jewels. Imports of rhino horn were banned into Yemen in 1982. Use of rhino horn in China dates to at least the 7th century AD where it is carved into ceremonial cups, and used for buttons, belt buckles, hair pins, and paperweights.

The most significant and rising use of rhino horn however is in the traditional medicine systems of many Asian countries, including Malaysia and South Korea, Vietnam, India and China. Legend has it that rhino horn has been used as an aphrodisiac, however this is not true. It is ground up and boiled to produce a cure for fever, gout, snakebites, hallucinations, typhoid, headaches, carbuncles, vomiting, food poisoning, and “devil possession” and other disorders.

But the reason for the sudden increase in rhino horn demand in recent years is a belief that it can cure cancer. Apparently a rumor began to circulate about 6 years ago that rhino horn had cured cancer in a Vietnamese politician. The rumor quickly spread by word of mouth, mobile phone and Internet. The value of horn rose so sharply that Vietnamese rhino’s were hunted to extinction, thieves began breaking into museums to steal rhino horn and Vietnamese “hunters” flooded South Africa where they paid for legal hunts in order to get the trophies. Poaching in South Africa rose dramatically with poachers using helicopters, dart guns and chainsaws to obtain horns. Illegal horns were laundered with legal permits to enable tens of horns to leave South Africa. Police now say that the poaching and dealing of rhino horn has become an organized crime involving global criminal syndicates.

All of this because of a rumour that rhino horn cures cancer! Rhino horn is basically hair and scientists have examined the properties to determine whether it really does have medicinal properties.  Comprised mainly of keratin, they also contain some calcium and melanin. In structure and composition they are similar to horses’ hooves, turtle beaks, and cockatoo bills. Scientists have found little evidence of any medicinal properties apart from in one experiment where high concentrations of rhino horn mildly reduced fever in rats.

The fact that science has proven that rhino horn has no medicinal properties against cancer has not helped rhinos. The price of rhino horn now exceeds gold, and collectors in China are now hoarding horns to increase their value as rhino numbers decline and availability of horns decreases. One rhino farmer in South Africa slaughtered his own herd to store the horns. The problem is exacerbated by the growing wealth in Asia which is driving demand and the advent of internet commerce, and presence of Asian investors in Africa makes trading in illegal products much easier than ever before.

Some economists are even suggesting that rhino horn trade should be legalized to manage and regulate the demand and supply. However, others argue that legal trade is virtually impossible to regulate, and others wonder if the primary use of horn is for medicine, and the horn has no medicinal properties what does this legal trade really achieve? Indeed one study has already shown that only trace amounts of rhino  horn are actually used in the medicines, and more than 70% of medications claiming to contain rhino horn have none at all, all instead have traces of buffalo horn and deer antler.

Vietnam has made a commitment, on it’s own it’s not enough. China must step in and take the lead for Asia

It is true that corruption in Africa is a major facilitator of illegal trade of any sort and African countries have an enormous challenge to end impunity if they are to save their spectacular heritage. However Asian countries also have a critical role to play. It is no secret that Asian economies are driving the unsustainable exploitation of African animals from great apes, to pangolins, lions, elephants, rhino’s, sharks, snakes, and many other species.  Top of the list of culprits is China who scientists claim consumes between 70 and 90% of ivory, rhino horn and other wildlife products from Africa.  It will take a new kind of courageous leadership in Asia to reverse the trend. Vietnam has led the way by signing an MOU with South Africa “to promote cooperation between the two countries in the field of biodiversity management, conservation and protection. Particularly aimed at curbing the scourge in rhino poaching, the MOU seeks to promote cooperation in law enforcement, compliance with the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) and other relevant legislation and Conventions on the basis of equality and mutual benefit.”

Conservationists are celebrating this collaboration but it won’t mean much unless China, Thailand, The Philippines and other Asian countries adopt similar leadership positions as part of their global responsibility.

Richard Leakey and WildlifeDirect seek to end the killing of rhino’s. Support our work by making a donation now to help us raise awareness, lobby our governments, and protect rhino’s . Thank You.

