In the Shadows of the Congo Basin Forest, Elephants Fall to the Illegal Ivory Trade

0001 The 1980s were not kind to African elephants. Poachers committed brutal acts in the pursuit of tusks to feed the human hunger for ivory. Gruesome images of the carnage they left behind—mutilated corpses sprawled in twisted repose, attended by bereft companions and bewildered orphans— helped document the precipitous collapse of Africa’s elephant populations. Between 1970 and 1989, as global demand for ivory grew and poachers traded traditional hunting methods for AK-47s and elephant guns, an estimated three-quarters of a million elephants were killed, leaving just 600,000 survivors. Much of Africa, once home to as many as 10 million elephants, had turned into an elephant graveyard. This catastrophic decline, coupled with public outcry at the elephants’ cruel fate, led to a ban on the international ivory trade, after the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) placed the African elephant on its most critically endangered list, Appendix I. The ban, which led to more aggressive antipoaching campaigns and increased investment in wildlife protection, set African elephants on the road to recovery. But a new study from Stephen Blake, Samantha Strindberg, Fiona Maisels, and colleagues warns that while savannah elephants may indeed be rebounding—in part because they live in countries with long histories of wildlife management, where protection is facilitated by open plains habitats and usually good infrastructure—their forest relatives, hidden in the Congo Basin rainforests, still face intense poaching pressure. Humans have exploited elephants’ ivory tusks for profi t ever since ancient civilizations recognized the beauty and commercial potential of ivory. Despite increased awareness about the bloody legacy of the illegal ivory trade, consumers outside Africa, particularly in Asia, continue to buy ivory. And despite the 1989 ban, the status and management of African elephants remain precarious, except in southern Africa, where effective management of the savannah elephant has ensured its protection. Countries in southern Africa oppose the Appendix I listing and trade ban, arguing that their savannah elephants have either rebounded or were never threatened, thanks to good management. They want to sell their ivory stockpiles as reward for their success and use the proceeds to underwrite their conservation programs. (Savannah populations appear mostly stable and relatively protected from poachers— though a 2006 report found evidence of increased poaching in Mozambique and Angola, the only sub-Saharan nation that is not a member of CITES.) CITES approved one-time stockpile sales in 1997 and in 2002; though the 2002 sale has not yet proceeded, pending the completion of necessary monitoring commitments, it may be approved by CITES in June. While the life history and conservation status of savannah elephants are well known, relatively little is known about the biology of forest elephants, which scientists suspect may be a distinct species uniquely adapted to Africa’s dense rainforests. And because central African nations—where ivory poaching persists—have far less capacity for elephant management than southern African nations, conservationists fear that legalizing even limited trade in ivory from southern African elephants will place the forest elephant in serious jeopardy. Unlike most eastern and southern African nations, which have thriving wildlife-based tourism industries and the funding and infrastructure to facilitate elephant protection, Congo Basin forest nations have crumbling infrastructure, poorly supported wildlife departments, and vast areas accessible only by foot. In some nations, high levels of corruption thwart wildlife management, while in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Congo, and the Central African Republic, high-intensity civil confl icts have interfered with management and led to accelerated poaching, often organized by the military. In nations without the law enforcement capacity to catch and prosecute ivory poachers, poaching levels appear to fl uctuate with market demand and price. Kenya, which saw rampant elephant poaching in the 1980s, and countries in West and Central Africa, the heart of forest elephant habitat, continue to support In the Shadows of the Congo Basin Forest, Elephants Fall to the Illegal Ivory Trade