Op-ed: Saving the African Elephant

For every one living elephant in Africa, two are dead due to poaching. In the past 20 years, the value of ivory has increased fifteen-fold. Certain African nations justify the trade in raw ivory, while others struggle to conserve the elephant population. 

         The African elephant was listed under Appendix I of CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) in 1989, classifying it as threatened with extinction. This led to a ban on the ivory trade, instigating a furious argument among African nations.  Some maintain that banning the ivory trade raises ivory prices, essentially encouraging poaching. Other nations counter that poaching is threatening their elephant herds.

          But a total ban on poaching and the ivory trade is the only way to ensure survival of the African elephant. Obtaining ivory from an elephant is gruesome and cruel. The elephant must be killed before the ivory is acquired, and this is usually done through slow and painful stoning, poison darts or slaughtering by machine gun. Approximately 25% of the ivory is in the elephant’s skull and must be extracted by the poacher. The dead elephant corpse is then left in the fields with a mutilated, tuskless head. 

         The 1989 ban on the ivory trade, paradoxically, has reduced activity in the black market. Although the price of ivory has increased, lifting the ban would only increase the size of the market, causing many more elephants to be slaughtered by poachers. Since the ban, the elephant population has risen, but only in some areas, making the ban still necessary. There’s no way to tell where worked ivory originates, so that lifting the ban would only encourage poaching, making it easier for poachers to disguise illegal origins of ivory.

         Between 1979 and 1989, the African elephant population plummeted from about 1,300,000 to 750,000, due mostly to poaching. The International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) estimates that about 20,000 elephants are killed each year for their ivory, and 100 rangers’ lives are lost protecting the animals. At this rate scientists had estimated that the African elephant would be extinct by 1995. The protective measures now taken with the ban since 1989 has only been partially successful, but has undoubtedly helped save the species. The African elephant population equals about 450,000 today, showing that fewer elephants are being killed since the ban. 

         Certain African nations - South Africa, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Namibia - support resumption of the ivory trade. These countries claim that the repeal of the ban would not lead to substantial poaching, and that regulated trading is beneficial. They believe that elephant culling will help conserve other species as well as boost the revenue for the locals. The enormous ivory market in Japan is stable and pro-trade lobbyists think it is illogical to ban the trade because it leads to illegal trade practices. 

         But lifting the ban on the ivory trade would not stop -but actually encourage- illegal black market practices. The IFAW claims that lifting the ban would only help poachers disguise illegal trades because monitoring trade would be much harder. 

         Still, twenty-seven countries oppose a lift on the ban. Many of these countries depend on the revenue brought in by tourism, as elephants are an important attraction. These pro-ban African nations also consider elephants to play an important role in the local ecology. Male elephants are the ones with larger tusks and over time the size of their tusks have declined.  This has caused poachers to start poaching females, killing old matriarchs and hindering the elephant herds’ social structure. Since the ban, fewer elephants are being killed, and this is reason enough to continue it.

         Strong enforcement on the ban of the trade has helped the African elephants. Kenya’s largest national park, Tsavo, has had a 4.1 percent increase in their elephant population over the past 3 years, according to the Kenya Wildlife Service Director, Dr. Julius Kipng'etich. Banning the ivory trade in Africa clearly has encouraged the reduction of poaching.

         Continuing the ban on the ivory trade seems to be the best way to help preserve the African elephant. Dr. Kipng'etich told Environment News Science, “The elephant is Kenya's flagship species and so its distribution and condition is a good indicator of the status of our wildlife.”

For more specific information on the appendices of CITES: http://www.cites.org/eng/app/index.php

For more information on IFAW: http://www.ifaw.org/ifaw_united_states/index.php

SAY NO! TO IVORY!!
www.elephantmarch.com

 

Protect This Earth's Species

 News Piece          

            Poachers are slaughtering hundreds of African elephants every year to get their hands on black market ivory, and illegal raw ivory trade has been taking place right under the Zimbabwean government’s nose - until now. By enforcing an international agreement, the Convention in International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), Zimbabwe has revoked the right of export licenses.

            According to the African Elephant Database of the IUCN/SSC (International Union for the Conservation of Nature/Species Survival Commission) African Elephant Specialist Group, the elephant count in Zimbabwe totals to about 100,000, the third largest elephant population in Africa.  Since the ban by CITES in 1990, Zimbabwe is one of the few countries allowed to participate in controlled ivory trade. In the mid-1990’s, the growing elephant population became a justification for governmental authorities and environmentalists to continue the ivory trade in order to improve the living standards of the poor.

