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Charity Appeal: The Weapons that Bring Death to The Savannah

12/30/2013

Source: Independent.co.uk

By Vidhi Doshi

Elephant poachers are using firearms left over from Mozambique’s civil war to slaughter elephants in neighbouring Tanzania.

The wildest sound on the savannah is not the lion’s roar, but the elephant’s trumpet. When he senses a lurking poacher, the elephant screams, loud and shrill, to alert the herd and scare his enemy.

The poacher, standing only a few feet away takes aim and fires. The elephant screams again, before he collapses in a heap. One bullet will rarely kill an adult elephant, and it takes many minutes before the life drains away.

Military weapons such as AK-47s are increasingly used by poachers. Bullets from these guns weigh too little to penetrate the elephant’s thick skull so an instant death is rare. In the meantime, poachers carve out the elephant’s tusks – never sparing the valuable inches of ivory lodged firmly inside his head. A local poacher will sell a kilogram of ivory for as little as 80,000 Tanzanian shillings or £30.

Max Jenes is patrol manager for the Pams Foundation, a conservation organisation based in Tanzania. He and his team of 200 scouts who guard Tanzania’s southern border with Mozambique have witnessed the growth in weapons coming into the country over the past five years. “Since 2011, we have started to concentrate our efforts on the boundary because most of the firearms being used against wildlife are coming in from Mozambique.

“Almost every patrol we do along the Rovuma river we arrest people with firearms. We usually get nine or 10 firearms in a single patrol.”

The foundation’s most recent report from August 2013 documents the seizure of 473 firearms and 1,138 rounds of ammunition in the previous 12 months. It also found 255 elephant carcasses, 17 other wildlife carcasses and confiscated 118 ivory tusks. The foundation works alongside local communities and the government to prevent poaching and reduce human-elephant conflict in the Selous-Niassa corridor, an area around half the size of the UK.

The ivory, worth thousands of pounds can be carried in on foot, small boats or motorcycles and even on buses. There are also cases of trucks carrying ivory disguised as government vehicles that go unchecked at borders, where the guards are often complicit in the smuggling operations. Last month, an immigration official from Mozambique was caught with 16 tusks.

Ivory is smuggled both ways but mostly from Mozambique into Tanzania. From the southern border, it is transported to the capital, Dar es Salaam, before being taken abroad. More....

Elephants Pushed Toward Extinction as Terrorist Groups Bankrolled With Ivory Trade to US and China

12/23/2013

Source: Alternet.org

By Richard Schiffman

I was choking back tears by the end of my interview with Andrea Turkalo.

Turkalo is one of the founding members of the Elephant Listening Project, which is documenting elephants' ability to communicate, often using low-frequency sounds below the threshold of human hearing. She is conducting her fieldwork at Dzanga Bai, an idyllic clearing in the Dzanga-Ndoki National Park in the Central African Republic (CAR) where elephants come to drink the mineral-rich waters and wallow in the mud.

Unlike their cousins on the open savannah, forest elephants are typically hidden by thick jungle and difficult to track. Scientists often locate the reclusive animals by monitoring their vocalizations, some of which can be detected from miles away.

Despite being one of the best protected sites in the region, heavily armed poachers entered Dzanga Bai last May butchering 26 elephants, mostly mothers and their calves. They fired their automatic weapons from the observation platforms used by researchers themselves, leaving behind a horrific crime scene. The grassy glade, usually teeming with elephant family groups emotionally reuniting after weeks of wandering in small bands through the forest, was littered with piles of elephant parts, bones and blood-soaked scraps of skin.

Tragically, such scenes are becoming commonplace throughout Central Africa. An astonishing 60 percent of the region’s forest elephants have been lost in the first decade of the 21st century, and they have disappeared entirely from over half of their range in just the past 30 years. The forest elephant is regarded by biologists as a separate species from the more numerous and larger bush elephants of the African plains, but it is under the same unrelenting pressure from poachers, who are slaughtering them in order to hack off their tusks.

Elephant ivory is fashioned into intricately carved statues, jewelry and religious icons, which are in demand worldwide, but especially prized in East Asia and the Philippines—a $7 billion to $10 billion a year business. Most ivory is processed in China, but a lot of the carving is now being done in Africa itself, particularly in Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The prime subject for African carvers, ironically enough, is elephants. Ivory elephants may already outnumber the living creatures, which are being killed at the unsustainable rate of 35,000 per year. Fully eight out of 10 elephants now die as a result of poaching rather than from natural causes.

The frenzy to obtain ivory is accelerating, as many Asian economies boom and prices for the increasingly rare luxury items soar. Andrea Turkalo knows all about this frenzy. Last March, she managed to escape from advancing Séléka guerilla fighters who were descending on the nation’s capital Bangui to stage the coup that ousted former CAR President François Bozizé. Turkalo is now back in the states waiting for things to settle down before returning to Africa. Groups like the Séléka train their guns on innocent civilians as well as the wild elephants in their path. More....

Prince William Calls for End to 'Greed-Driven Poaching Epidemic'

12/22/2013

Source: Independent.co.uk

By Oliver Poole

The Duke of Cambridge yesterday called on the world to halt Africa's "poaching epidemic" after he joined Labour leader Ed Miliband in becoming the latest public figures to back The Independent on Sunday's Christmas appeal.

The campaign, with support from our sister newspapers The Independent, the i paper and the Evening Standard, is raising funds to combat the illeg trade presently killing around 100 elephants a day.

Prince William recently established United for Wildlife, an alliance of seven leading conservation bodies, to try to end poaching. He has previously warned that the "catastrophe" facing rhinos and other species could make them extinct within our lifetime.

"The poaching of rhino and elephants on an industrial scale is one of the great conservation crises of the 21st century," he told The Independent on Sunday. "The rate at which we are losing these animals is staggering and heartbreaking.

"Tackling species conservation is crucial, not only because of the plain and simple wrong that is being done, but, more than this, because it symbolises the challenges between us and the natural world. If we cannot halt this poaching epidemic, driven in large part by ignorance and greed, how will we ever be able to tackle more complex conservation issues?"

