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The fight against poaching: how we can save the elephant from extinction

The battle is not won, but the Elephant Protection Initiative and the Giants Club Summit are both ways in which we can protect this species from further decline

Josh Ponte
Friday 26 February 2016 13:24 GMT
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A family of elephants is pictured in the Garamba National Park, Democratic Republic of Congo in February 2016
A family of elephants is pictured in the Garamba National Park, Democratic Republic of Congo in February 2016

When an elephant is shot dead in a remote spot in the central African forest, it’s blooded tusks are removed and carried to the nearest road where they start an illicit journey that ends as a legally sold bangle on the wrist of a human being on the other side of the world. What could be more senseless than the death of our largest living land animal for a trinket.

Managing these murderous acts of consumerism involves a complex web of operators. From the hunter who pulls the trigger for pennies through to the transporters, intermediaries, traders, carvers and retailers is to name but a few. A ban on international trade is the only device available to those trying to prevent this traffic. It’s a blunt tool that requires synchronised efforts from an equally complex web of operators from international policymakers, government agencies, police, wildlife services, NGO’s, private operators and rangers. Solving the elephant crisis is not simple.

In the 1980s, new research by renowned conservationist Dr. Iain Douglas-Hamilton identified elephant populations were alarmingly low. In 1989, an international ivory ban was enforced and things calmed down for the best part of a decade. It was a triumph for elephant conservation but, over time, this position became undermined by five key issues:

  • Two legal licences were granted for sales by the southern African states to Japan and China. This opened the floodgates for illegal ivory.
  • Legal domestic markets remained open around the world - US is the second biggest.
  • Governments built up huge stockpiles of ivory.
  • There was an explosion of low and middle-income Asian consumers each with their desire to display new found wealth.
  • A lack of resources in elephant range states, both financial and technical, to deal with the poachers and the illegal trade.

By 2010, poaching was out of control once again. It had become so profitable, highly equipped, organised criminal networks jumped on the gravy train. The national wildlife agencies didn’t stand a chance. In an unprecedented moment of political consensus, the 38 African elephant range states gathered to create the African Elephant Action Plan. An emergency African Elephant Fund was launched with an initial budget proposed at US$97.3 million over 3 years. With the raft of problems the UN has had to arbitrate recently, perhaps it is unsurprising that woefully insufficient multilateral and bilateral contributions of only $2.5 million rendered the plan impotent. The indiscriminate killing continued. More than 35,000 individuals were lost every year. That’s nearly 100 elephants killed every day - to this day.

Recognising the problem, Stop Ivory moved to reinvigorate the African Elephant Action Plan through its sole purpose support of the Elephant Protection Initiative (EPI). The EPI is the predominant African mechanism set up by 5 African Presidents and the British Government, supported by key charities including Save the Elephant and Tusk. Put simply, the EPI supports African governments and their partners to protect elephants and stop the illegal trade in their ivory. It is effective because it proposes an action based roadmap with clear and quantifiable outcomes. Because it delivered results, Stop Ivory was nominated as the secretariat of the EPI. Running in concert to the UN African Elephant Fund, the EPI continues to make extraordinary progress through its simply articulated common purpose, systematic approach to action and technical support.

Pressure from the EPI members have also contributed to significant policy gains and public awareness throughout 2015. By the end of the year, the presidents of both the USA and China released statements for regulation of the two largest domestic markets in the world. However welcome this news, poaching elephants and trafficking their ivory remains at disastrous levels. If things don’t change quickly, we risk more than the disappearance of elephant populations across the continent. The global syndicates driving the illegal trade in wildlife threaten the integrity of ecosystems and local livelihoods as well as national and international security.

The Wildlife Summit in Kenya this April and the Kenyan governments spectacular example to uphold its commitment to the EPI strategy by burning 120 tons of ivory is the next opportunity to shine a spotlight on the critical work that is being done. In September, the Conference of the Parties of CITES, the United Nation’s Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, is the next significant opportunity to influence international policy and further establish the Elephant Protection Initiative (EPI) as the African focal point of global efforts to protect elephants.

There is a complex web of partners - both governmental and NGO’s - who have been brought together under the EPI to coordinate efforts that will put an end to this sorrowful chapter. Standing alone, the task is overwhelming. Together, the EPI, Stop Ivory and partners like Space for Giants are making progress… just.

100 years from now, we want people to encounter an elephant, a living elephant, free and embedded in nature, not just a dusty reliquary in a museum. Giving value to the processes of the wild world and our vital relation to it is at the heart of what we do. If we don't value the living over the dead then what future is there?

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