Today the Amboseli Trust for Elephants celebrated 40 years of elephant research that has revealed the secret world of elephants to us. The event symbolically held at the Ivory burn site in Nairobi National Park where Richard Leakey, then Director of the Kenya Wildlife Service, and Daniel Arap Moi , the president Kenya, set alight 12 tons of ivory worth USD 3 million in 1989 to eliminate the national stockpile and send a message to the world that Kenya was taking a principled stand against the ivory trade. I find it sad that as we celebrate we cannot ignore the fact that thousands of elephants across Africa are once again being massacred for the ivory trade.

In her statement Cynthia Moss, the head of the Amboseli Trust for Elephants, noted that this is the longest running study of elephants anywhere in the world and apart from extending our scientific knowledge about elephant intelligence, society, communication and  a host of other discoveries, the project had brought elephants to the world as female led families with values  that humans can only envy. The project, which started in 1972, witnessed the terrible 15 years of all out poaching that included government sponsored or facilitated elephant poaching that decimated 85% of Kenya’s elephants . The period ended with  the dismantling of the Wildlife Conservation Management Department and the creation of the Kenya Wildlife Service. Today with 1,500 elephants in the study, the Amboseli elephant population has more than doubled from where they started.

The event was attended by a number of elephant scientists including Iain Douglas-Hamilton who runs Save the Elephants under whom Cynthia Moss first trained, Esmond Martin who studies ivory trade, and Joyce Poole who conducted her PhD research on elephants in Amboseli. Representatives of government included the Former Director of KWS Julius Kipngetich and a number of high ranking KWS officials.  During his speech, the Chairman of the Kenya Wildlife Service, the government authority responsible for wildlife management, David Mwiraria, congratulated the project for contributing so much to Kenya and the world. He noted the introduction of the community consolation scheme started in 1997 which serves to respond to livestock losses to elephants.

What he didn’t mention, and what nobody spoke about openly, was that Amboseli is once again the playground of poachers. In their own blog post, the ATE reports the loss of the QB family after Qumquat and her daughters were violently gunned down on the edge of Amboseli National Park.This video illustrates the deadly methods used by poachers, well armed and extremely quick elephant herds are gunned down within meters of each other. (Warning this video shows dead elephants and the capture of a distressed elephant baby. Some viewers may find it disturbing).

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This suggests military precision and the possibility that poachers have some sort of military training. One person noted that “Back in the 2000 the KWS was only just getting established, we had staff few, basic training and limited technology”. Today with far better equipment, more staff and highly trained ones at that, the authority cannot contain the poaching. Why?” he asked. I can only conclude that the scale of poaching is much worse than ever before and we just can’t keep up with it.

I have been seeking views on what people perceive is the greatest challenges facing elephants is today. Here are some of the responses ranked in order of importance

1. Demand or ivory  in China. Everyone agrees that demand for ivory, especially the Chinese is the driving force behind the rapid rise in elephant poaching. The argument goes that ivory has always been part of the Chinese culture as a status symbol. The rising wealth of the middle class Chinese has exploded the demand creating a crisis for elephants as demand far outstrips availability.
2. The presence of bad elements throughout Kenya known to be involved in this business– he meant the presence of Chinese and Somali’s who place orders on ivory. Cartels that deal in drugs, arms, illegal goods and contraband, and even human trafficking have networks on the ground in remote corners of the country and can obtain ivory easily using cell phone ordering.
3.  Corruption in Kenya and possible involvement of high ranking officials makes it easy for dealers to move ivory through Kenya and other African countries.
4. Poor legislation and lack of enforcement has allowed dealers, poachers and now traffickers to get off easily
5. Ineffective anti-poaching country wide -  Despite the gains, anti-poaching and intelligence gathering is always one step behind poachers.