The Prince, who is also patron of the conservation charity Tusk, continued: "The world of conservation needs our support. Though these issues often seem remote, they touch each of us in one form or another, now and in the future. But, while the scale of the problem is massive, I am hugely heartened by the gathering efforts of governments and people across the world to help tackle it.

"I have been fortunate to see these incredible, beautiful yet touchingly vulnerable animals up close, and I am absolutely delighted that The Independent and the Evening Standard are shining a much-needed spotlight on this issue."

Mr Miliband also gave his "whole-hearted" support to The IoS campaign, saying he was particularly concerned how "the illegal trade in ivory funds war and terrorism".

Al-Shabaab, the Somalia extremists who carried out the massacre in Nairobi's Westgate mall, has known links to ivory poaching, as does Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army and Janjaweed, the militia behind the genocide in Darfur.

Our campaign is in support of the charity Space for Giants, which provides anti-poaching rangers and is developing a new conservancy in East Africa. More....

At This Rate, Elephants will be Wiped Out Within 10 Years

12/18/2013

Source: Independent.co.uk

By Zac Goldsmith

Up to 40,000 elephants, on average, are killed every year. That equates to one every 15 minutes. If that rate were to apply continuously, it would render the species extinct in the wild within 10 years. It is a tragedy, by any standard, that Africa has already lost some 90% of its elephants in the past half-century.

What makes it an even greater tragedy is that the world so nearly put an end to that madness a few decades ago. In 1989, a worldwide ban on the international trade in ivory was approved by CITES, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. Levels of poaching fell dramatically‹not completely, but dramatically and the black market prices of ivory slumped.

However, only 10 years later, malignant interests were able to have their way, as ever, and so-called 'one-off' sales were allowed. For example, Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe were allowed an experimental one-off sale of more than 49,000 kg of ivory to Japan. In 2002, a further one off-sale was approved, which resulted in 105,000 kg of ivory being shipped to China and Japan. With so much legal ivory on the market, illegal ivory was easy to pass off, and demand simply rocketed.

More elephant tusks were seized in 2011 than in any year since 1989, when the trade was banned. Sierra Leone lost its last wild elephant in 2009, and Senegal has only around five or ten elephants left. Congo has lost 90% of their wild elephant population, and so on through all the elephant states.

This intelligent, thoughtful creature is being wiped from the earth, and not for any noble reasons. By and large, they are being butchered so that mindless people, many of them Chinese, can buy chopsticks, toothpicks, combs and other trinkets.

Beyond the sheer pettiness of the trinkets, there is a more sinister motivation too. Ivory tusks and rhino horns are being hoarded as investments that rise in value as the species are depleted. In other words, investors buy these commodities in the hope that their source the great species will dry up.

To any thinking person, this matters in and of itself, but anyone tempted to imagine that it is a remote concern to people in this country should think again, because this dark industry fuels terrorism and the worst forms of violence around the world. The Foreign Secretary, William Hague, recognised that in his comments at the UN in New York, when he said that: the illegal trade in these animals is not just an environmental tragedy; it strikes at the heart of local communities by feeding corruption and undermining stability in what are already fragile states. And the profits from the trade pose an increasing threat to security by funding criminal gangs and terrorism.

In September, the Foreign Office stated that it was aware of reports that al-Shabaab, the al-Qaeda-backed Somali terror group, is being funded by ivory. Just two weeks later, there were the appalling attacks at the Westgate mall in Nairobi. Some 40 per cent of al-Shabaab's funding is thought to come from ivory. Blood ivory has also helped to finance al-Qaeda. More....

Poaching ‘Militarisation’

12/10/2013

Source: Themarjancentre.wordpress.com

By Stephane Crane

The exponential militarization of the ivory trade is adding another dimension to what is already a major conservation matter. In a recent talk, “Insurgency, the Ivory Trade and Porous Borders”, Dr. Keith Somerville, Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London, considered the political aspects of poaching, looking at various rebel groups across the Africa continent – from Cameroon to Kenya – and whether they fund their insurgencies from ivory sales.

The historical span of Dr. Somerville’s research encompasses two thousand years of legal ivory trade, including when it was closely associated with the slave trade, up to the late 1980s when the trade in ivory was banned altogether.

The illegal profits remained predominantly with corrupt politicians and criminal networks up until the 1980s-90s, said Dr Somerville. Then demand from a booming Japanese middle-class re-ignited poaching, and though the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) banned ivory sales in 1989 they did issue permits allowing sales of existing stockpiles.

For Dr. Somerville this period saw the first examples of ‘political poaching’; as the illegal trade intensified, countries with no reported elephant populations filed for ivory export permits and concluded sales, much like conflict diamonds in Liberia. Similarly, Zimbabwean (then Rhodesian) Special Forces, supported by South African military intelligence units, funded operations in Angola and Mozambique with ivory sales through these same CITES loopholes.

Today militarized poaching from the Indian to the Atlantic oceans, covering Somalia, Kenya, northern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), south Sudan, the Central African Republic (CAR), and northern Cameroon, forms a quasi-continuous zone where porous borders and insurgencies have become interlinked, and to some extent inter-dependent.

Dr. Somerville pointed out that there is an “ivory belt” which overlaps with numerous insurgencies; indeed, cross-border poaching incursions into northern Cameroon and the DRC, conducted by the Janjaweed militias as well as shamefully by the Ugandan and Congolese military forces, testifies to the security vacuum in this region.

Dr. Somerville includes groups like the Lords Resistance Army (LRA), a nomadic movement that avoids counter-insurgency initiatives and uses ivory as income while their suspected co-operation with the Séléka, currently the dominant security force in CAR, is also a matter of concern. More....

Without Action Against the Renewed Scourge of Poaching, these Giants of Nature will Vanish

12/1/2013

Source: Independent.co.uk

By Evgeny Lebedev

The bloodied carcasses of elephants now being discovered in shocking numbers across Africa are not the only reason the present poaching crisis is a tragedy that must urgently be addressed.

