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How do we save African elephants from extinction?
African elephants are being slaughtered for their ivory as a surprising consequences of the rise of Asian economies. Symbolic of wealth and prestige, ivory was once only affordable for a few. Now with hundreds of millions of newly rich people in Asia, demand has outstripped supply and elephants are being killed at a rate that will drive them to extinction in less than 15 years.
African governments are unable to stop the poaching - the price of ivory is driving impunity, corruption and is now under control of criminal cartels.
How do we stop this? What will it take to reverse this trend? Do we need to change cultures? Appealing for compassion in China, Thailand, Philippines? Is it about law enforcement?
We need some bright ideas from TEDsters who love African animals and who know how to cause change in Asia
Louise Kyte
IFAW has also worked with eBay, which it once called "one of the main channels through which trafficking in wildlife and wildlife products are conducted online." The company imposed its own voluntary ban in 2007 after IFAW persuaded them that ivory was indeed being trafficked with the help of their site.
"They've cleaned up, that's sure," said Adrian Hiel, an IFAW official attending the CITES conference in the Thai capital. "But there are so many ads that come out every day, you have to be vigilant. You have to keep checking."
Even now, concerned Internet shoppers still allege ivory is being sold on eBay. One called attention to a carving of a rural Asian village scene selling for $1,000 that is labeled as "Fine Chinese Ox Bone." The item is advertised by a seller in Los Angeles with the note, "Ships to: Worldwide."
Hiel said it can be tough, based on photos alone, to determine whether such products are really elephant tusks. You can always make an educated guess based on where the object is being sold and how much it goes for. But "unless you buy it and examine it, it's hard to tell for sure what's legal and what's not."
"Our argument is that the onus should be on the seller to prove the legality of what they're selling," Hiel said. "Because law enforcement can't go around ordering stuff of eBay just to test the legality of it."
Dan Ashe, director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said that when elephant poaching last reached crisis levels several decades ago, web-based trafficking was not something anybody had to consider.
Now, "Internet-based crime is an important aspect of control," he said. "It makes it much more difficult, but we have to deal with it."
Louise Kyte
About 80 percent of the ads are for "hanko," small wooden stamps inlaid with ivory lettering that are widely used in Japan to affix signature seals to official documents; the rest are carvings and other small objects.
The trade is legal within Japan, but banned by Google's own policies. The EIA said hanko sales are a "major demand driver for elephant ivory."
"While elephants are being mass slaughtered across Africa to produce ivory trinkets, it is shocking to discover that Google, with the massive resources it has at its disposal, is failing to enforce its own policies designed to help protect endangered elephants," said Allan Thorton, EIA's U.S.-based president.
Google said in an emailed response to The Associated Press that "ads for products obtained from endangered or threatened species are not allowed on Google. As soon as we detect ads that violate our advertising policies, we remove them."
The EIA said it had written a letter to Google CEO Larry Page on Feb. 22 urging the company to remove the ads because they violate Google's own policies. It said Google had not responded to the letter or taken down the advertisements.
About 70 years ago, up to 5 million elephants were believed to have roamed the African continent. Today, just several hundred thousand are left.
As Asian economies have grown, so has their demand for ivory. Over the last 12 months, an estimated 32,000 elephants were killed in Africa, according to the Born Free Foundation, which says black-market ivory sells for as much as $1,300 per pound, a huge multibillion-dollar business.
CITES banned the international ivory trade in 1989, but the move did not address domestic markets. Since then, Japan has imported ivory stocks from Africa in at least two legal, controlled sales.
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Louise Kyte
You see, I've been reading this about that: (eventually I realized this article is Mr.Long's pick)
BANGKOK (AP) — Conservationists say there's a new threat to the survival of Africa's endangered elephants that may be just as deadly as poachers' bullets: the black-market trade of ivory in cyberspace.
Illegal tusks are being bought and sold on countless Internet forums and shopping websites worldwide, including Internet giant Google, with increasing frequency, according to activists. And wildlife groups attending the 178-nation Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species in Bangkok this week are calling on global law enforcement agencies to do something about it.
The elephant slaughter, which has reached crisis proportions unheard of in two decades, is largely being driven by skyrocketing demand in Asia, where tusks are often carved into tourist trinkets and ornaments.
