The Eye of the Elephant

by Mark James Owens

  But the dying wildebeests at Lake Xau were only part of the story. Sixty miles south, up to ten thousand red hartebeests were dying each year, along with uncounted numbers of gemsbok, giraffes, springbok, and other desert antelope. They piled up and died against fences that kept them from water. In total since the 1950s, the fences have killed more than a million wild ungulates, and additional numbers of carnivores that depend on them as prey.

  The fences, although merely the front line of exploitation, provided hard evidence that cattle-development money was decimating wildlife populations. Tractors pulling wagons loaded with armed men regularly patrolled the fences; any wild animal that came near was shot. Thousands did, and they were killed. One of the original owners of Safari South (Pty), a safari hunting company based in Maun, has a photograph of a pile of antelope bones "as large as a two-story house" taken near the northern end of the Makalamabedi fence line. According to a range ecologist for Botswana's Department of National Parks, these patrol crews made a business of marketing in Gaborone—the capital—meat and skins from animals killed along the fences. He reported seeing a mass grave full of hundreds of fresh carcasses on one of the government's experimental farms.

  By any standard, these man-induced mortalities represent one of the worst wildlife disasters of this century—one that could have been avoided entirely.

  ENCLOSURE OF LARGE COMMERCIAL RANCHES

  Beginning in the 1970s, wealthy private cattle ranchers, including some of the major political figures in Botswana, were given low-interest loans from the World Bank to develop huge ranches in Kalahari wilderness areas. They built fences, drilled wells, raised cattle—and blocked antelope migrations, killing tens of thousands.

  Typically these ranches were profitable for about five years. Then the wells, which were drawing water from fossil (unrechargeable) aquifers, dried up; the semiarid savannas were overgrazed to scrub and dust. Before the ranchers could repay the loans, they were forced to abandon their ranches and move on to "develop" the next enormous plot of wilderness—with another loan from the World Bank. This high-finance version of slash-and-burn agriculture left in its wake sterile wastelands covered with coils of fence wire and piles of bleached skeletons, the remains of tens of thousands of antelope whose migrations to water had been blocked.

  It was only a matter of time before these commercial ranchers began to run short of land. When they did, they proposed dissolving the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, the second or third largest wildlife protectorate on earth, so that they could use it for additional cattle ranches.

  After destroying tens of thousands of square miles of wilderness habitat in the name of development, the ranchers never repaid any of the World Bank's loans. Even so, the Bank was about to finance another major cattle-development scheme in Botswana when an international outcry stopped it. The United States, which provides about 20 percent of the Bank's budget, balked at funding any more such projects in equatorial Africa without proper environmental controls.

  Botswana's commercial cattle industry has been profitable in the short term only because the European Community (EC) countries have paid 60 percent above the world price for Botswana beef and have guaranteed to import as much as the ranchers could produce. But only 3 percent of Botswana's households are getting two thirds of the profits from the industry. Meanwhile, the Common Market countries were paying exorbitant sums to keep frozen a 720,000-metric-ton surplus of beef. Eventually, to reduce the surplus, much of the beef would be sold to Russia for 10 percent of the cost to produce it. Furthermore, the EC rebated to Botswana's commercial ranchers 91 percent of the tariff charged for access to its market. Lavish low-interest development loans by the World Bank, coupled with high returns from the EC, created a powerful incentive for ranchers-cum-politicians in Botswana. They cashed in by developing huge ranching blocks in wilderness areas, regardless of the cost to the environment.

  On our return to the Kalahari in 1987 we flew over the northeast quarter of the reserve. There we discovered hundreds of cattle and goats grazing up to twenty miles inside the reserve, where they were being watered by game scouts—at boreholes developed with EC money for migratory wildlife. The spread of cattle into the reserve had begun, which may be the reason we were ordered to leave the Kalahari.

  In the end, however, as described in the text, the government of Botswana voted to keep the reserve intact and not develop it for cattle.

  Appendix B

  The Ivory Ban

  POACHING OF THE AFRICAN ELEPHANT BEFORE 1989

  From 1963 to 1989 poachers shot 86 percent of the elephants in Africa for their ivory, skin, tails, and feet. In one decade the population plummeted from 1,300,000 to 600,000—less than half its former size. Seventy thousand elephants were shot every year to meet the world's demand for ivory. Ninety percent of the ivory entering the international market was from poached elephants. In other words, there was a 90 percent chance that an ivory bracelet in any jewelry or department store in the world was from a poached elephant. Illegal tusks were "laundered" by using false documents.

  The elephant populations in twenty-one African nations declined sig-nificantly in the decade preceding the CITES ban. Zambia lost more than 80 percent of its elephants. In the Luangwa Valley alone, 100,000 elephants were shot in the period between 1973 and 1985. In North Luangwa National Park from 1975 to 1986, elephants were shot at the rate of 1000 per year. Tanzania lost 80 percent, Uganda 73 percent. In East Africa as a whole, 80 to 86 percent of the elephants were shot by poachers. In the fifteen years prior to the ban, Kenya lost 5000 elephants a year—1095 a year in Tsavo Park alone.1

  In 1986 the United Nations Convention for International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) attempted to control the illegal ivory trade by requiring that import-export documents written in indelible ink accompany each tusk. This scheme failed completely. In some instances documents and marks were falsified; most of the time the procedure was ignored altogether. The poaching of elephants and the illegal ivory trade continued as before.