I would make a personal addition, one of the greatest threats to elephants is the total lack of will from African governments to deal with the Chinese who are now important donors and trade partners. Embarrassingly, the USA which is not an elephant range state, when Hillary Clinton have come out with the strongest language and commitment to date on the scale and risk of the escalating poaching problem.

Do you agree with these five ? What else do you think contributes to the problem?

Dear friends

Yesterday, together with most of Africa’s top elephant conservationists, I witnessed the burning of 5 tons of ivory at the Kenya Wildlife Service training center in Manyani, which is located in one of Kenya’s greatest National Parks, Tsavo West Kenya.

(I recorded video, photographs and podcasts of the event which WildlifeDirect is willing to sell to raise funds  for conservation. Please leave a comment on this post if you are interested in supporting us by buying your own copy of the event to support WildlifeDirect and elephant conservation)

This is the strongest conservation statement that has come out of Africa in a very long time – the destruction of ivory worth about 15 million dollars.

This is the second time that Kenya has burned ivory to send a powerful message about how the ivory trade is killing Africa’s elephants. Although the Kenyan President, Mwai Kibaki lit this funeral pyre of over 200 elephants, this time it wasn’t Kenya’s ivory. The elephants that had been slaughted for this ivory came from Malawi and Zambia, thousands of kilometers south of Kenya.

The ivory burned was part of a shipment seized in Singapore in 2002 following an investigation spearheaded by the Lusaka Agreement Task Force and the Environmental Investigation Agency. Susan Rice of the EIA told me that it was the 19^th shipment of ivory from Zambia that was seized in an operation that revealed a complex web of players including poachers, government agents, and traders.

This massive illegal trade in ivory, was linked to China and Japan that had been authorized by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered species, CITES.

Ambassadors of both countries were visibly absent at the ceremonial ivory burn.

Conservationists have been warning that the massive demand for ivory in China cannot be satisfied by Africa’s  elephants and as a result, ivory prices have been increasing, triggering a surge in poaching across Africa.

Wildlife enforcement authorities in Africa are struggling to defend elephants against this renewed threat. And the unwillingness of African Governments to prosecute Chinese nationals involved in illegal ivory trade makes it near impossible to stop them.

The effect is devastating for elephant and it is particularly evident than in Samburu in northern Kenya where so many elephants have been killed in recent months that adult males are noticeably abswent, and some elephant families no longer have matriarchs – the oldest female leaders who maintain order in elephant society.

Saving Africa’s elephants requires not only bold statements and commitments by African leaders.  We need action and we need it now. Everyone can agree that African elephants will continue to be at risk of extinction unless the trade in ivory is stopped. This can be achieved if the demand for ivory is destroyed.

Only 5 tons of ivory were burned today – it represents a tiny fraction of Africa’s stockpiled ivory. Kenya alone has 60 tons of ivory held in vaults in Nairobi and in the field. Valued at between 500 and 2000 dollars per kilogram, the cost of protecting this ivory is immense. But it’s mere presence creates a threat that it will be raided by outsiders or even insiders. The maintenance of the Kenyan stockpile sends a confusing message to the world that while Kenya is ready to burn Malawian and Zambian ivory, she is holding onto her own stockpile – could this be for future sales perhaps?

While congratulating the countries of the Lusaka Agreement Task Force for burning this ivory, conservationists identified  three additional actions that would secure the future of elephants in Africa

1. To appeal to the CITES convention to remove China and Japan’s status as a approved ivory trading partners
2. To destroy all of Africa’s ivory stockpiles
3. To strengthen enforcement by enacting and enforce laws with significant penalties  against poachers, traders and buyers of ivory  regardless of their nationality

In 2 days time, on the 2oth of July, Kenya will burn 5 tons of ivory, not her own stockpile but part of a shipment that was sized in Singapore in 2002. The tusks originated from Malawi, Tanzania and Zambia.