            The head of US delegation, Todd Willens, told BBC News, "939 active poaching camps were observed in a north-eastern state in Zimbabwe, representing a six-fold increase in poaching activity since 2001.” Despite this, nothing was done by the US or any other delegation.  Zimbabwe believes that the tourist trade is the best tactic for regulating and protecting the elephant herds. Whether tourism has unintentionally encouraged poaching is a still a topic of debate, as CITES has a difficult time collecting truthful facts from various government agencies.

            Before the government adopted its new restrictions, along with CITES enforcement, they issued Short Export Permits which allowed for the controlled export of worked ivory out of Zimbabwe.  The holder was required to receive the endorsement of a customs officer. When the African elephant was transferred to Appendix II of the Convention’s list of over-exploited species in 1997, this led to the authorization of the trade of ivory carvings solely for non-commercial purposes. However, the Short Export Permit did not cover the trade of raw ivory. Recently government investigation has shown that the system has been abused, and raw ivory was being disguised as souvenirs.

The Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority immediately took action and set new restrictions in order to further protect Zimbabwe’s elephants. The Management Authority director general Mr Vitalis Chadenga said to allafrica.com, “Zimbabwe believes in sustainable and legal wildlife trade, but we will not tolerate unscrupulous individuals who abuse the system. We are committed to curtailing any illegal trade in ivory from our country and request the co-operation of the global community to help us achieve that objective.” Now anyone wanting to carry out ivory carvings from the country is required to apply through one of the three Zimbabwean CITES management authority offices located in Harare, Bulawayo and Victoria Falls where they can obtain a CITES export permit.

            An international, wildlife trade monitoring network, TRAFFIC, oversees the trade in wildlife plants and animals to help protect the destruction of the planet’s flora and fauna. Tom Milken, the regional director of the program in eastern and southern Africa told allafrica.com, “TRAFFIC applauds the Zimbabwe government for this positive development. It's the right thing to do and sends a clear message against illegal trade practices.”

Written: Fall 2010    

For more information on CITES: http://www.cites.org/

For more information on TRAFFIC: http://www.traffic.org/

The Beauty of Evolution. Is it over?

It's clear here where evolution went wrong. But it's an evolution that took place nonetheless. But the bigger picture here is Darwin's phenomenon. Deriving from ideas of Lamarck and Malthus, the "struggle for existence" where favorable variations would prevail seem not so favorable today. Anyways, let's not forget Mendel and his inheritable genes -though all these great minds together brought us today the theory that makes this Earth go round, and our science textbooks. The change in time in one or more inherited traits. Now I am not sure if apes used computers, but I'll accept our 98% common DNA.

Now evolution isn't a simple theory, and as it isn't simple, it comes with a lot of complicated assets: variation, mutation, sex and recombination, gene flow. So what do you really need to know (that is if you haven't learned about this enough through out your years in school and are NOT a science student)?
Let's look at the timeline so you can see just how young and naive we are:

• 4,600,000,000 years ago: the Earth forms and is bombarded by meteorites and comets.
• 3,800,000,000 years ago: the precursors of DNA form. 
• 3,500,000,000 years ago: unicellular life evolves.
• 555,000,000 years ago: Multi-cellular marine organisms.
• 500,000,000 years ago: fish-life vertebrate form, and invertebrate.
• 450,000,000 years ago: Arthropods move onto land, forming spiders, scorpions, mites and millipedes. 
• 420,000,000 years ago: land plants evolve drastically changing the Earth's landscapes and forming new habitats.
• 360,000,000 years ago: Four-limbed vertebrates move onto land as habitats and forests grow; reef systems.
• 250,000,000 years ago: Pangea forms.
• 248,000,000 years ago: Over 90% of Earth's marine life and 70% of Earth's terrestrial life goes extinct during the Earth's largest mass extinction.
• 225,000,000 years ago: Dinosaurs and mammals evolve. Pangea begins to break apart.
• 130,000,000 years ago: Earliest flowers evolve as the continents form. Dinosaurs dominate; bony fish diversify. 
• 65,000,000 years ago: Dinosaurs go extinct. (massive asteroid - of course this is debated like everything else)
• 4,000,000 years ago: Early hominid "Lucy" lives, the ice age begins and many large mammals go extinct. 
• 130,000 years ago: Anatomically modern humans evolve. Seventy thousand years later their descendants create cave-paintings and show the first sign of consciousnesses.

So after this long the question now remains, is human evolution finally over?

Has our species reached its biological pinnacle? Some believe that this is our present-day Utopia, that it won't get much better than this. Others believe that mankind is still being influenced by the evolutionary forces that created this pyramid of species that inhabited the planet more than 3 million years ago. Some see growing neurotic geniuses, some see a dumbfound standstill.
How will you evolve?