It is also because of the conservation rangers and wildlife policemen, often hopelessly ill-equipped and out-gunned, being killed in an increasingly militarised conflict that the poachers at this point are winning.

It is the villagers being forced from their homes or threatened with retribution if they do not help those intent on feeding Asia’s seemingly insatiable appetite for ivory.

It is the criminal networks that are using the vast sums that can be made - a gram of ivory in many parts of Asia now being worth more than a gram of gold - to further spread corruption and undermine the rule of law in sovereign states and treat international treaties with contempt.

One hears of government officials, port authorities, even crews on national airlines, all bent by the power of hard currency to turn a blind eye or assist in the destruction of one of the world’s most iconic wild animals and to help fuel the growth of ruthless criminal gangs.

For these elephant hunters are not just local people undertaking their traditional hunting practices or desperate farmers frustrated by elephants trampling their crops, although both do still exist.

Rather they include organisations that rank among the most loathsome in the world: al-Shabaab, the Somalia extremists who carried out the slaughter in Nairobi’s Westgate mall, Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army, which routinely kidnaps and drugs children to turn them into child soldiers, and Janjaweed, the roving gunmen who carried out the genocide in Darfur.

That is why we at the Independent have chosen to focus on this issue for our 2013 Christmas Campaign. Together we can not only do something to try to stop the slaughter of the animals bearing the brunt of this avarice but also, both through the money raised and by campaigning on the key issues involved, help those whose lives are being blighted by this unfolding crisis.

There is no question the present number of elephant deaths is horrific. The booming of the Asian economies saw the emergence of an extensive middle class that in many cases continued to see ivory as an aspirational product, and now had the disposable money to buy it. The law of supply and demand then meant the price rocketed and the number of killings soar.

The tragedy is that many in Asia do not appreciate the consequence of their purchases as it is not universally known elephants are killed for their ivory. More....

Elephants are the Latest Conflict Resource

12/1/2013

Source: UN.org

By Pavithra Rao

An average of about 45 elephants per day were illegally killed in 2011 in every two of five protected sites holding elephant populations in Africa, thanks to the growing illegal trade in ivory, which continues to threaten the survival of elephants on the continent. A joint report by four international conservation organizations says that 17,000 elephants were killed in 2011 alone and the amount of ivory seized has tripled over the last decade.

“Organized criminal networks are cashing in on the elephant poaching crisis, trafficking ivory in unprecedented volumes and operating with relative impunity and with little fear of prosecution,” says Tom Milliken, an expert on ivory trade with TRAFFIC, a global wildlife trade monitoring network.

The joint report, Elephants in the Dust: The African Elephant Crisis, released this year, warns that increasing poaching levels, as well as loss of habitat, are threatening the survival of African elephant populations in Central Africa and in previously secure populations in West, Southern and Eastern Africa. The report was produced by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the Wildlife Trade Monitoring Network (TRAFFIC).

The 17,000 elephants illegally killed in 2011 lived at sites monitored through the CITES-led Monitoring Illegal Killing of Elephants programme; these sites hold approximately 40% of the total elephant population in Africa. The report warns that initial data from 2012 show that the situation had not improved, and that the true figures may be much higher.

Long ago elephants used to roam freely in Africa, finding paradise in places like Côte d’Ivoire, which literally means “the coast of ivory.” Even the country’s national football team, Les Éléphants, derives its name from the mighty animal. The elephant population of Côte d’Ivoire has since dropped dramatically, with only about 800 remaining throughout the country. The drive to save elephants has become the latest frontier in the conflict over natural resources in Africa.

“Like blood diamonds from Sierra Leone or plundered minerals from Congo, ivory, it seems, is the latest conflict resource in Africa, dragged out of remote battle zones, easily converted into cash and now fueling conflicts across the continent,” according to Jeffrey Gettleman of the New York Times. More....

Every 15 Minutes An Elephant Is Killed For Its Ivory: This Is What The U.S. Did To Stop It

12/1/2013

Source: Collective-evolution.com

By Jeff Roberts

Recently the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service made a powerful statement after pulverizing an enormous stockpile of ivory, 6 tons of it to be exact, in efforts to bring awareness to the seriousness of the declining African elephant population. The event was held at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge outside Denver, Colorado in mid-November. Elephant poaching is a global crisis, supported mainly by organized crime syndicates.

“We’re doing this to send a signal to the world that we need to crush the illegal trade in ivory and wildlife products in general,” U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Dan Ashe stated. “These magnificent animals are in great jeopardy because of the commercial trade for their parts.” The ivory was pulverized into powder and small nuggets using a rock crusher that was about the size of two dump trucks.

The U.S. is prepared to pay up to $1 million for information leading to the dismantling of the Laos-based Xaysavang Network, considered one of the world’s most prolific organized crime groups trafficking wildlife said John Kerry, U.S. Secretary of State.

Black market workings of the Xaysayang Network pull in an estimated $10 billion annually, contributing to arms, narcotics, and human trafficking in countries such as South Africa, Mozambique, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam and China.

Elephant slaughter numbers are difficult to stomach, with an estimated 30 000 deaths in 2012 correlated with the illegal ivory trade. There are only 500 000 elephants expected to be alive in Africa today. “Within 10 years, at the current rate of poaching, central African elephants will likely be extinct,” said Crawford Allan, the WWF illegal wildlife trade expert and a senior director at TRAFFIC, a wildlife traffic monitoring network. “We will see a very bleak future for elephants unless we can turn this tide right now.”

The destruction of ivory stockpiles can make waves that change the world. When Kenya burnt its ivory in 1989 it precipitated the ban on international trade in ivory that served Africa’s elephants well for twenty years. In the past 5 years we’ve seen a new surge of underground ivory trade, likened to the growing trend of social status emblems made from ivory, particularly in Asian countries.

