Slaughter of the elephants
Legal ivory sale linked to poaching surge across Kenya's huge Tsavo National Park
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Reuters
An auction of legal ivory from animals like this South African elephant is thought to have encouraged poachers in Kenya
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There has been an "unprecedented" surge in elephant poaching in one of Kenya's principal national parks since a large-scale ivory sale late last year, which gave a renewed boost to the international ivory market.
The sale was of more than 100 tonnes of legal ivory from four southern African countries whose elephant populations are not threatened, Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, and Zimbabwe. It was permitted by the UN's Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) in the teeth of fierce opposition from many observers, from environmentalists to politicians, who warned it was bound to stimulate the illegal ivory trade across Africa, and increase the killing of elephants in other countries further north where elephants are much more at risk.
The Labour MP Alan Simpson said at the time: "This is obscene. This isn't a licence to trade. It's a licence to kill, and Britain should not be party to it."
Now five elephants have been killed illegally in the past six weeks in Kenya's Tsavo National Park, home to Kenya's largest single elephant population of about 11,700. Kenyan wildlife officials and conservationists are making a direct link between the recent ivory auctions and the deaths.
"We have noted an unprecedented rise of elephant poaching incidents in Tsavo," said Jonathan Kirui, Tsavo's Assistant Director. "Our security team is on full alert, and is going full force to ensure the poachers are deterred."
James Isiche, the director of the East African regional office of the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), is concerned that the incident could portend a return to the mass-poaching era of 1970s and 1980s, when African elephant numbers fell from 1.3 million to 625,000 in a decade; the international ivory trade was banned in 1989.
"We believe that there is a strong correlation between this upsurge and the ivory stockpiles sales allowed by Cites that were completed in late 2008," Mr Isiche said. "Our concern is that the situation may be even worse in other elephant range states which face more serious law enforcement capacity challenges, as compared to Kenya or some of the southern Africa countries. The situation is dire, and needs to be stopped before it escalates further."
Only last week, a leading elephant researcher, Dr Cynthia Moss, released a report indicating that an elaborate poaching syndicate had led to a surge in elephant killings in another Kenyan National Park, Amboseli. Sources in the Kenyan Wildlife Service say elephant poaching in Kenya rose by more than 60 per cent in 2008 compared to 2007.
The bodies of the five elephants recently killed in Tsavo were found, with their tusks hacked off, in three different parts of the park. Kenya Wildlife Service rangers have arrested two suspected poachers and one middleman, and recovered two AK-47 rifles and 38 rounds of ammunition.
IFAW sources say the middleman had already sold the tusks to other dealers in the illegal ivory trade network. An elephant carcass was found close by. The other elephants are suspected to have succumbed to poisoned arrow wounds.
Many people warned that such killings would increase when news of the proposed four-nation ivory auction emerged last July. It was the second time since the 1989 ivory trade ban that a sale of legal ivory (from elephants that died from natural causes) was being permitted; the first, from the same four southern African countries, of 50 tonnes of ivory, was in 1997, pushed forward by Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe, in the face of many protests.
The second sale raised even more concerns, not least because, for the first time, China was being allowed to bid as a legal ivory buyer, alongside Japan. China not only has a potentially gigantic demand for ivory, but is already the home of a flourishing underground market.
Conservationists feared that the unleashing of a massive Chinese demand for traditional and popular objects such as trinkets, name seals, expensive carvings and polished ivory tusks would itself give an enormous boost to the illegal trade, which is entirely poaching-based.
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Comments
Over twnety seven thousand Indians were brought over and about sevn thousand died building the railway and soem were eaten up by man eating lions of Tsavo.
Indeed,I was bron a British subject of the colonies and so was my dad but at the time of Inpendence in early nineteen sixties,we were kicked out through africanisation and branded as Asian Jews as most of the economy was run by asians and some were very wealthy and as everyone knows Idi Amin got rid of Asians not lock stock and barrel but the physical person.
A few years ago I went to Mombasa,place of my birth and went on a glass bottom boat with my wife to see the corals reef.
The African lads dived under the boat with bread in thier mouth as colourfull fishes fed from the bread and also the lads brought out marine life for all of us to see ,admire at close quarters and then they put the live sea creations of sea urchins,sea cucumber ,etc back in the water.
Previous they would take out the live animals flesh and sell the shell and all but they have realised that without marine life,coral shelf the tourists want come to kenya for sea side holidays as there are now many other destinations in the world and without tourists there want be any jobs for the lads or the hotels or the tour guides and the whole economy would suffer.
Furthermore,the lad showing us around told us that they watch the Chinese and Japanese tourists very closely and monitor them as they have pen knives and when they pick up a sea creature,they eat it alive and raw.
Hence,as English/British of old,and as a previous Nation of Animal lovers cant we teach a morla lesson to the world and our ex empire and colonies that short term financial gain through cruelty and barbarity will mean long term disaster and bad karma to countries like Kenya if they waste and abuse God given natural gifts and blessings of good climate,animals and wild life for a few bucks more.
Indeed,Kenya in the time of the british was more of a vegetarian place as the staple diet of africans was spinnach,fruit,and maize porridge but now folks eat meat on a massive scale with health and environmental problems for all of us to suffer.
But surely ,we as ex colonial masters ought to set an example by loving animals and leading the world by our deeds and not words and persuading,cajoling the Royals and thier henchmen not to shoot or kill birds,animals for the heck of it and stopping all abuse of farmed animals in uk and europe for starters.
I rest my case.QED
I am not questioning his conclusions. No doubt there are verifiable facts.
He ridiculed "religion" and therefore "spirituality" and "Mythology"
No doubt if he listened to his heart instead of only his mind he may have discovered
that by perceiving life forms as "religious icons" and "sacred" , religion serves as the best protection for all species, most of all elephants.I despair at the cyclopic vision of certain
scientists.Their "truth" is only one part of the "whole truth."
Colin Guest