{"id":1224,"date":"2019-08-23T08:29:08","date_gmt":"2019-08-23T08:29:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.africansafarisint.co.za\/?p=1224"},"modified":"2019-08-23T08:29:08","modified_gmt":"2019-08-23T08:29:08","slug":"to-save-the-african-elephant-focus-must-turn-to-poverty-and-corruption","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africansafarisint.co.za\/conservation\/to-save-the-african-elephant-focus-must-turn-to-poverty-and-corruption\/","title":{"rendered":"To save the African elephant, focus must turn to poverty and corruption"},"content":{"rendered":"

African elephants are threatened with extinction. With numbers shrinking by a\u00a0third<\/a>\u00a0in just seven years, there are now fewer than 350,000 left in the wild. And their dwindling numbers are not just the concern of nature documentaries \u2013 they play vital roles in\u00a0helping plant life prosper<\/a>,\u00a0digging water holes<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0improving foraging conditions<\/a>\u00a0for other animals.<\/p>\n

In 2011, poaching rates hit an all-time high, with 10% of all elephants on the continent killed in a single year. Thankfully, our new research, published in\u00a0Nature Communications<\/a>, reveals that the poaching rate has since declined, hovering at around 4% in 2017.<\/p>\n

However, this drop is not enough \u2013 at current levels of poaching, the African elephant could still become near extinct in a few decades. This is despite\u00a0substantial law enforcement efforts<\/a>, and\u00a0legislation<\/a>\u00a0to outlaw the trade of ivory. Our results suggest that if we are to save the African elephant, we should begin to direct resources towards less traditional approaches.<\/p>\n

Slow economy, lower poaching<\/h2>\n

The drop in poaching from 2011 levels was likely due to a decrease in demand for ivory in\u00a0China and South-East Asia<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 but the reasons for this decrease are not obvious. It would be easy to assume that\u00a0China\u2019s ivory trade ban<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0prominent supportive campaigns led by celebrities<\/a>\u00a0were responsible, but the dates don\u2019t match up \u2013 the trade ban wasn\u2019t announced until 2015 and didn\u2019t take effect\u00a0until 2017<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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In 2016, Kenya burnt 105 tonnes of ivory to demonstrate its commitment to tackle poaching.<\/span>\u00a0Dai Kurokawa\/EPA<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The ban may have had some positive effect on more recent poaching numbers, and it certainly sends the right political messages. But as demonstrated by\u00a0the recent growth in rhino poaching<\/a>\u00a0despite a comprehensive ban, history tells us that making a coveted animal product illegal\u00a0doesn\u2019t always<\/a>\u00a0curb trade.<\/p>\n

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Read more:\u00a0Why banning the mammoth ivory trade would be a huge mistake<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

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Read more:\u00a0Why China’s ivory ban is a mammoth step towards saving the elephant<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

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Instead, it seems that\u00a0China\u2019s slowing economy<\/a>\u00a0may have been the main driver behind the fall in poaching. And while the subsequent economic squeeze probably reduced ivory demand among the rich in Asia, poaching could easily rise again should China\u2019s economy change.<\/p>\n

A new approach<\/h2>\n

The most important thing we can do to reduce poaching is to stop people setting out to poach in the first place. Traditionally, law enforcement has been seen as the cornerstone of strategies to cut supply, driving a push for\u00a0increasingly militarised<\/a>\u00a0anti-poaching operations. But while law enforcement did explain some of the large variation in poaching rates across sites, a much bigger correlate of poaching rates was the level of poverty and corruption in the area.<\/p>\n

For many involved in poaching in Africa, the ivory from a single large elephant could be\u00a0sold<\/a>\u00a0for much more than they have any chance of earning in an\u00a0entire year<\/a>. And given that elephants regularly\u00a0raid crops<\/a>and kill community members, even those not involved are often understandably ambivalent about tackling poaching.<\/p>\n

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Kenyan rangers have received patrol and field training from the British army to fight rising poaching in the country.<\/span>\u00a0Dai Kurokawa\/EPA<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

That\u2019s not to say that we should stop investing in law enforcement. The mere presence of a few rangers deters many poachers, and is an extremely useful strategy. But the most professional poachers will only be deterred by a large, well-trained, and well-equipped field team, which simply isn\u2019t practical in sites that cover ground areas in excess of small European countries. Our results suggest that some of the\u00a0vast sum of money<\/a>\u00a0spent on these types of operations may be better spent on poverty and corruption-related interventions.<\/p>\n

Of course, reducing poverty and corruption is no simple task either. Some conservation organisations have tried offering financial incentives to communities for taking an active role in conservation efforts, but these schemes have had\u00a0mixed results<\/a>\u00a0as cash benefits are often small, or not shared equally.<\/p>\n

Our results suggest that conservation benefits may result from any reduction in poverty, not just from development schemes that are directly tied to biodiversity. So conservation organisations might seek to invest in, say, the provision of factories that offer appropriate employment to community members, or make grants to community members for new business ideas.<\/p>\n

The important bonus of this approach is that in addition to being an effective method of reducing poaching, it would place improving the lives of thousands of Africans as a central priority. The well-being of humans and wildlife are not\u00a0isolated issues<\/a>. The plight of all species on this planet are intertwined, and the sooner we act accordingly, the better.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

African elephants are threatened with extinction. With numbers shrinking by a\u00a0third\u00a0in just seven years, there are now fewer than 350,000 left in the wild. And their dwindling numbers are not just the concern of nature documentaries \u2013 they play vital roles in\u00a0helping plant life prosper,\u00a0digging water holes\u00a0and\u00a0improving foraging conditions\u00a0for other Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,36],"tags":[191,195,192,193,194],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.africansafarisint.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1224"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.africansafarisint.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.africansafarisint.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.africansafarisint.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.africansafarisint.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1224"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.africansafarisint.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1224\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1226,"href":"https:\/\/www.africansafarisint.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1224\/revisions\/1226"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.africansafarisint.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.africansafarisint.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.africansafarisint.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}