Bonaventure Ebayi, the director of the Lusaka Agreement Task Force, said the burning of the ivory follows an agreement reached by the three countries in May in Nairobi. This will be the second burning of ivory in Kenya. In 1989 torched 12 tons of ivory in a statement that led to the ban on international trade in ivory. Elephant populations across Africa began to recover soon after international markets were closed. But conservationists now warn that recent  experimental sales form four Southern African  countries to China and Japan, have re-ignited the demand for ivory leading to a renewed spate of poaching.

Iain Douglas-Hamilton of Save the Elephants reported that the latest loss was that of Khadija, a radio collard elephant matriarch that was killed on the 12th of July in Samburu District northern Kenya. He warns that  the Samburu population of elephants is now experiencing the highest rate of poaching in the last 10 years.

Male elephants with the largest tusks are targeted in favour of females leasing to a skewed sex ratio of 70% males. Read the full press release here.

In a recent article in Vanity Fair on the crisis facing African elephants, Alex Shoumatoff predicts that the poaching of elephants is partly related to the the growing presence of Chinese expatriates who get preferential treatment in Kenya and across Africa. Without hard evidence to back this up it’s hard for governments to challenge China. But we can all agree to one thing – that the demand for ivory must be reduced in order to halt the escalating ivory prices which is driving the killings across Africa.

I will be there to witness the burn of ivory and on behalf of WildlifeDirect I will be urging the Kenyan Government to burn the remaining 60 tons of ivory in the countries stockpile.

Paula Kahumbu

The Lusaka Task Force is Africa’s interpol on illegal wildlife Trade. It is charged with implementing the 1992 Lusaka Agreement designed to help African law enforcement.

Save the Elephants headed by Ian Douglas-Hamilton is the  leading conservation organization studying and protecting elephants in northern Kenya

Dear Friends,

The ivory trade is once again threatening Kenya’s elephant herds. This video has some shocking images, but a happy ending.

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After seeing the ivory seized in Nairobi Airport, several people have been asking where the ivory is coming from. Afterall, there is no poaching epidemic is there?

Well, on Friday night during a visit to the newly established Galana Conservancy, we heard that six gunshots had been heard a few days earlier, and that there was an injured elephant somewhere in the area. On Saturday we went out to look for him, and found him at 8 am. A large 35 – 40 year old bull elephant with impressive ivory, but a shortened trunk. He clearly  had suffered from an old snare injury that had cut the end of his trunk off. He was standing hunched over, in extreme pain. We could see a weeping wound on his side that seemed  entirely consistent with gun shot wound.  We could see the entry and exit wound of the bullet.

As we watched him he leaned on bushes and sat on an ant hill, he seemed to be suffering so much that he hardly noticed our presence.  He wasn’t eating but moved from bush to bush and rubbed his distended belly against the ant hill.

We immediately called the KWS but unfortunately the local veterinarian had returned to Nairobi. Then the injured elephant collapsed. Convinced he would die if he remained lying down, we revved the car engines and he stood up again and continued staggering about.

However, upon hearing about the condition of the animal, KWS took a strong decision and flew the vet back to the area about 2 hours east of Nairobi in the dry plains of Galana.

Unfortunately due to poor weather, the vet did not arrive until early afternoon, it was so hot that the elephant had moved down to the water and was not in a position to be darted. We decided to wait for him to come back out of the water. We left one person to watch him while we went off to investigate a “bad smell”.

Sure enough, the bad smell that emanated from within a dense salt bush area, was a dead elephant.  It’s face was reduced to a mass of bones and maggots, the rest of the body revealed a massive old bull – much bigger than the injured one. Initially the KWS rangers believed the cause of death to be a poisoned arrow. This area is notorious for the  use of native plants to procure poison for killing elephants. Howver, the hacked face was inconsistent with a traditional method of killing an elephant. The poiosoning of elephants leads to a slow paralyzing death and the elephant will be followed for days by the hunter who would leave the carcass to rot for a few weeks before removing the ivory. In this case the elephant ivory had been removed immediately using axes and the entire body of the elephant covered with green bushes. The condition of the cut bushes revealed that the elephant had been dead for no more than 2 or 3 days – about the time that the six gunshots were heard. We found the trunk some meters away from the body of this elephant, and to our dismay, his trunk was also shortened. That was when Garry recognized the pair of bulls that usually hung out together. Both had shortened trunks, and one had much larger ivory than the other. This one named Kulalu had the larger ivory. The KWS vet Jeremiah examined the carcass and concluded that it was consistent with a gunshot wound.

