Luangwe National Park
The Ivory Market 2 : Poaching's Terrible Toll
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Since time immemorial, elephants have been killed for their ivory, and trade in this precious commodity - known as "white gold" - has been carried on for centuries. In Africa, herds had been hunted to extinction in the north of the continent hundreds of years before the Europeans arrived with their guns. In Victorian England, every drawing room was filled with ivory knick-knacks, while "the ivories" became a slang term for dice and piano keys; and by the end of the nineteenth century some of Africa's elephant populations were significantly diminished.
A drop in the demand for ivory after the First World War helped some of them to recover. But not for long, from the 1970s, there came a sudden upsurge in the ivory trade. Prices - which had been stable for decades - soared, possibly because of global financial instability. Exports rose from 200 tonnes in the 1950s to nearly 1,000 tonnes in the 1980s. The precipitous decline in most African elephant populations was a direct consequence of illegal killing, fuelled by the ivory trade.
One estimate has it that 70,000 elephants were being killed every year from the mid-1970s through the 1980s. Kenya, Zambia, and Tanzania were particularly badly hit. They lost perhaps 80 per cent of their herds. In Zambia's Luangwe Valley, between 1973 and 1987, an estimated 56,000 elephants were lost to poachers. On just one day in March 1989, poachers shot 17 elephants in Kenya's Tsavo National Park.
The situation was aggravated in more than one country by war and civil unrest - factors still present in many parts of Africa. Where firearms are easily obtainable, soldiers unpaid, refugees unfed, and the forces of law and order preoccupied elsewhere, all forms of wildlife are put acutely at risk. At any rate, the elephant slaughter became big business, ugly and violent, including in its effects on human society. Like drug barons, heavily armed gangs took over entire areas. Not only middlemen, but game wardens and other government officials might expect a pay-off. Kenya and Zimbabwe instigated a shoot-to-kill policy for poachers. Not surprisingly, poachers shot back.
While corrupt government officials may evoke little sympathy, this is not always the case with poachers. Desperately poor rural Africans who turn to poaching are not necessarily evil or unprincipled. In many regions, poaching may well be the only way to live, apart from subsistence farming. What's one dead elephant, when you have no money and little to eat - and when the elephant, if left alive, might itself eat what little you have? A good pair of tusks might be worth four head of cattle. And meat from the elephant - besides feeding the family - can also be sold.
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The more ivory is worth on the black market, the harder the trade is driven, because profits are higher. But the poacher himself, on the lowest rung of the ladder, may see little of these profits, and simply kill any elephant within range, of any size, for what he can get.
Once this illegal hunting has reached a certain critical mass, it becomes very difficult, and expensive, for governments and wildlife authorities to contain it. Constant vigilance is required over huge areas. Anti-poaching patrols need vehicles and air support, guns, ammunition, and fuel. It can also be very hard to distinguish illegal from legal ivory (the latter being government stocks derived from culls, natural deaths, or seizures and confiscations). Many of the countries involved have no efficient system for marking and storing ivory. Which makes it a lot easier to smuggle and "launder" it with impunity.
Efficient controls require funds, unfortunately, in most cases these funds are simply not there. Inflation, devaluation, and other urgent demands on the exchequer mean that relatively few African nations have cash to spare for conservation. Structural adjustment programmes imposed by the International Monetary Fund have meant reductions in government employees, including game scouts and customs officers. In many cases, staff are underpaid, morale is low, corruption sometimes thrives, and cynicism is rife.
Illegal or legal, by the end of the 1980s the "off-take" of ivory was recognized to be "unsustainable"; or, in layman's words, the rate at which they were being killed spelt an end to elephants sooner rather than later. There was a grim logic to this prediction. When hunters are after ivory, they go first for the animal with the biggest tusks. These are the older adults, and males have the biggest. Preferential killing of males upsets a population's sex ratio. Killing matriarch females on the other hand can leave whole families leaderless and more vulnerable. Furthermore, killing the animals with the largest tusks may over time alter the gene pool in favour of animals with smaller tusks. Tusks on today's market are on average less than half the size they were a century ago. Smaller tusks means more of them are needed to supply the same demand. So more animals will be killed, many of whom will not have reached reproductive age. It is a relentless downward spiral which, if carried to its conclusion, will finish both the elephants and the ivory trade.
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Related Glossary Items:
Absolute Poverty
Relative Poverty
Supply
Demand
Market Failure
Related Issues:
Fighting Poaching in North Kafue
The Ivory Market
Poaching in Luangwe
Related Theories:
Market Failure
Regulating the Ivory Market