The extent of the ivory trade isn’t just affecting elephants and the environment anymore either, with terrorist groups like the al-Shabaab (the suspected affiliates behind the Kenya mall shooting in September) supposedly being funded by the underground money from the ivory black market. Ivory is considered the “white gold” in the African value system. More....

Can Charles and Wills Win War on Ivory Gangs Who Fund Terror? How Chinese Lust for Elephant Tusks Selling at £650,000 For a Pair is Fuelling a Deadly Trade... and the Wrath of Princes

11/30/2013

Source: Dailymail.co.uk

By Martin Fletcher

Few sights are as repulsive as that of a poached elephant or rhinoceros carcass rotting in the African bush. Their heads have been hacked with axes to remove the tusks or horns. Their eye sockets are empty. Their bodies, or what remains of them after the vultures, jackals and hyenas have eaten their fill, seethe with maggots and flies.

The beasts’ bodily fluids have turned the ground to mud, and the stench is appalling. The contrast with the majesty of those animals, and with the natural beauty all around, can easily overwhelm you.

That is what happened to Prince William who, while preparing for a television interview in September, was shown a video of a rhino bleeding to death. His eyes brimmed with tears.

‘He was very, very emotional. He just about held it together,’ said an aide. On screen, the Prince explained: ‘Wildlife is incredibly vulnerable and I feel a real protective instinct, more so now that I’m a father, which is why I get emotional about it.’

Now he has thrown himself into the fight for their protection from an illicit trade that not only leaves a trail of heartbreaking destruction but which increasingly is being used to fund a deadly assortment of terror groups.

In a statement to The Mail on Sunday, William said: ‘In the face of the threat to these species it is natural to feel powerless, but I have seen the extraordinary impact of advances in protection on the ground and the power of some media in reducing demand for these products.

‘Each one of us can help by raising our voices to support them. We have to be the generation that stopped the illegal wildlife trade.’

Last week William joined Prince Charles – who initiated their concern – at Clarence House to unveil their most ambitious venture yet: a government-sponsored London summit in February.

Together with David Cameron, William Hague and Environment Secretary Owen Paterson, they will urge heads of government or foreign ministers of 50 countries to fight back against those destroying Africa’s natural heritage to feed the avarice of Asia, where tusks and horns end up. More....

African Elephant Survival Tops Agenda at Botswana Talks

11/29/2013

Source: Za.news.yahoo.com

By Jean Liou

African ministers and experts meet next week in Botswana to chart ways to stamp out a spike in elephant killings fuelled by a growing demand for ivory in Asia.

"Poaching of elephants and associated ivory trafficking remain of grave concern," said Richard Thomas, spokesman for the animal conservation group Traffic.

The three-day meeting opening on Monday in Gaborone has been organised by the Botswana government and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

Poaching has risen sharply in Africa in recent years and the illegal ivory trade has tripled since 1998, according to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

Large-scale seizures of ivory destined for Asia have more than doubled since 2009 and reached an all-time high in 2011.

The meeting expects to adopt a pact that will commit signatories, including the biggest ivory markets such as China, to demonstrate political will at the highest level in the fight against poaching and ivory trafficking.

IUCN said increasing poaching levels and loss of habitat are threatening the survival of elephants in central Africa as well as in previously secure havens in west, southern and east Africa.

There are less than half a million elephants left in Africa compared with 1.2 million in 1980 and 10 million in 1900.

Poachers are becoming more sophisticated using helicopters and automatic weapons as the price of ivory on the black market shot up tenfold in the past decade to more than $2,000 per kilogramme.

The tusk of an adult 30-year-old elephant can weigh around 20 kilogrammes (44 pounds), according to experts. More....

The Militarized Ivory War: Making Wildlife a Security Issue

11/18/2013

Source: Eturbonews.com

By Daniel Stiles

Elephant and rhino poaching in Africa have been rising; the Western black rhino has just been declared extinct. Demand in Asia, particularly China, for these animals' tusks and horns has been identified as the main cause of the rise in poaching. Many organisations are moving towards a militarised anti-poacher approach, but there is scant evidence this approach is working.

The media, guided by certain non-governmental organisations, have reported claims that terrorist groups such as Al-Shabaab and the Janjaweed are funded by elephant poaching. The shocking Westgate Mall incident in Nairobi in September was perpetrated by Al-Shabaab. One writer ventured that the attack could have been financed with only five elephant tusks.

Increasingly, elephant poaching is being linked to organised crime and terrorism, elevating the issue to one of national security. Protecting national security inevitably leads to calls for “sophisticated counter-guerilla warfare”.

The call for militarized anti-poaching measures

Are we to see the emergence of anti-poaching Blackwaters to take on the criminals that are massacring precious elephants? Anti-poaching consultant Nir Kalron - who has a military background - says “If ranger units are not sufficient to stop the poaching gangs … military sweeps may be necessary… [A\n aggressive ‘shock’ campaign is in order; to achieve such results, the use of large infantry and Special Forces units is needed.”

He continues, writing that hi-tech surveillance should be used: drones, night-vision goggles, GPS trackers, etc. and that “the creation of focused task forces with ‘carte blanche’ – supported financially and professionally by NGOs and security professionals – will offer a possible recipe for success.”

The highest levels in the US and the UN, supported by conservation and animal welfare NGOs, seem to be buying this message. For example, the recently launched Clinton Global Initiative has pledged a US$80 million effort to fight the illegal ivory trade, with a further US$70 million to be raised specifically for anti-poaching.

Making wildlife a security issue

In 2012, Hillary Clinton (US Secretary of State at the time) publicly called an unprecedented amount of attention to the illegal wildlife trade. More....

Poaching - The Cheetahs of the Serengeti Face Extinction

11/16/2013

Source: Theecologist.org

By Verity Largo

Poaching is no longer about one man and a bow and arrow: it is a huge business, akin to international networks, sprawling across continents. From baby cheetahs, 'medicinal' rhino horn to carved elephant tusks, poaching is identified as a major threat to global stability, the environment.