"The Internet is anonymous, it's open 24 hours a day for business, and selling illegal ivory online is a low-risk, high-profit activity for criminals," Tania McCrea-Steele of the International Fund for Animal Welfare told The Associated Press on Tuesday from London.
In one investigation last year, IFAW found 17,847 elephant products listed on 13 websites in China. The country, which conservationists call the world's top destination for "blood ivory" from Africa, is not alone.
IFAW says illegal ivory trading online is an issue within the U.S., including on eBay, and it is rife on some websites in Europe, particularly nations with colonial links to Africa.
It is often advertised with code words like "ox-bone," ''white gold," ''unburnable bone," or "cold to the touch," and shipped through the mail.
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edward long 100+
carolyn mcauley 20+
Etienne Vernier
The other solution would be considerably funding for reserves and protected land, allowing the elephants to strive and to keep the poachers out.
Frances Woolley
Thiyagu Jay
1. Elephant is treated akin to God as the Elephant-faced god, Ganesha, is widely worshipped in India.
2. A large number of elephants are domesticated and it is a lovely sight to see bejeweled elephants in various processions. This has made elephants accessible to many and hence loved by most.
The actions I would suggest are :
1. Making a sustained campaign to make elephant a loved animal. Make them accessible to people so that people will know their value. Love for anything is more powerful than any other worldly thing. Use banner, radio, TV, pamphlets, statues, etc.
2. Identify the section of the people who work as poaching workers and provide them alternate means of earning and protection from poaching masters.
3. Find and shutdown the ivory transfer routes, borders, bank accounts, etc. Make a pact with neighbouring countries and announce big rewards for the heads of poachers. If generations of men can learn the knack of successful poaching, is it difficult to train a another bunch of men to go after those poachers and kill or capture them ?
4. If a premeditated murder of a human can warrant death sentence, it can be considered for killing an elephant also. The justice should be quick and almost instantaneous.
5. Identify the destinations markets, workshops, dealers, auctioneers, etc, and work with those governments to shut them down effectively. Try for international sanctions against those countries not curbing them effectively.
6. Finally, unless there is consumption there wouldn’t be a market for Ivory and hence there won’t be any poaching. Who is buying ivory products – identify and do an effective camp
Aadi Iyer
In India this is the only reason elephants are not being poached for their tusks. Elephants belong to private individuals, companies, elephant schools and of course the majority to temples.
Robert Winner 50+
Paula, I am not a TED tree hugger .. I have had three jobs I retired from all three ... military, areonatical engineer, and state civil servant (law enforcement).
You want to save the elephant ..... there is a demand for the tusk (ivory) .... poachers are killing off elephants to supply the ivory to buyers.
Review the laws.
1) Poaching is illegal ... what is the punishment ... The consequences must out weight the rewards.
2) Getting caught with poached tusks .. what is the punishment ... same as above
3) Transporting poached ivory ... what is the punishment ... same as above
4) The immediate loss of all bank accounts ... property ... impounding of planes, ships, motor vehicles, etc ... used in the act of poaching or the transporting of poached goods. This would require cooperation from banks.
5) The diplomatic treaty with countries that poachers and recievers or traders in poached property will be subject to harsh laws and penalties to be agreed upon by the countries involved.
6) If your country is really serious about this then public execution of poachers would go a long way. Recommended.
When dealing with organized crime there can be no half way. Power is all they respect. Justice must be harsh and quick.
Economic and scientific solutions will not mean anything to organized crime .... they can and will overcome all of these efforts and laugh all the way to the bank.
This is not a kinder and gentler business. Get tough.
I wish you well. Bob.
Don Anderson 20+
http://www.ted.com/talks/allan_savory_how_to_green_the_world_s_deserts_and_reverse_climate_change.html
this is truly a game changer.
P.S. this would also turn a profit and create employment/jobs, instead of costing.
reine des violettes
Derek Young 30+
Meredith Cochran
Dorian Knus
Elephants will adapt. And jobs will be created.
Economic problems need economic solutions.
Humans are doomed already, this will just buy a little more time for the elephants and us.
Tannis Edwards
Domestication has preserved many species of animals for, (I'm guessing) many generations. Dogs, rabbits, chickens, and other animals have had great succes. Despite the many abuses they suffer today, the one terminal privation they do not suffer from is extinction.
Domestication is not the easiest solution, but it is one guaranteed to work.