  Most African nations did not have the resources to control elephant poaching. The price of raw ivory soared to more than $136 per pound. Corrupt government officials in many nations (including Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, and South Africa)2 participated in poaching to supplement their incomes. Governmental institutions—customs, the army, police, departments of National Parks, the judicial system—frequently were involved as well. In the majority of cases the real profit from poached elephants went into the hands of private individuals or to foreign nationals. The national treasuries of the African countries benefited very little.3

  THE CITES BAN

  In early 1989, realizing that poaching was out of control and that their nations were losing a tremendous resource, eight African countries (Tanzania, Kenya, Somalia, Gambia, Zaire, Chad, Niger, and Zambia) agreed to support an international ban on the ivory trade, to begin in January 1990. In March 1989 the United States imposed an immediate ban on the importation of ivory. Canada, the EC, Switzerland, and the United Arab Emirates followed the U.S. lead.

  On October 17, 1989, CITES voted (seventy-six nations to eleven) to list the African elephant on Appendix I, thereby declaring it an endangered species. The sale of all elephant parts was prohibited for two years as of January 1990.

  The price of ivory paid to poachers plummeted to a hundredth of its former price: about $1.36 per pound. As a result, poaching decreased dramatically in many areas: Kenya, which had lost 5000 elephants a year, reported only 55 shot the year following the ban. In North Luangwa National Park we recorded only 12 dead elephants in 1990 (down from 1000 a year). In Selous, Tanzania, no fresh carcasses were observed. In general, poaching declined in East Africa by 80 percent. It also decreased in Chad, Gabon, Zaire, and Congo.4

  These incredible results show that the CITES ivory ban was one of the most effective environmental policies ever adopted.

  RESISTANCE TO THE BAN

  In spite of this unprecedented success, eight nations
who stood to gain financially from the ivory trade filed reservations to the ban in 1989: China, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, South Africa, Malawi, Zambia—which had changed its position—and Great Britain on behalf of Hong Kong (for six months).

  Furthermore, South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Malawi, Mozambique, and the previous government of Zambia moved to down-list the elephant from "endangered" status to "threatened" and to continue their ivory trade. With the exception of South Africa, these nations formed their own ivory cartel, the Southern African Center for Ivory Marketing treaty (SACIM).

  In an extremely courageous move, the newly elected government of Zambia, under the MMD party, announced that it would change its position again and support the ban, and not sell the stockpile of ivory it had confiscated from poachers. On February 14, 1992, it staged a ceremonial burning of the illegal ivory. Also, China reversed its position and joined the ban.

  The Southern African nations that refused to join the ban mounted an international campaign to convince the non-African nations of CITES that their position of down-listing the elephant was the correct one. Their arguments were flawed for the following reasons.

  These nations are involved in the illegal ivory trade.

  South Africa, one of the most outspoken of the nations resisting the ban, is one of the largest clearinghouses for illicit ivory on the African continent. Raw ivory entering and leaving South Africa for other countries in its customs union (Botswana, Swaziland, Namibia, Lesotho) does not require import or export permits. In addition, worked ivory can be imported to or exported from South Africa without permits. So the door is wide open for illegal ivory to be imported into the country, then exported anywhere in the world without documents.

  Much of the illicit ivory from Zambia, including that from North Luangwa National Park, has been flown on Swazi-Air from Lusaka to Swaziland, then trucked to South Africa. Three top-level Zambian officials were suspended for participating in this smuggling ring.

  Once the ivory is in South Africa, it can be freely sold or exported. Before the 1989 ban South Africa imported 15 tons of illegal ivory from Zaire, 12 tons from Angola, 10 tons from Zambia, 2 tons from Zimbabwe, and 1 ton each from Malawi and Mozambique.5 And South Africa exported 40 tons of illegal ivory annually. A United Nations study concluded that "South Africa serves as a conduit for the illegal export of significant quantities of ivory ... from neighboring states (including Angola, Botswana, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia, and Zimbabwe)."6

  In Angola, members of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) killed 100,000 elephants to finance their war with the government. These tusks were exported to South Africa, where they entered the free market.7 A photographer from Time magazine witnessed a huge machine shop run by UNITA in Angola, where dozens of lathes were being used to carve tusks into replicas of machine guns (personal communications). Two men arrested in South Africa in possession of 975 poached elephant tusks were not prosecuted.8

  On February 25, 1992, the Environmental Investigation Agency of England reported that after two years of scrutiny it had determined that the South African Defense Force (SADF) and the Zimbabwe National Army had been involved in large-scale elephant poaching and ivory smuggling. Their report provided evidence that the SADF ran a major smuggling operation out of Angola and Mozambique.9

  Claims that there are too many elephants in some areas are inaccurate or irrelevant.

