By Kathryn Maureen Ryan
Impunity Watch, Managing Editor
DODOMA, Tanzania – Across Africa the population of the world’s largest land animal, the majestic African Elephant, have been declining an alarming rate. Experts believe 100,000 elephants have been killed across the continent in just past three years, all to feed the illegal Ivory trade. Growing demand for elephant ivory from in China is devastating Tanzania’s elephant population. Tanzania now loses more of its elephant to poaching than any other African State. According to the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), a London based environmental group, the country’s Selous reserve is a hotspot for illegal hunting. Elephant numbers in the park have fallen from an estimated 70,000 in 2006 to 13,000 in 2013. An EIA report places blame for the influx in ivory pouching in Tanzania on “collusion between corrupt officials and criminal enterprises,” accusing rangers, police officers and revenue and customs officers of corruption. According to Mary Rice, EIA’s executive director, the report “shows clearly that without a zero tolerance approach, the future of Tanzania’s elephants and its tourism industry are extremely precarious.” Rice explained, “The ivory trade must be disrupted at all levels of criminality, the entire prosecution chain needs to be systemically restructured, corruption rooted out and all stakeholders, including communities exploited by the criminal syndicates and those on the front lines of enforcement, given unequivocal support.”
Tanzania is the largest source of illegal Ivory, one out of every three elephants pouched in Africa is killed in Tanzania. The government of President Jakaya Kikwete has made some public efforts to fight poaching over the past year, including issuing a promise to destroy the nation’s stockpile of 112 metric tons of Ivory, worth an estimated $50 million. However, the government has failed to investigate the illegal pouching activities and prosecute high-level offenders.
State corruption drives Tanzania’s illicit ivory trade. Police have even been known to escort convoys carrying illegal ivory. The states corruption however does not at Tanzania’s borders. The EIA report cites several incidence where Chinese nationals, and even government officials have participated the illegal ivory trade. EIA cited the case of Yu Bo, a Chinese national who was detained in December 2013 while attempting to deliver 81 elephant tusks to two officers from a Chinese naval task force on an official visit to the Dar es Salaam port in the Kurasini region. Yu was caught at a checkpoint after paying bribes totaling $20,000. Market traders also told the undercover investigators that during a visit by Chinese president Xi Jinping in March 2013 the black market price of ivory doubled to $700 per kilo. A spokesman for the Chinese foreign ministry said it was “strongly dissatisfied” with the report. “We attach importance to the protection of wild animals like elephants,” he said. “We have been cooperating with other countries in this area.”
Elephants are a migratory animal, roaming across international borders. Protections are only truly effective if they are enforced in all countries where the animals roam. Elephant conservation is not only a valuable opportunity for the protection of wildlife and environmental health but for economic opportunity. Elephants bring millions of dollars into the region’s economy each year, helping to drive the tourism industry. The demand for trinkets and other goods made from ivory, the only part of the elephant poachers take, is fueling a pouching epidemic that threatens the future of the species, environmental health and may threaten the future economic growth of the region.
For more information please see:
The Economist – Big game poachers – 8 November 2014
National Geographic, Q&A: Report Alleges Governments’ Complicity in Tanzanian Elephant Poaching – 8 November 2014
The Guardian – Chinese demand for ivory is devastating Tanzania’s elephant population – 6 November 2014
The Toronto Star – Report links Chinese to elephant poaching in Tanzania – 6 November 2014