"Most days I'm bouncing around on bad roads for hours, I've lost count of the punctures." Helen O'Neill lifts out her two rocks that are wedging the back wheels stationary, plops them in the car, takes out the jack, and fixes on the newly punctured tyre to the tailgate of the jeep.

Helen's morning commute must rank as one of the most splendid in the world. At 6.20am, after a quick boiled kettle wash in a bowl, a coffee, she drives off into the 2200 sq km area of the North Serengeti that she surveys, as part of the Cheetah Project.

We're out looking for cheetahs with the Serengeti Cheetah Project. The main remit is to compile basic information about their habits and movements, across a long period of time. We've been driving for four hours, past numerous delighted tourists ogling bucking wilderbeest, startled zebra, colobus monkey, hartebeest, dik diks, oryx, rindebuck, lions and even a leopard.

The cheetah project works in collaboration with Serengeti National Parks, and Tanzanian Wildlife Research institute, the most famous, and oldest cheetah project in the world. Helen isn't comfortable commenting on poaching.

The conservation world in East Africa is highly political, and people must tread carefully: their visas and ability to keep working in a focussed area rest on not being too critical of East African governments. The tourist industry needs live elephants, not slaughtered carcasses that are funding arms to bomb shopping malls.

Poaching is literally the elephant in the room. It's everywhere and massively on the rise. Al Jazeera says sixty elephants a day are killed in Tanzania. Recently the East African Wildlife Society commented:

"The data collected over the last 24 months shows a massive escalation in the rate of illegal killing of elephants. The situation is now so bad that by most measures it can be considered out of control and certainly beyond the limits of what elephant populations can sustain." More....

The Ivory War: Militarised Tactics Won't Work

11/9/2013

Source: Sbs.com.au

By Daniel Stiles

Elephant and rhino poaching in Africa have been rising; the Western black rhino has just been declared extinct. Demand in Asia, particularly China, for these animals' tusks and horns has been identified as the main cause of the rise in poaching. Many organisations are moving towards a militarised anti-poacher approach, but there is scant evidence this approach is working.

The media, guided by certain non-governmental organisations, have reported claims that terrorist groups such as Al-Shabaab and the Janjaweed are funded by elephant poaching.

The shocking Westgate Mall incident in Nairobi in September was perpetrated by Al-Shabaab. One writer ventured that the attack could have been financed with only five elephant tusks.

Increasingly, elephant poaching is being linked to organised crime and terrorism, elevating the issue to one of national security. Protecting national security inevitably leads to calls for “sophisticated counter-guerilla warfare”.

The call for militarised anti-poaching measures
Are we to see the emergence of anti-poaching Blackwaters to take on the criminals that are massacring precious elephants?

Anti-poaching consultant Nir Kalron - who has a military background - says “If ranger units are not sufficient to stop the poaching gangs … military sweeps may be necessary… [A\n aggressive ‘shock’ campaign is in order; to achieve such results, the use of large infantry and Special Forces units is needed.”

He continues, writing that hi-tech surveillance should be used: drones, night-vision goggles, GPS trackers, etc. and that “the creation of focused task forces with ‘carte blanche’ – supported financially and professionally by NGOs and security professionals – will offer a possible recipe for success.”

The highest levels in the US and the UN, supported by conservation and animal welfare NGOs, seem to be buying this message. More....

Wildlife Officials: Africa Needs Drones To Fight Poachers

11/5/2013

Source: Afkinsider.com

By Dana Sanchez

Conservationists and rangers lack the technology to fight increasingly sophisticated poachers in Africa and if species such as elephants, rhinos and tigers are to survive, they’re going to need help, according to a report in TheEpochTimes.

Help – as in a drone that is affordable, durable, and easy to maintain – wildlife experts said in the report.

The battle between poachers and conservationists fighting in Africa over entire species may be won or lost on whoever has the superior technology, the report said.

The future of elephant and rhino populations in central Africa are in jeopardy as prices and demand for animal parts soar in Asia. Poaching is increasing, and wildlife officials are fighting back, testing new technologies such as drones and DNA analysis, and seeking improved ranger training.

But the technology that is available is not affordable or transferable for protecting elephants and rhinos, said Crawford Allan, World Wildlife Federation senior director.

The rate of poaching is unprecedented, Allan said Oct. 31 at a news conference at the National Press Club. Allan is the author of publications on wildlife trafficking, species conservation and wildlife enforcement.

Technology is more important than ever in meeting the crisis, he said.

Protecting wildlife such as elephants and rhinos has changed dramatically, Allan said. He described poachers as well-armed opponents, militias and terrorists who ”own the night.” By comparison, rangers are “under equipped and under resourced,” with a “frightening job to guard wildlife.” More....

Conservationists Hope Technology, Ranger Training Will Defeat Poachers

11/5/2013

Source: Theepochtimes.com

By Gary Feuerberg

Poaching and international trafficking of elephant ivory and rhino horns has worsen in the last couple of years, and now the future of elephant and rhino populations in central Africa are in jeopardy. The prices and demand for these animal parts are soaring in Asia.

Wildlife conservationists are fighting back, pilot-testing new technologies, such as drones and DNA analysis, and seeking improved ranger training.

The battle between the poachers and the conservationists may be won or lost on whoever has the superior technology. Programs that come to the aid of the beleaguered rangers also show promise in helping to reverse the trend.

“We see a crisis unfolding before our eyes, an unprecedented rate [of poachers\ we haven’t seen for close to a decade,” said Crawford Allan, World Wildlife Fund senior director, and author of several publications on wildlife trafficking, species conservation, and wildlife enforcement.

Allan said technology is more important now than ever in meeting the crisis. “The technology that is currently available is not affordable or transferable for protecting elephants and rhinos for conservation purposes,” Allan said Oct. 31 at a news conference at the National Press Club.

The Richardson Center for Global Engagement, WWF, and African Parks sponsored this news conference and a workshop for experts from government, NGOs and technology firms. The three organizations have joined together in a partnership to combat wildlife trafficking in Africa.

