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Poaching crisis could exterminate elephant and rhino

Posted: 05 Jul 2011 11:31 PM PDT

On 20 July2011, a consignment of 335 tusks and 41,553 hankos (Japanese signature stamps, similar to rubber stamps, but made of ivory) will be set ablaze in Kenya’s elephant stronghold, Tsavo West National Park after nearly a decade of intense arguing over the fate of this cache which was seized in Singapore in 2002. This act – considered wasteful by proponents of legal trade in elephant ivory – sharply brings back memories of the first ever public burning of ivory also staged in Kenya. On that historic day, 18 July 1989, former president Daniel arap Moi lit up 12 tonnes of ivory in a gesture that brought the plight of the African elephant to the world stage, leading to a ban in the trade. Perhaps the decision to burn the Singapore cache is a sign that elephant poaching crisis has reached the late 1980s proportions.
Ivory seized in Thailand in July 2010

Ivory seized in Thailand in July 2010 - Courtesy Daily Nation

Even as elephants have dominated the wildlife trade debate in the global scene, another animal that was nearly driven to extinction about the same time as elephants is also vying for a piece of the action. Rhinos, having been the subject of the most stringent protection policy and action, are now being threatened by extinction again. Sophisticated poaching techniques and equipment, involving the use of choppers and precision weaponry by highly organised poachers, have erased all semblance of protection for these relic species almost overnight. All because of the horn, which is highly demanded in Asian traditional medicine.

The demand for ivory and rhino horn is driven by the sudden growth in the number wealthy Chinese and the growing popularity of Asian traditional medicine throughout the world – even in Western countries. The growing demand has caused the price of the two animal parts to skyrocket, providing impetus for impoverished locals to risk the wrath of governments and wildlife authorities and dip their hands into the lucrative but dangerous trade. But it is the middlemen who are making a killing. A kilo of raw ivory procured from Kenya’s Amboseli National Park area, for instance, sells at around $50 in Tanzania, where ready buyers await any poacher with ivory to sell. the same weight of the ‘white gold’ will sell at $1500 in China – that is 3000% above the original price.

As the world debates what they should do about this crisis – and whether to ban or allow sale of ‘legal’ ivory – these two animals continue to lose critical battles in the war for survival. The numbers are shocking. In the first six months of this year, South Africa has already lost 193 rhinos to poachers, the bulk of which (some 126 of them) were killed in the country’s tourist favorite park: Kruger National Park. If killing continues in this pace, the number of rhinos lost will easily beat last year’s record smashing 333 rhinos. Compare this with the 2007 rate where only 13 rhinos were poached.

Tufts of hair with no medicinal value - Courtesy Bush Warriors

Tanzania, who still feel they should sell their 90 tonnes of ivory stockpile, have perhaps seen the worst of ivory poaching since the late 1980s. Between 2006 and 2009, Tanzania’s elephant population declined by more than 30,000 elephants, primarily from poaching to supply black-market ivory to Asia. Tanzania still had the audacity to apply for downgrading their elephant population from the highest protection cartegory (Appendix 1 of CITES) and to seek a one-off sale for their ivory during the 15th conference of CITES in Doha, Qatar. Luckily, their mission failed to convince other delegates. Such applications, however, have succeeded before with catastrophic effects. “Time after time, CITES actions to allow supposedly limited ivory sales stimulate a massive escalation in elephant poaching and ivory smuggling all across Africa,” said Allan Thornton, President of Washington, DC and London-based environmental watchdog Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA).

Both elephant and rhino poaching are being operated by highly organized international crime rings not far removed from the drug trafficking cartels of this world. “South Africa is fighting a war against organized crime that risks reversing the outstanding conservation gains it made over the past century,” said Joseph Okori, WWF’s African rhino programme coordinator about the rhino poaching crisis in South Africa in a report on the WWF website.

What these numbers and reports tell us is that we are about to witness the extinction of two of the largest mammals on earth. Imagine a world without elephants or rhinos, the only memory of which are finely curved ivory statuettes of a rotund Buddha, a few old photos of elephants and rhinos, a couple of Jambiya knife handles and a dusty half empty jar of medicinal goo with a rhino picture and Chinese characters on the label that you forgot in the attic. That picture is clearly disturbing. That is why we must all end this carnage – for our own sake, and that of our children, and our children’s children.

As Tom Milliken, Elephant & Rhino Programme Coordinator with TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade monitoring group says “Only a concerted international enforcement pincer movement, at both ends of the supply and demand chain, can hope to nip this rhino poaching crisis in the bud.” The same goes for elephant ivory trade.

Article & photos at:  http://baraza.wildlifedirect.org/