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Elephants Don’t Carry Passports

This week is a critical one for the elephants of Africa. The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species meets in Doha, Qater all week, and one of the hot-topics up for discussion and vote is the proposed one-off sale of ivory and delisting of the elephant from the more strict and regulated Appendix I – proposed by Tanzania and Zambia.

Tanzania and Zambia support their proposal with research showing that the elephant populations in their countries are healthy, even increasing in the past few years. Neighboring countries rightfully counter argue that elephants don’t carry passports, and that elephant populations elsewhere in Africa are declining. Senegal’s elephant count is below 10 and the poaching in war-torn Chad continues despite WILD’s collaborative work to monitor and deter poachers. Poaching in neighboring Kenya is an ever-present threat.

The Environmental Investigation Agency released a report last week on the illegal ivory trade in Tanzania and Zambia, backing speculation that the corruption in these countries supplied several tons of ivory to Asian markets in 2009. “In February 2010, EIA investigators posing as buyers easily found ivory for sale in the markets of Dar es Salaam, identified hotspots for illegal ivory trading in southern Selous [Game Reserve, Tanzania], and gathered data on recent poaching incidents.”

While Tanzania and Zambia defend that their intentions are aimed at furthering conservation efforts, promising the money from the one-off sale will support conservation – the impacts and ripple effects on the already at-risk elephant populations throughout Africa are clear. Even more tragic would be approval of these countries’ proposal to down-list the protection of the elephant, allowing the ivory trade to be less regulated.

“Every time CITES approves an ivory sale it translates into an open hunting season on elephants across Africa and a death sentence for tens of thousands of protected elephants,” said Samuel LaBudde, a biologist with EIA. “It would be a tragedy for elephants and a travesty of conservation principles for CITES to approve Tanzania and Zambia’s applications to downlist protections for elephants.”

As one commentary states, the debates over one-off sales is a distraction from the root cause of poaching — the illegal ivory trade. But in my opinion, it’s a case of the chicken and the egg. One-off sales definitely increase the amount of ivory on the market, thus whetting the appetite of ivory hungry consumers. General economic principles tell us that this will increase demand of this coveted luxury. But, if there was better enforcement of existing regulations, then these markets would not be as ripe.

I’ll be updating the WILD blog on this important topic as it unfolds this week. You can also stay tuned to the CITES webpage and the National Wildlife Humane Society news feed.

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