Tanzania withdraws bid to sell 'legal ivory;' Kenyan poachers kill 12 elephants

Conservation groups rebuff Tanzania's bid to sell $55 million in ivory and downgrade elephants' endangered status. But Kenya's largest massacre of elephants Jan. 5 points to the difficulties of ending poaching.

|
Schalk van Zuydam/AP
In this photo taken in December 2012, an elephant walks inside the Addo Elephant National Park near Port Elizabeth, South Africa. Tanzania withdrew bid to sell 'legal ivory, but Kenyan poachers killed 12 elephants in a Kenyan park on Jan. 5 anyway – the largest single killing ever here – shows how fragile protections across the continent still are for the creatures.

International restrictions on elephant ivory poaching gained a bit of clout after a key African nation abandoned efforts to sell a hefty trove of “legal ivory.”

But even as observers hoped that Tanzania's decision would ripple across Africa, sending a bigger message to poachers, the massacre of an entire family of 12 elephants in a Kenyan park Jan. 5 – the largest single killing ever here – shows how fragile protections across the continent still are for the creatures.

In October, Tanzania wished to sell ivory stockpiles valued at $55 million to China and Japan. The bid was set for debate in Bangkok this March at a Convention on the Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). At the same time,Tanzania was planning to request to remove elephants from the highest level or “most endangered” species list to a lower category. Tanzania insists its ivory stock, weighing more than 100 tons, comes from dead or culled animals that were not poached.

But opposition to the sale from conservation groups and anti-crime lobbies proved too stiff, and by the end of December Tanzania withdrew its bid.

Anti-poachers argued that such a large volume of ivory, made suddenly available on the global market, would send all the wrong signals and further embolden illegal trade, smuggling, and poaching. Tanzania's withdrawal of sale was seen as indirectly supporting anti-poaching.

“We see this [withdrawal] as a positive move that will inspire others to invest more on wildlife protection. It would have meant far more problems for Tanzania and its wildlife,” says Saidi Katensi, the CEO of African Wildlife Service of Tanzania. 

Doesn't translate to other African nations

Yet poachers in Kenya last week seemed little influenced. They shot the elephant family at the Tvaso East National Park, with a baby apparently crushed by a falling mother.

In a separate incident days later the Kenya Wildlife Service reported its rangers shot two poachers in Isiolo County, about 250 miles north of the park. The service claimed it a recovered a G3 rifle, 12 rounds of ammunition, and eight pieces of ivory.

Public shock at the massacre led Kenya’s Prime Minister Raila Odinga to link poaching with the country's economic problems: “Security agencies must treat the … poaching threat as part of the insecurity griping the country and not a wildlife issue to be addressed solely by the Kenya Wildlife Service.”

In 1989 the international banned international ivory trade via CITES after it became apparent that elephant poaching was on the rise and the number of elephants were rapidly declining. Between the 1970s and 1980s, elephant populations dropped from 1.3 million to about 600,000 in 37 countries.  

The World Wildlife Fund today estimates there are 450,000 elephants in Africa.

Market for ivory

At the same time, illegal trade is climbing. A CITES decision in 2008 to allow China and Japan to legally purchase some 100 tons of ivory from Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, and Zimbabwe – seems, ironically, to have spiked illegal ivory trade, mainly to Asia and the Middle East.

On Jan. 4, barely a week after Tanzania dropped it “legal ivory” sale bid, authorities in Hong Kong confiscated more than a ton of elephant tusk valued at $1.4 million.

Hong Kong customs seized a reported 779 pieces of ivory sent from Kenya through Malaysia. This fall authorities there took two large hauls originating from both Kenya and Tanzania.

Still, activists say that the fact that Tanzania dropped its bid to sell the ivory could help efforts to protect elephants amid what activists have described as a global ivory war

“With this proposal off the table at the parties to CITES, [we] can concentrate together to stop the horrific trafficking in ivory that is threatening the existence of elephant populations,” said Azzedine Downes, president and CEO of IFAW (International Fund for Animal Welfare).  “2011 was the worst year on record for ivory seizure and 2012 has seen enormous seizures.”

Conservationists in Kenya, meanwhile, are planning to start using small monitoring drones in an effort to protect elephants and other highly poached animals there. Ol Pajeta, a local conservancy, says it is spending $35,000 to acquire drone craft from Unmanned Innovation Incorporated, a US company. The drones fitted with small cameras will be used to protect the Northern White Rhinos, a species which is endangered because of its horn.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Tanzania withdraws bid to sell 'legal ivory;' Kenyan poachers kill 12 elephants
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Africa/2013/0111/Tanzania-withdraws-bid-to-sell-legal-ivory-Kenyan-poachers-kill-12-elephants
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe