The Plight of the African Elephant

Uncle! We have seen a dead Elephant! Exclaimed my 10 year old niece, after visiting the Tsavo National Park, tears dripping down her chin. She looked downcast and dejected. I later learnt that the elephant had been killed by poachers to serve the brutal ivory trade. At once I remembered the elephants of Tsavo, this big mammal, flapping its ears to send a breeze to the dry savannah. With a pair of tusks and a long trunk, browsing on the shrubs of the Nyika Plateau. But now it was no more, it lay down as carcass waiting to biodegrade and fertilize the soils of Tsavo. Today I will share with you 3 things about the plight of the African Elephant; the status of elephants in Africa, the Ivory trade menace and the way forward to curb poaching

1.        The state of Elephants in Africa

African elephants are being slaughtered at an unprecedented rate as demand for ivory continues unabated. According to World Wildlife fund, 35,000 African elephants were killed in 2012, representing the worst mass slaughter of elephants since the international ivory trade was banned in 1989.  African elephants have declined by 76 percent since in ten years; 86 elephants including 33 pregnant females were killed within a week in Chad. This story replicates in Congo, Tanzania, South Africa and Gabon. The Kenyans story is no different; we lost 384 elephants to poachers in 2013

2.        The Ivory trade menace

Ivory is in soaring demand in the Far East for ornaments. The UN secretary general says that illegal ivory trade may be an important source of funding for armed groups such as the Lord's Resistance Army and the Alshabab militant groups which terrorize East Africa. According to the global security body report, Poachers are using sophisticated weapons, high-technology to execute their mission.  They employ helicopters, night vision goggles, and satellite phones, gleaning information on the Internet and tracking elephant movements from satellite images. Very little of the wealth generated by illegal poaching trickles down to the people who actually do it. Local pigmy hunters of central Africa are paid as little as a carton of cigarettes for a pair of elephant tusks, which later fetch over $1,500 per kilo in Asia. And I ask; did these elephants have to die, so that we get nice ornaments

3.        The best way forward

Wildlife conservation society is calling for a suspension on the sale of all forms of ivory, which if implemented, would potentially cripple the illegal trade. Over 25 global wildlife organizations have committed to prevent further elephant poaching by directly targeting the chief drivers of this vice. This commitment dedicates funding to a triple pronged approach: “stop the killing,” “stop the trafficking,” and “stop the demand.”

It’s my hope that we’ll support our governments to retain this gigantic mammal in the national parks; I call upon African Presidents to make elephant tusks valueless, to help curb poaching, I call on parliaments to stiffen the laws against poaching and the judicial systems to ensure that poachers painfully pay for every blood of wildlife they shed.  With this I hope that one day my niece will get a chance to see a life elephant in the Tsavo national park. This is the state of African Elephants, the ivory trade menace and the best way to keeping the biggest mammal alive.