Allan said that protecting wildlife, such as elephants and rhinoceroses, has changed dramatically, with increasing demand from Asia, and “poachers who own the night,” rangers “underequipped and under resourced,” with the “frightening job to guard wildlife” against well-armed opponents, militias and terrorists. More....

Poaching Peace and Security

11/4/2013

Source: Isn.ethz.ch

By J. Peter Pham

From the Janjaweed militia of Sudan to the Central African Republic’s Séléka alliance, rebels across Africa are relying on money generated by poaching. What’s fueling this unfortunate phenomenon? According to J. Peter Pham, it’s the demands of increasingly prosperous Asian clients.

Last week, former rebels loyal to the opposition Mozambican National Resistance (RENAMO) announced that they were abandoning the twenty-one year old peace accord with the government of the southern African country after army troops overran a remote jungle base. The military action followed a spate of attacks on arms depots as well as civilian buses earlier this year. A return to the 1975-1995 civil war could threaten the economic boom which Mozambique has been experiencing in recent years, fueled by coal mining operations as well as the world’s largest natural gas discovery in the past decade. While grievances with the government may have motivated this latest rebellion, it is money from illegal wildlife products that is financing the violence.

But if RENAMO is able to once again mount an insurgency, it won’t be because the movement has much by way of popular support (its support has dwindled with each election since it entered politics and RENAMO leader Afonso Dhlakama barely received one-sixth of the votes cast in the 2009 presidential election) or because it is once again backed by white-minority regimes in neighboring Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, or South Africa (both countries have transitioned to majority rule). Rather it will be because of the lifeline which it has managed to grasp by poaching, both in Mozambique and in South Africa, whose Kruger National Park sits right on the border. South African officials report that poachers—90 percent of whom they believe to be operating across the border—had killed 536 rhinoceroses during the first half of 2013, making it likely that this year’s toll will exceed the 668 slaughtered last year.

Once sawed off, the ungulates’ horns are trafficked to East Asia—Vietnam and China are, respectively, the largest and second-largest markets—where they fetch upwards of $80,000 per kilogram. Since the average rhino horn weighs about nine kilograms and the loss rate is about 2.5 animals per day in just South Africa, what one looking at is a trade worth $657 million annually—and that is counting just the rhinos poached in one country. While not every kill can be laid at the door of RENAMO, the big jump in poaching the last few years parallels the return to the bush of the hardcore remnant of the group following its most recent electoral trouncing and interviews with both law enforcement officials and conservationists indicate that it also plays a lucrative role as a middle man in cases where the slaughter is carried out by poor local people. (Trading in illegal animal products is nothing new the Mozambican rebels who, during the late 1970s and 1980s, often with the collusion of South Africa’s apartheid-era military and intelligence services, established a rather efficient ivory harvesting operation which generated hundreds of millions of dollars to not only destabilize Southern Africa’s “frontline” states, but also line the pockets of corrupt regime officials in Pretoria.) More....

Elephant Massacre: A Battle is being Fought against Poachers to Save Them from Extinction

11/2/2013

Source: Express.co.uk

By Anna Pukas

It is gruesome in the extreme but demand is high and potential profits higher. Indeed it is the world's fifth most lucrative criminal activity after trafficking drugs, people, oil and counterfeiting.

The fact that trafficking wildlife - or more accurately wildlife parts - is illegal is no deterrent. When a business is worth between £4-6billion globally people will take the risk.

The international sale of ivory has been banned since 1989 yet elephants are being slaughtered for their tusks as never before. Around 32,000 were killed in Africa last year, which equates to 96 a day.

The ban may have quashed the ivory trade but it also sent ivory prices rocketing. Poaching is again as prevalent as it was when the ban came into force and in 2011 it even superseded pre-ban levels. The situation is so dire wildlife experts now believe more elephants are dying than are being born and that the African elephant could be extinct by 2025.

Kenya's elephant population has plummeted from 167,000 to only 35,000 in 30 years - just one generation. The Minkebe National Park in Gabon has lost two thirds of its elephants (around 11,000) to poaching since 2004. The number of African forest elephants (different from their savannah-roaming cousins) has fallen by 72 per cent since 2002 and only 80,000 remain in the wild.

All so that the emerging newly cash-rich middle classes in China can drape themselves in carved ivory trinkets or eat with ivory chopsticks or adorn their homes with - what obscene irony - ivory elephant ornaments.

The amount of illegal ivory seized worldwide went up by 50 per cent in 2012 and experts say half of it found its way to China, where legitimate trade in ivory is limited to five tons a year which does not come close to meeting the demand. More....

Poaching Peace and Security

10/28/2013

Source: Atlanticcouncil.org

By Peter Pham

Last week, former rebels loyal to the opposition Mozambican National Resistance (RENAMO) announced that they were abandoning the twenty-one year old peace accord with the government of the southern African country after army troops overran a remote jungle base. The military action followed a spate of attacks on arms depots as well as civilian buses earlier this year. A return to the 1975-1995 civil war could threaten the economic boom which Mozambique has been experiencing in recent years, fueled by coal mining operations as well as the world’s largest natural gas discovery in the past decade. While grievances with the government may have motivated this latest rebellion, it is money from illegal wildlife products that is financing the violence.

But if RENAMO is able to once again mount an insurgency, it won’t be because the movement has much by way of popular support (its support has dwindled with each election since it entered politics and RENAMO leader Afonso Dhlakama barely received one-sixth of the votes cast in the 2009 presidential election) or because it is once again backed by white-minority regimes in neighboring Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, or South Africa (both countries have transitioned to majority rule). Rather it will be because of the lifeline which it has managed to grasp by poaching, both in Mozambique and in South Africa, whose Kruger National Park sits right on the border. South African officials report that poachers—90 percent of whom they believe to be operating across the border—had killed 536 rhinoceroses during the first half of 2013, making it likely that this year’s toll will exceed the 668 slaughtered last year.

