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Elephants Still Under the Gun
By Adam M. Roberts Elephant carcasses once again unceremoniously litter Kenya’s national park lands. Kenya Wildlife Service Director J.M. Kioko recently reported that Somali poachers armed with AK-47 rifles “ambushed a herd of 11 elephants,” massacring all but one. Said Director Kioko, “this slaughter of a family of ten elephants is the largest incident in which an entire family of elephants has been poached since KWS’s establishment in 1989…. This and other previous incidents in Kenya suggest that the ivory markets are active and poachers are actively feeding the illegal trade in ivory.” In 1989, the Parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) voted to give elephants the highest level of protection in order to stop commercial trade in ivory. Since then, a small minority of southern African nations have conspired to repeal the ban and profit from the wanton slaughter of these amazing creatures. In 1997 they partially succeeded—CITES granted what was billed as “a one-time” sale of stockpiled ivory from Botswana, Namibia, and Zimbabwe to Japan. In 2000, CITES weakened its protection for South Africa’s elephants as well but refused to allow sale of South African ivory. 
Ivory profiteers bank on the prospect that CITES may someday yield and allow an unfettered resumption of the commercial ivory trade. This drives the current killing. Sales from “government stockpiles” are dangerous because ivory from poached elephants can be laundered in with the “legal” stash. The message from any sale, even from stockpiles, is that ivory has value. When poachers and smugglers get the word that money is to be made by illegally killing elephants and illicitly trading ivory, they inevitably renew their deadly dealings. The ivory debate is ready to explode again leading up to the next CITES meeting in November 2002 in Santiago, Chile. Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, and Zimbabwe have proposed another ivory stockpile sale and advocate an annual export quota of ivory. According to a Reuters report, Zambia is also requesting to trade in ivory despite the fact that “Zambia’s elephant population has dwindled from around 200,000 in the 1970s to only 26,000 now due to rampant poaching.” These five southern African countries represent a small minority of the overall number of elephant range states, both in Africa and in Asia. The elephant range states that recognize the looming disaster from a reopened ivory trade have a strong pair of allies in the Governments of Kenya and India, a duo that is teaming up to propose that all African elephants be put back on Appendix I of CITES, thus cutting off international commercial trade in elephant products once more. Their proposal shows that “Poaching of African and Asian elephants for their ivory and the illegal ivory trade continue to pose a serious threat to most African and Asian elephant populations,” and that “In most cases, existing anti-poaching efforts in Africa and Asia are no match for well-armed poachers.”
The statistics from the most recent two years are alarming indeed. Elephant poaching is extensive across the animals’ range. From January 1, 2000 to April 30, 2002, over 1,000 elephants were poached in the African and Asian countries of Namibia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Zimbabwe, Kenya, India, Tanzania, Angola, and Cambodia. This includes elephant killing in conservancy lands, national parks, reserves, and wildlife sanctuaries. Despite the current trade ban, elephant ivory is smuggled globally. Kenya and India report illegal ivory seizures from January 1, 2000 through May 21, 2002 to include 2,542 tusks and 14,648 ivory pieces or objects, weighing a total of 5,953.4 kg. These seizures are global, showing the breadth of the international illegal ivory trade: Tanzania, Chile, South Africa, Kenya, Namibia, India, Thailand, the United Kingdom, the United States, Zambia, Djibouti, China, Uganda, Belgium, Botswana, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Egypt, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Japan, Cameroon, Taiwan, Vanuatu, and Canada. One report alleges that a man from Oman was arrested for trying to smuggle 60 large ivory pieces weighing approximately 400 kilograms into Thailand. A Gambian national was sentenced in March 2002 to one year and a day in a US federal prison for conspiring to smuggle 66 ivory pieces into the US from Nigeria. Four huge ivory carvings were seized in the Indian State of Kerala, including one that was nearly four feet tall. “One of the carvings was rather ironically of Ganesh, the Hindu elephant god of wisdom and success,” noted Belinda Wright, Executive Director of the Wildlife Protection Society of India. Wright continued, “This case illustrates the extent of the illegal ivory trade. It is extremely alarming and does not bode well for the future of wild elephants.” Much of the blame for this trade rests with ivory consumers who fuel the market. A recent report on The South and South East Asian Ivory Markets, published by Save the Elephants, shockingly reveals that “Wild elephant populations in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam from 1988 to 2000 have declined by over 80%... largely due to the trade in ivory and other elephant products.” The authors surveyed eight Asian counties and found over 105,000 ivory items available for retail sale. Asian elephant experts met in Cambodia in May of 2002 and approved a resolution recommending “that all proposals that encourage directly or indirectly a re-opening of trade in ivory be discouraged and that parties to the CITES vote to continue the present international trade ban on ivory and that they do not support any down listing proposals of African elephant populations.” The clear answer is the most simple: protect all elephants completely from international trade in their parts and products, particularly ivory. The permanent cessation of the ivory market is essential to the long-term viability of the global elephant population. ------------
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