“Tuskers.”That’s the nickname they are affectionately called here in East Africa.
But when 200 great African elephants were found slaughtered across the continent in a salt marsh 500 miles north of Brazzaville, Congo, in September, it was obvious that affection had nothing to do with it. The depredation was the “worst-ever” case of ivory poaching in the history of the west central African nation. Like putrid monuments to human greed, mountains of rotting meat were left behind.
The entire global elephant population residing on two continents may be in free fall, despite protections imposed eight years ago. According to the World Wildlife Fund in Washington, D.C., the total population of 600,000 elephants in Africa is threatened by poaching today. That population is down from about 620,000 in 1990 and 1.2 million ten years ago–an abrupt decline of 50 percent.
Because of habitat loss, a meager population of 35,000 to 50,000 Asian elephants is declining even more quickly. In Vietnam the elephant population has been reduced by 75 percent in the last quarter century, to the point where there are only between 300 and 400 left. And no more than 300 of the beasts are believed to remain in all of China.
Here in Africa, the romantic visage of the world’s largest living land animal, one that can reach 10 feet in height and weigh up to 3,500 pounds, is everywhere. It is sculpted in mahogany and rosewood, in jade and sandstone; and it is painted on everything from scarves and leather goods to stamps and beer labels.
The elephant is lionized because it is as noble, brave and mysterious as it is huge, ponderous and, at least in the ancient world, ubiquitous. It held sway not only over this great continent, but from modern Iraq and Syria all the way to China’s Yellow River.
Today, South Africa boasts the world’s biggest and best-managed pachyderm population. But in stark contrast, Tanzania has in recent years cut the budget of the natural resources department that protects the beasts by 97 percent. It is but the most dramatic example of an ominous trend on the continent.
Experts say that an ivory ban imposed in 1989, under the Convention on International Trade and Endangered Species (CITES), will help protect elephants only in conjunction with adequate park management, anti-poaching patrols and law enforcement. But funding for such purposes is being reduced. And countries in southern Africa have begun arguing that the ivory trade should be legalized anew. Holding huge stockpiles of pre-ban ivory, nations such as South Africa, Malawi and Zimbabwe want to cash in before their stores of “white gold” are depleted through theft.
Other pressures threaten the elephant, as well. As humans increasingly compete with them–and with one another–for habitat, the big-eared beasts are increasingly being seen either as walking slabs of meat, repositories of ivory or huge pests. In India alone, displaced elephants are responsible for the deaths of up to 300 people a year, says the World Wildlife Fund.
Developed countries must help more, especially through increased funding. We need to assist the developing nations of Africa and Asia to properly manage these treasures of the animal world on behalf of us all. Congressional passage of the African Elephant Conservation Act in 1988 and donations by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service were an important start. However, as African governments increasingly confront civil wars, regional conflicts, genocide and mass refugee movements, they require much more help than before.
“People have to want to live with the elephants,” says Cheri Sugal, a natural resource economist at the Worldwatch Institute in Washington, D.C., who makes the case for biodiversity in Africa. Sugal points out that programs to help local populations live with and benefit from the presence of elephants may be the key to the animals’ survival. One program that Worldwatch is promoting is called CAMPFIRE, an acronym that stands in part for Communal Area Management Program.
Local communities have to see the benefits of properly managing the elephant population before they stop considering them as adversaries. Sugal acknowledges that such management can include culling the elephant population. Local residents can benefit through the well-regulated sale of hunting licenses. In the greater scheme of things, such pragmatism helps everyone, including the elephants. Tusk love, as it were.
“The reason people say there are too many elephants in places like Zimbabwe is that we’re confining them to smaller and smaller areas,” says Sugal of Worldwatch. “The real question is, how do you integrate people who need to live with wildlife?” Experts will have a chance to answer the question when they meet in Zimbabwe in June under the CITES convention. The world should hope they don’t forget what happened in Congo in September.