Once sawed off, the ungulates’ horns are trafficked to East Asia—Vietnam and China are, respectively, the largest and second-largest markets—where they fetch upwards of $80,000 per kilogram. Since the average rhino horn weighs about nine kilograms and the loss rate is about 2.5 animals per day in just South Africa, what one looking at is a trade worth $657 million annually—and that is counting just the rhinos poached in one country. While not every kill can be laid at the door of RENAMO, the big jump in poaching the last few years parallels the return to the bush of the hardcore remnant of the group following its most recent electoral trouncing and interviews with both law enforcement officials and conservationists indicate that it also plays a lucrative role as a middle man in cases where the slaughter is carried out by poor local people. More....

Nairobi Terrorist Strike Alerts the World to New Threat to Elephants

10/24/2013

Source: Animalpeoplenews.org

Four days of shooting at the Westgate Mall in Westlands, Nairobi, Kenya introduced the world to yet another poaching threat to elephants.

Claiming credit for the September 21, 2013 mall invasion, which brought the deaths of at least 61 civilians, six Kenyan soldiers, and five terrorists, the Somali-based Islamist militia Al Shabaab was already well known from previous incidents that began with the 2006 murders of four western aid workers and the Somalis who worked with them.

Outside of the intelligence community, however, that Al Shabaab had muscled into the elephant ivory and rhino horn traffic was little recognized. Al Shabaab was previously more closely associated with extortion, hijacking food aid, and “taxing” transportation of agricultural commodities and the ransoms collected by coastal pirates.

That changed in early 2011 after a coalition of Somali, Kenyan, Ethiopian, and African Union forces began pushing Al Shabaab back from the Somali coast and overland trade routes. In August 2011 Al Shabaab lost Mogadishu, the Somali capital city.

Seeking reinforcements, Al Shabaab allied itself with Al Qaeda, the international Islamist militia. Al Qaeda has reputedly raised funds in part through elephant ivory and rhino horn poaching and trafficking for close to 25 years. The alliance with Al Qaeda brought U.S. drone strikes on Al Shabaab leadership in early 2012, followed by a renewed coalition offensive that included the capture of Kismayo, the Al Shabaab economic stronghold. Suddenly Al Shabaab had to find new sources of support.

“Following the fall of Kismayu,” reported the Nairobi electronic newspaper Mwakilishi, “Kenya has seen an exponential increase in ivory-related poaching.” Poachers killed 283 elephants in Kenya in 2011; 385 elephants plus 29 rhinos in 2012; and had killed 235 elephants plus 35 rhinos in 2013 when the Westgate Mall siege began. Poachers have also killed six Kenya Wildlife Service rangers since December 2011, including two on July 18, 2013 in separate firefights against suspected elephant poachers in the Kipini Conservancy. In early August 2013 someone even poached a pregnant white rhino in Nairobi National Park, almost within sight of the Kenyan national capital.

New tactics

The current situation is more complicated than past history with other Somalian poaching militias, explained Maisha Consulting founder Nir Kalron and Elephant Action League cofounder Andrea Crosta, both of South Africa. More....

Poaching Threatens Tourism Revenue

10/23/2013

Source: Dailynews.gov.bw

By Neo Sefhera

Ambassador Mitchell Gavin of the United States has called for more concerted efforts to combat poaching and warned that poaching threatens the revenue that African countries earn from tourism.

When officially opening a workshop on Wildlife Poaching and Trafficking in Southern Africa, Ambassador Gavin said wildlife trafficking had now become an issue of economic development, health, rule of law and national security. In the case of Botswana, she said, statistics provided a measure of what was at stake.

“In 2012, ecotourism generated P8 billion in revenue and supported almost 50 000 jobs in Botswana. By 2022, tourism related revenues in Botswana are projected to almost double to P15 billion. But that will happen only if the country’s rich biodiversity is preserved,” she said.

Ambassador Gavin said Africa’s iconic animal populations were being decimated by well-armed, well organised and increasingly sophisticated networks of poachers who exploit porous borders and weak institutions to profit from trade in illegally taken wildlife.

She said wildlife trafficking also posed a public health risk as approximately 75 per cent of emerging infectious diseases such as SARS, avian influenza and the ebola virus were of animal origin.

“Militants groups such as al-Shabab, the Janjaweed and the Lord’s Resistance Army have turned to illegal ivory trafficking to purchase weapons that they use to sow terror and instability,” she said.

Ambassador Gavin said the very act of wildlife trafficking erodes the rule of law and undermines the capacity of the state to control and protect its borders. More....

One Way to Fight Terrorism? End the Ivory Trade

10/9/2013

Source: Huffingtonpost.com

By Peter Seligmann

Recently, I had the honor of taking part in an extraordinary event at the annual meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) where nations and NGOs made a historic commitment to end elephant poaching by stopping the killing, stopping the trafficking and stopping the demand for ivory.

Wildlife trafficking is currently the fifth most profitable illegal trade (after drugs, human trafficking, oil theft and counterfeiting). Ivory is one of the most valuable wildlife products on the black market; it's currently valued at more than US $1,000 a pound. In addition, it is virtually untraceable -- as the domestic trade of ivory is still legal in some countries, it's nearly impossible to tell its source or legality.

The illegal wildlife trade is a stark example of the direct connection between natural resources and both U.S. and global security. Wildlife trafficking, a $7-10 billion enterprise, funds terrorist groups like the Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda, Darfur's Janjaweed militia and Al-Shabab, the Somalian terrorist group responsible for last month's horrific murders at a Nairobi shopping mall.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has been instrumental in bringing this issue to the world stage and highlighting the devastating impact poaching and wildlife trafficking have on African nations, as well as on world security. Her passion and dedication to stopping trafficking was evident earlier this year when she engaged in a discussion at our New York dinner with Conservation International Vice Chair Harrison Ford, and spoke so eloquently about the devastation caused by traffickers who now arrive equipped with automatic rifles and other advanced technology.