So we had two elephants shot in the last 3 days. And then another pair of ivory tusks were recovered from another elephant carcass that appeared to be a natural death – however, judging from the size of the ivory, it is likely that this was not a natural death but another victim of poaching who died in a place and the poachers failed to find him.

These three deaths suggest to me that there is a level of poaching in Kenya that we are not aware of. Were it not for the smell of the dead elephant so close to the houses, this dead elephant may not have been detected.

Finding carcasses in this part of Kenya is difficult, the terrain is vast and bushy and It is easy to hide the carcasses.

After darting him the KWS vet treated the entry and exit wounds of the elephant which involved turning him over – a task that required much manpower and a landrover.

After he was cleaned up the vet gave him 70% chance of survival and injected the antidote but the elephant would not get up. After about 15 minutes of trying unsuccessfully to get up, the KWS tied a rope to one of his tusks and pulled it with the landrover. This got the elephant up very fast – whereupon we discovered that he was wide awake and extremely angry. He charged his rescuers, nearly toppled one vehicle and then ran down to the river. I covered this story on twitter as it was happening and we videoed and tape recorded the entire sequence which will come out soon.

Now, 24 hours after the incident, the elephant now named Atiki, is fine and is feeding comfortably a few kilometers from where we darted him.

Dear friends. We have just learned from Cynthia moss of the poaching of elephants in the Amboseli National Park.

On her blog Cynthia wrote today

“One of Amboseli’s up-and-coming prime bulls was killed by poachers the day before yesterday. Winston had just turned 30 in January of this year and was regularly coming into musth. It should have been just the beginning of a successful breeding life but he was cut down for his ivory tusks.

I felt particularly close to Winston because he was one of 14 calves I chose for a special study in 1980. I carried out research on mother-calf bonds and calf development on these calves and so I spent hours with them in the first year of their lives.

Winston was one of the easiest adult bulls to keep track of because he had a big tear out of his left ear which made it easy to recognize him. We are all going to miss him.

Another big male was killed a few days before Winston but we haven’t been able to identify him. Amboseli is one of the few places in Africa with older males with big tusks. We are very worried about being able to save them. ATE is a research project with only minimum funds to help in the anti-poaching effort, but we are doing everything we can to try to stop this frightening upsurge of elephant poaching.”

Well CITES is over and the ivory trade has not reopened, but according to one new documentary Africa’s elephants are no safer. Last year we helped Aidan Hartley of UK’s Channel 4 in an investigative story on the ivory trade. It was not an easy task for him and his team to do the undercover work to reveal what is really happening on the ground and in African government offices. We are happy to announce that this multi part documentary called End of the Elephant. Part 1  aired on the 26th of March and Part 2 will air on Friday the 2nd of April on Unreported World on Channel 4 in UK. You can also watch this series online here UNREPORTED WORLD

The Tanzanian government clearly has done little to stem the illegal killings of elephants, to the disgust of tour operators and conservationists. Indeed  this was the main reason that Tanzania failed in her bid to sell off her ivory stockpiles at the just concluded CITES conference  in Doha.

The slaughter of Tanzania’s elephants has been an open secret for some time. Corruption in official offices and threats to tour operators who ‘speak’ have kept it out of the official news.

Who buys Tanzania’s ivory? Aiden discovered that Chinese in the country are the main buyers

“we met Salim and another dealer, Daudi, at a petrol station. They got in our car and Daudi produced a tusk that still had dried blood on it. I asked, ‘Do many mzungus [white people] buy these, or is it mainly the Chinese?’

‘All the time the Chinese come. Many, yes! Yes!’ exclaimed Daudi.”