Tom Eccleston
David Grammer
Matt Nelder
Darren Duckworth
Frank Barry
Short of lining the poachers & their employer-cartels and customers up against a wall,
there is no way to stop Elephant slaughter.
Goodbye Elephant.
Like the US Drug War. It becomes a lost cause, when Supply meets ceaseless Demand.
It will take identifying the retail customers and squeezing off Demand. But, like the Drug War,
It just doesn't work. Those Suppliers that need Demand, have that now.
Goodbye Elephant.
The biggest problem is, as always, corruption at the highest and lowest government levels.
Goodbye Elephant.
With the advent of US and some other nation's manufactured weapons and ammo,
the poor Elephant's haven't a chance.
Goodbye Elephant.
A story set during the 1800's--
The trapper, Jim Bridger and his mountain men caused the Beaver's near extinction.
Supplying the Demand for Beaver pelts used to make Tall Hats.
But, when Tall Hats went out of style, so did Demand for Beaver pelts.
It was too late by that time to save the Beavers.
Goodbye Beaver.
Beavers populations have somewhat rebounded since then. But today remain endangered.
===
What will it take to reverse this trend?
It is self-extinguishing upon the death of the last ivory tusk Elephant. Rhino's are now at risk also.
Goodbye Elephant.
===
Do we need to change cultures?
NO. world-wide humankind is about taking, seldom giving.
Goodbye Elephant.
===
Appealing for compassion in China, Thailand, Philippines?
NO. Consumerism is about getting products, not about how they are gotten.
Tree Huggers & Whale Savers never really win. They just beg money and
make great videos.
Goodbye Elephant.
===
Is it about law enforcement?
We would hope so, but actually there is not much they can do.
They act "after the crime has been committed".
Goodbye Elephant.
connie winters
Marilyn Jay
I have spent some time is both South Africa and Kenya (good luck in the elections) travelling and volunteering in wildlife preserves and schools and have made many friends who work with wildlife.
One thing I see from this distance is the large spike in the amount of poaching and consequent animal deaths that showed up shortly after China began getting so many construction and road contracts in Africa and bringing in their people to do the work.
I don't think that correlation has been looked at. But if the stuff is being transported out of the country in diplomatic pouches as has been alleged, your government is going to have to be willing to break diplomatic ties with certain Asian counties and I don't think they will do that, not even if there was only one elephant left in the world!
I know many of the preserves with rhino are clipping their horns, but with elephants in the wild (or rhino in the wild) I understand that this is not feasible.
However, the proposal to auction off the seized tusk and horn MIGHT put a dent in the illegal trade, as well as raising money for more enforcement, better pay, weapons and training for the rangers.
I'd love to hear more about what your organisation thinks and what it proposes to try . . .
Scott Bell
ZX Style 10+
Start an elephant farm.
Just sort of a zoo, but then with more space for the elephants.
Let tourists and locals pay a few dollars for entering your zoo.
So you can pay for their food and in the meanwhile you can produce offspring from the elephants.
peter ezzell
ZX Style 10+
Then indeed a breeding farm is not going to help much.
Then you need capital punishment for hunters to scare them off.
And furthermore devaluation of the tooth.
peter ezzell
Joshua Wiggins
peter ezzell
I imagine Paula Kahumbu, and the organizations she works with, have a fair idea where the largest barriers exist and some idea of what works and what doesn't . I know that animal rights acitivism has grown a lot within China. I wonder how much awareness these organizations have of the elephant/ivory issue and whether increasing their awareness would help increase pressure from within to address this problem..
Milan Maheshwari
My theory of life on earth is- " when god gave life on earth, first plants, trees flowers etc were created, when he looked down he said still looks dry, so made birds ( added some colors) but still something was missing, so made animals, still something was missing so made under water life and so on except human beings. Everything looked so beautiful, god fell in love with it. But, his principle is creation and than destruction. So now how to destroy this!! "HE MADE HUMANS IN THE LAST" to destroy everything.
How much ever any one tries, you can't beat god's will, can you?
Feyisayo Anjorin 50+
This should be a joint effort of governments, the media, NGOs and local communities. It is an uphill task because one or all of these could still be contaminated by dirty money. But no one goes to a battle with a head filled with thoughts of defeat. If we are to win, we have to fight, and probably fight for long.
carolyn mcauley 20+
Lovell Nabors
edulover learner 10+