Dame Daphne's stand on CITES and IVORY Trade

[Guest guest]

*

" One thing is sure, and that is that CITES which should have prevented the

demise of the elephant by controlling the trade has failed in its mandate.

Instead it has evolved into a political lobby bent on trade and the

endangered species have become mere pawns in a money game. In fact, in the

past CITES agents themselves orchestrated the laundering of illegal ivory

into a stockpile in Burundi, accepting bribes as a pay-off for the CITES stamp.

Now, more than ever, when the elephants are so very vulnerable, their social

family fabric torn to tatters, should the world **SAY NO TO IVORY "

 

Dr. Dame Daphne Sheldrick D.B.E, DVMS, 1992 UNEP Global 500 Laureate

*

http://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org/html/debate.html

 

*THE ELEPHANT DEBATE

*By Daphne Sheldrick D.B.E.: 1992 UNEP Global 500 Laureate.

 

*Introduction*

 

No animal triggers more heated debate within conservation circles than the

elephant, for no animal has greater impact on the environment or is more

" human " emotionally. Elephants can change the face of the landscape enacting

their allotted " recycling " role and they share with us humans many emotional

traits. Theirs is a parallel lifespan, the same rate of development, a sense

of family and death, loyalties and friendships forged over the years that

span a lifetime and a memory that probably far surpasses our own. They also

have additional attributes such as " instinct " , that mysterious genetic

knowledge crucial to survival; the ability to communicate over distance with

low frequency infra-sound hidden to human ears, and, like many other

animals, powers of telepathy. Hence, the question of how best to " manage "

these highly sophisticated and sensitive pachyderms inevitably evokes heated

debate.

 

*Elephants and Ivory:-* Unhappily, the ivory of their huge " incisors " has

commercial and mystical significance, particularly in the Far East. In

Japan, it is used for signature seals known as " hankas " and in many other

Far Eastern countries such as China the ancient art of carving is an

important industry with skills handed down over generations from father to

son. It is the demand in the East for an ivory hanka, or in the West for an

ivory trinket, that has injected the commercial element into ivory and it is

the commercial trade that now threatens the survival of the largest land

mammal on earth. All who buy ivory have blood on their hands, for it has

cost an elephant its life and that of all its dependent young. It has also

wrought immeasurable psychological suffering to many others who were friends

and loved ones.

 

Elephants need S P A C E and space is a commodity that is fast becoming

scarce due to human expansion. Ancient migration routes have been cut and

elephants driven into their last refuges, often too small to be viable in

the long-term, or positioned in marginal land where survival hinges on the

variables of rainfall.

 

Meanwhile, conflicting messages from the elephant range States and different

conservation factions has bred confusion in the minds of the lay public and

since it is " people power " that will ultimately determine the course of

events, it is important that the complexities of the elephant story are

fully understood. Thirty years ago the elephant population of Africa stood

at a healthy 3 million. Today less than 250,000 remain with numbers poised

to decline further due to human pressures. Remnant elephant communities

isolated from one another and holed up in small refuge areas immediately

become " problem animals " every time they put a foot out, since they find

themselves in conflict with human interests. The price of this is a bullet.

 

Elephant society is comprised of bonded female units which stay together for

life (young bulls leave the natal family at puberty to apprentice themselves

to high ranking bulls in order to learn the codes of behaviour that govern

bull society). The female unit is led by the oldest member of the family,

known as the Matriarch, and it is she who makes all the decisions for her

family. Hence, within the cow units, the misfortunes of one, affect, all,

making them particularly vulnerable. Elephant infants cannot survive without

milk for the first two years of life. Thereafter, ideally, a calf would

supplement its diet of vegetation with some milk from its mother for the

next three years until the arrival of the next baby, by which time it will

be 5 years old. It will reach puberty between the age of l0 and l5 years; be

a young adult at 20, in its prime in its thirties and forties, still strong

and healthy yet ageing in its fifties, and old beyond the age of sixty.

Therefore, when a calf is orphaned younger than two, it is usually doomed,

for whilst the family will love and care for it as best they can, few cow

elephants with a calf at foot will have the lactating capacity to suckle

two; nor would a cow jeopardise her own calf by doing so. Occasionally, if

times are good, an old cow wise in the ways of motherhood will allow an

orphan to suckle if she has lost a baby, or has one not wholly milk

dependent, but such instances are rare. Deprived of milk, an orphaned infant

will weaken rapidly, fall behind the herd and then the Matriarch must

abandon it in the interests of the others whose survival is her

responsibility. Her decision is final.

 

The gestation period for an elephant is between 22 and 24 months. A young

cow can fall pregnant for the first time at puberty, so given optimum

conditions a female elephant could have her first calf at the age of l2 or

14, thereafter producing one baby every five years into her sixties.

However, conditions are seldom optimal for elephants these days. Most

populations are under stress which inhibits conception; many are subjected

to intense human intrusion through mass tourism and scientific monitoring;

droughts are commonplace in marginal areas with both water and food scarce

and, of course, in Southern Africa economics dominate, in a flawed " if it

pays it stays " attitude, so periodic culls are accepted as necessary

management practice. There the meat of culled elephants is canned as pet

food, their hide turned into leather, fetching high prices in Japan, their

feet sold as curios and their young sold to Zoos and Circuses under the

" educational " loophole in the laws governing endangered species. What can be

educational in viewing a miserable and usually psychotic captive is

questionable, to say the least, particularly in this day and age of

sophisticated technology.