Secretary Clinton and Clinton Foundation Vice Chair Chelsea Clinton were responsible for bringing us together to commit to stopping wildlife trafficking. They deserve our thanks and gratitude for putting this issue on the CGI agenda. More....

Illegal Ivory Trade Funds al-Shabaab's Terrorist Attacks

10/6/2013

Source: Independent.co.uk

By Catrina Stewart

Al-Shabaab, the Somali Islamist group that killed dozens of people last month in a bloody four-day siege of the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi, is deriving funds for its terror campaigns from elephant poaching in Kenya and elsewhere, activists and conservationists claim.

The Elephant Action League (EAL), which has dubbed ivory the "white gold of jihad", said that elephant poaching and the trafficking of ivory is fuelling conflict in Africa by helping groups such as al-Shabaab to mount ever more deadly attacks.

The illicit ivory trade funds "up to 40 per cent of the cost [of al-Shabaab's] army of 5,000 people", according to Andrea Crosta, a director of EAL, and co-author of a 2011 report into the links between poaching and terror groups.

The spotlight on al-Shabaab's funding is more intense than ever after the most deadly terror attack on Kenyan soil since the 1998 US embassy bombings in Nairobi which killed more than 200 people. The Westgate siege has propelled the affiliate of al-Qa'ida to international attention. The group has warned that the slaughter, in which at least 67 people died, is just "the premiere of Act One" and continues to demand that Kenya pull its troops out of Somalia.

The poaching of elephants for their tusks has driven the animal in some countries – such as Sierra Leone and Senegal – to the point of extinction. More than 30,000 elephants were slaughtered in Africa last year alone, 382 of them in Kenya.

Armed with AK-47 machine guns, and with bows and arrows that are sometimes poisoned, poachers slip unnoticed past the few rangers who patrol the conservancies and track the elephants. Often, they target the calves first in the knowledge that the older elephants will bunch up to try to protect them. Then they kill the others. It takes several bullets to bring down such sizeable mammals, and the elephants usually die after immense suffering. The poachers hack off most of the elephant's head to get at the tusks. More....

Why the Fight to Save the Elephant is So Important to Humanity's Future

10/3/2013

Source: Mirror.co.uk

By Nicky Campbell

A heartbreaking catastrophe is unfolding in the great forests and on the savannahs of Africa.

Amid all the political instability and human suffering, people are waking up to the dreadful fact that if the current rate of elephant poaching continues, there will be next to no wild herds left by 2025.

Sir David Attenborough recently asked: “Are we happy to suppose that our grandchildren may never be able to see an elephant except in a picture book?”

The most conservative estimates reckon 25,000 are being slaughtered annually for their tusks. There are just 400,000 left.

How on earth did we get here?

Despite the international ban on selling ivory there have been two “one-off” sales – the most recent to China and Japan in 2008.

An ever-growing Chinese middle class sees ivory as the ultimate status symbol and the demand is accelerating.

All for what? Trinkets, chopsticks, toothpicks and – how’s this for an obscene parody of beauty? – ivory carvings of elephants. Never in the field of human vanity have so many died for so very little.

The latest research on elephants makes this even more shocking. These remarkable animals challenge our assumptions of human “uniqueness”. More....

Elephant Ivory could be Bankrolling Terrorist Groups

10/2/2013

Source: Newscientist.com

By Michael Marshall

Is it time for a war on poaching? When Hillary Clinton unveiled an $80 million plan last week to combat elephant poaching in Africa, she highlighted a new and worrying trend: money from wildlife crime may be helping to fund terrorist groups. These include the al-Shabaab group that attacked the Westgate shopping mall in Kenya two weeks ago.

The initiative, which is backed by five conservation groups and several African governments, involves scaling up anti-poaching activities, targeting supply lines and traffickers, and reducing demand for ivory in major markets, mostly in east Asia.

Clinton's announcement came within a week of the attack on the Westgate shopping centre in Nairobi, Kenya, in which Islamic militants belonging to the Somalian group al-Shabaab killed some 67 people.

On the surface, terrorism and wildlife crime may seem unrelated, but the evidence suggests they are increasingly linked.

"Part of al-Shabaab's funding has been, and is still, from ivory," says Andrea Crosta of the Elephant Action League (EAL), an NGO headquartered in California. Between 2011 and 2012, Crosta spearheaded an undercover investigation of elephant poaching in Kenya. Many of the poachers and brokers he spoke to said that they were increasingly selling to al-Shabaab. The group then sells the ivory on to markets in Asia, at a huge mark-up.

Tusks for guns
EAL published its findings in December 2012. They suggest that over the last four years al-Shabaab has been deriving a significant part of its income from poaching. More....

The Government Warehouse That Stores Illegal Ivory Is Totally Full

10/1/2013

Source: Fastcoexist.com

By Jessica Leber

In October, U.S. enforcers of wildlife trafficking laws will destroy a mountain of ivory stockpiled in a warehouse in Colorado in a new public push to stem an illegal $10 billion industry.

The big “crush” comes because they have seized so much ivory--more than six tons. There’s literally no room to store it anymore.

The Denver Post describes the warehouse, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s National Wildlife Property Repository, which holds wildlife objects and parts that are seized from smugglers. U.S. authorities are prohibited from selling any of it:

"The warehouse increasingly is stuffed with ivory that no longer fits on shelves. Piles of tusks and boxes full of bracelets and trinkets clutter the floor. Forklifts are used to clear pathways between heavy pallets of the plunder."

"Some tusks are from young elephants — representing generations lost because elephants cannot reproduce until age 25 and poachers usually kill elephants before sawing off their tusks."

"The seized ivory includes ornate carvings. A pair of 18-inch-tall Asian ivory figurines depicting a classical Chinese lady and gentleman already were labeled with price tags: $7,500 each."

Awareness-raising is one reason for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to clean house, and it is sorely needed to stem demand for illegal ivory in the international markets. The poaching problem is growing in Africa, and as with the drug trade in Latin America, the proceeds are being used to fuel violence. More....