According to the seller Salim, ivory is purchased by the Chinese and exported through the main airport after paying bribes. This ivory is fresh and still bloody and the sales and exports are happening openly everyday. Clearly the ivory is arriving in China without any problems on that end. Amazing considering that all the Chinese authorities would need to do is search the luggage of every person travelling from Tanzania t catch them. If they could track every tourist into China during the Swine flu epidemic, why can’t they do this? I believe it’s due to a total lack of political will on the part of the Chinese government.

But Aidan says it’s worse than mere negligence. His source, Daudi  revealed that  Chinese government officials travelling through Tanzania including Hu Jintao’s entourage use their diplomatic status and immunity to move ivory. To me this stinks much more than the sickly smell of 31,000 rotting maggot ridden elephant carcasses.

I hope that Aidans film End of the Elephant will wake up the Tanzanians, the world – especially the Chinese to do something about this state condoned corruption which is destroying Africa’s greatest mammal.

Note to Aidan - CONGRATULATIONS and we are really glad that we could help. From all of us at WildlifeDirect

Dear friends,

Representatives of the 17-country Coalition for the African Elephant have arrived in Brussels to discuss the ivory trading proposals. They want the European Union, which votes as a block, to say no to Tanzania and Zambia in Doha in March.

“We are asking the European Union to take a clear stance in support of a nine-year moratorium adopted in 2007 by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES),” Kenyan Forest and Fauna Minister Noah Wekesa told journalists.

According to an article in the Guardian, ivory prices have soared from $250 a kilogram in 2004 to more than $6,000 at present. Many scientists believe that this aws the result of stimulation of the chinese market after the November 2008 sale of stockpiled ivory from Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe which was bought by dealers from China and Japan. The sale of 105,000 kilograms of ivory, raised more than £15m, but has led to escalated poaching across Africa. Some scientists estimate that between 8 and 10% of the population is dying annually at the hands of poachers.

The UK has said no to ivory sales. Environment Secretary Hilary Benn said last night: “At the CITES meeting in March, the UK will vote against the proposals from Tanzania and Zambia to sell ivory stocks, and we would urge other countries to vote against such a sale.”

Meanwhile Namibia has backed ivory sales saying that the proposals from Zambia and Tanzania are in line with their policies. Never mind that tens of thousands of elephants are dying annually due to poaching which has been catalyzed by the one off sales in November 2008. Traffic International are warning that over 14,000 ivory items were siezed in 2009 compared to just 2,000 the year before.

TRAFFIC was established in 1976 and has developed into a global network, research-driven and action-oriented, committed to delivering innovative and practical conservation solutions based on the latest information. Yet despite all the information on how ivory sales spur the illegal killing of elephants, TRAFFI Boss Richard Thomas says “It is a really worrying situation, However, it is not absolutely clear what should be done.”

In other words, TRAFFIC does not want to influence the CITES delegaets with an opinion even though it is glaringly obvious. What is even sadder is that in 2007 the parties to CITES agreed on a 9 year moratorium on further sales. Apparently a mistake was entered on the agreement (intentionally or unintentionall) that limited the moratorium only to the five countries that were selling ivory. This mistake was not detected until after the vote and though Kenya protested it was too late. Of course what this did, was it created an opportunity for countries that did not sell ivory in 2008 to submit ivory sale proposals this year. We believe that the parties to CITES should honor the intentions of that agreement and reject Zambia and Tanzania, and indeed ask them to withdraw their proposals.

THe Coalition for the AFrican Elephant represent 17countries. Kenyas Miniser for Forestry and and Wildlife, Dr. Noah Wekesa is leading the team.

“We are asking the European Union to take a clear stance in support of a nine-year moratorium adopted in 2007 by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES),” Wekesa told journalists. .

“The EU plays a major role within CITES,” Wekesa insisted. “If it abstains during this vote, it will contribute towards worsening an already critical situation.”

Please support the Coalition for the African Elephant by circulating this email and writing to your CITES authorities to vote no to the ivory trade propsoals

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