Although the general outlook for elephants these days is frightening — by some estimates, about 100 are killed every day in Africa to satisfy the bloody, illegal ivory trade — there have been bits of good news lately: last month, Kenya’s ceremonial burning of hundreds of confiscated illegal ivory tusks, and last week the conviction in the Republic of Congo of a Chinese national who had attempted to smuggle ivory items (five tusks, 80 chopsticks, three carvings, etc.) to China.
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The 35-year-old ivory trafficker was sentenced to four years in prison. Sadly, though, many other such criminals will never be caught. Poachers are strongly motivated to slaughter elephants, traffickers are eager to plunder the carcasses and smuggle the parts aboard, and too many merchants are all too willing to sell ivory products — and lie about their origin.
One man’s arrest in Congo isn’t much, but it’s a start. And it highlights one major cause of the recent surge in ivory demand: the burgeoning wealthy class in China, and their desire for prestige possessions — such as ivory chopsticks — that flaunt their newfound wealth.
Africa had 1.3 million elephants not too many decades ago; now there are about 450,000. The crisis is not just approaching, it’s here and, unless Chinese demand ends, the carnage will continue. Someday elephants might live only in sanctuaries or, heaven help us, zoos.
Cannot China and its people appreciate what they are doing to elephants? Surely they don’t want to deplete the world’s wildlife, do they?
It’s not just elephants who are under threat thanks to seemingly insatiable demand in the Far East. Bears are poached and “farmed” for their bile, used in traditional Chinese medicine. TCM, as it’s known, also helps explain a recent and devastating rash of rhinoceros poaching in Africa and some 20 thefts of rhino horn exhibits from European museums. South African lions are being similarly exploited by being killed and their bones exported to the Far Eastern nation of Laos — to serve some imagined and/or tradition-bound medicinal purpose.
Western countries are not blameless in wildlife poaching. We have plenty of work to do in terms of establishing strong animal-protection laws, robust enforcement of those laws and public education and delivering compassionate conservation for all creatures. We encourage China and other Far Eastern countries to join us in those efforts. Only then will there be real hope for the wild elephants, rhinos, tigers, lions and bears of the world.
Blogging off,
Will