  Zimbabwe and Botswana declare that they have too many elephants and need to cull them to prevent habitat destruction. Too often when elephants appear to occur in high numbers, it is actually because they have been crowded into small areas by outside poaching pressures, or by loss of habitat from human development. If the poaching were eliminated or if elephants were allowed to inhabit a greater portion of their former ranges, they would no longer be overcrowded. With human populations growing more than 3 percent annually, people will take over more and more elephant habitat for development and conflicts will occur. But the CITES treaty does not prohibit the culling of elephants in areas where their densities are too high. Culling should be considered a last resort, but when necessary it can be done according to the CITES regulations. Culling does not cause poaching; selling the ivory and other parts from culled elephants does.

  Too often in the past, governments have repeatedly and prematurely resorted to culling operations to control elephant densities. It would be far more appropriate for the central, southern, and east African nations to form an international policing agency similar to Interpol to deal with the illicit traffic in animal parts and to coordinate antipoaching law-enforcement operations.

  These countries claim that they have controlled poaching and that by being denied a trade in elephants' parts they are being penalized for the lack of control in other nations. But poaching still continues in Zimbabwe and Botswana. According to the deputy director of Zimbabwe's Department of Wildlife, the number of elephants killed by poachers has increased 300 percent in recent years.10 The department reported intensive organized elephant poaching in the Zambezi Valley and was granted $104,500 from the United States to help control it. Elephant poaching occurs in Chobe Game Reserve in Botswana and Nigel Hunter, the deputy director of Wildlife and National Parks there, has stated that "he suspects that illegally-taken ivory from Botswana moves through South Africa."11

  Because there is at present no way to verify the origin of elephant parts, any country that trades in them inevitably stimulates a massive illegal traffic within its own borders and across its borders with other countries. As the demand for illegal parts grows, more and more elephants are poached in neighboring countries to fill the market.

  Claims that people should be able to benefit from elephants are not contradictory to the ban.

  The countries resisting the ban state that local people and national treasuries should be able to benefit from elephants. But the ban does not prevent them from doing so. Wildlife tourism can generate as much income as the ivory trade. Kenya's living elephants bring in $20 million a year through tourism, which flows to many different people; money from poached elephants falls into only a few hands.

  Some nations want to down-list the African elephant so that there can be an international trade in hides, feet, and tails, even if trade in ivory is prohibited.

  Before the ban, the trade of elephant skins, feet, and tails was worth as much as the ivory trade in Zimbabwe and in South Africa. It matters little to the poacher whether he shoots an elephant for its ivory or its skin. As long as there is any market in any elephant parts, poaching will increase again.

  BAN RECONSIDERED

  In March 1992 the CITES delegates met in Japan to vote on whether or not to continue the ban. In spite of its success, the SACIM nations and South Africa wanted it reversed. Unbelievably, the delegation from the U.S. Fish and "Wildlife Service considered joining these countries in their vote for a down-listing of the elephant. Apparently the U.S. delegates had accepted statements by the SACIM nations that they had the means to control such a trade, despite overwhelming evidence that they could not. Sixty American environmental and conservation groups, including our own, as well as many senators and congressmen, sent petitions to President George Bush, asking that the United States support a continued moratorium. After weighing all the evidence, President Bush decided that this action was "the right thing to do." He instructed the U.S. delegation in Japan to vote accordingly, and other CITES member nations followed suit. In the end, the nations opposing the ban withdrew their proposal and the moratorium on the sale of all elephant parts was continued.

  CONCLUSION

  Opening a legal market for any elephant parts (ivory, skins, tails, feet) will reopen the illegal market. Under the present conditions of widespread corruption and lack of resources to protect elephants in the field, the most effective way to save the African elephant is with a continued long-term, complete international moratorium on the sale of all elephant parts, including ivory. The next time CITES meets (in
1994), the moratorium should be extended for at least ten years, not two. A longer period will prevent stockpiling of ivory by poachers and send a strong message to black-market dealers that the CITES nations are committed to saving the African elephant from extinction. It will also permit elephant populations to rebuild their numbers.

  One final word: the ivory trade not only kills elephants but also leads to the deaths of people trying to protect them.

  Appendix C

  Large Mammals of North Luangwa National Park

  Baboon, chacma Papio ursinus jubilaeus

  Bush pig Potamochoerus porcus

  Bushbuck Tragclaphus scriptus

  Cape buffalo Syncerus coffer

  Cheetah Acinonyx jubatus

  Duiker, common Syhicapra grimmia

  Eland Taurotragus oryx

  Elephant Loxodonta africana

  Giraffe, Thornicroft's Giraffa camelopardalis thomicrofti

  Hartebeest, Lichtenstein's Alcelaphus lichtensteini

  Hippopotamus Hippopotamus amphibius

  Hyena, spotted Crocuta crocuta

  Impala Aepyceros melampus

  Kudu Tragclaphus strepsiceros

  Leopard Panthera pardus

  Lion Panthera leo

  Monkey, samonga Cercopithecus alboqularis

  Monkey, vervet Cercopithecus pygetythrus

  Oribi Ourebia ourebi

  Puku Kobus vardonii