 

The scale of abuse attached to the live baby elephant trade was graphically

highlighted by what became known as the Tuli Debacle. Calves, some of which

were only two years old, were snatched from their living families by

Helicopter in the Tuli Block of Botswana and subsequently cruelly brutalised

in a South African so called " training " facility in preparation for sale to

China and the Far East. There they became the subject of a cruelty Court

Case which ended up generating such international outrage that some, at

least, were released into Marakele National Park where they subsequently

became absorbed into a wild herd. However, others less fortunate were

spirited away to Northern Transvaal , (no doubt to be " trained " further far

from the public spotlight) and yet others were clandestinely airlifted to

Zoos in Switzerland and Germany, there to face life imprisonment in

conditions that are far from suitable for an elephant. (Pressure is being

exerted to try and get these wild caught captives returned back to where

they belong). Another report from Tanzania told of young elephants being

isolated from the herd and chased by Landrovers until exhausted, then being

netted and dragged hundreds of metres to a waiting transporter. (Needless to

say, none of these captives survived). It is known that the live animal

trade also acts as a convenient cover and conduit for illegal narcotics and

diamonds.

 

The demand for young elephants in China is ongoing, because mortality is

high in a country where animal welfare is an alien concept and captive

elephants are subjected to untold cruelty and suffering. CITES (The

International Convention on Trade in Endangered Species) has always

conveniently overlooked what is, and is not, " a suitable destination " in

terms of elephants since few of the delegates are conversant with the needs,

and nature, of elephants. The trade is lucrative, the demand is there, and

money talks!

 

*Poaching and CITES:-* In the l970's and 80's poaching escalated to such an

extent that public outcry forced the International Community to take action.

North of the Zambezi, entire populations of elephants faced annihilation;

security within the Parks impacted negatively on tourism, (the mainstay of

many African economies), and the situation was desperate. Finally, in*l989,*

CITES, which meets every two years to discuss trade in threatened and

endangered species, was forced to impose an International Ban on the sale of

all ivory. Elephants were placed on the *fully protected Appendix

Ilisting,* the

price of ivory fell sharply and with it the incentive to poach. In short,

the elephants won a reprieve just in time throughout most of Africa and some

countries such as Kenya and Zambia went so far as to burn their ivory stocks

in a gesture of commitment and goodwill.

 

However, others further South and some further North in possession of

illegal stockpiles, chose to hoard it, and immediately began to orchestrate

a cunning P.R. campaign to be allowed to sell it, despite the fact that a

further l0,000 elephants were estimated to have perished when Hong Kong was

allowed to sell its stockpile immediately after the ban was imposed. This

should have been a warning heeded but commercial interests often cloud good

judgement.

 

The International Ivory Ban held for the next 8 years and for the first time

ever poaching was brought under control. Furthermore, the in-house

corruption that had crept into most wildlife authorities could be addressed.

Yet, eight years is time enough only for just two generations of elephants

to be born to replace the holocaust of the previous two decades and

certainly not time enough to heal the fragile fabric of elephant society

which had been severely disrupted. Still the pressure mounted from the

Southern Africans with talk of " over population " , " rampaging elephants "

spilling out of protected areas to conflict with human interests, and the

perennial cry that the dead must pay for the living. In this respect a quote

from Dr. Richard Leakey sums up the opinion of informed

conservationists:- * " Biodiversity

cannot be given a price The point is that species must stay, so we must pay.

National Parks are not larders to be plundered and exploited. " *One can be

excused for thinking that perhaps we humans should begin by addressing the

negative impact our species has had on the planet through cultivation,

open-cast mining, industrial pollution, river contamination, forest felling

and other facets of mismanagement! The damage done to the planet by homo

sapiens exceeds that of all others.

 

*In June l997,* another CITES Convention was convened in *Harare,

Zimbabwe,* and

amidst a great deal of political manoeuvring, the Ivory Ban that had held

for the past eight years was overturned, and overturned in an unethical way

through a second secret ballot. This over-rode the first vote in favour of

the elephants, because the European Union chose to abstain, which cost the

elephants dearly. In so doing, Zimbabwe, Namibia and Botswana finally won

the right for a one-off sale of their ivory stockpiles to Japan. Shamefully,

this time, Animal Welfare Organisations there to speak for the animals and

provide some semblance of " conscience " within a trade oriented forum, were

denied even a voice, despite the fact that it is they who are best equipped

to furnish the usually ill informed delegates with first hand information on

conservation issues. Even the report of the scientific " Panel of Experts "

which questioned the poaching figures submitted by Zimbabwe, fell on deaf

ears. In a nutshell, the l997 CITES Conference of the Parties will go down

in history as a disgraceful showing of acrimony, strong arm tactics, and

deviousness, besides being a mega conservation blunder. Nevertheless, *the

South African population of elephants remained on Appendix I* and that, at

least, was some consolation.

 

Immediately, the message was out - elephants were up for grabs again.

Illegal ivory could again be " laundered " into the legal system; poaching

escalated, as did the stockpiling of illegal ivory, and this at a time when

the elephant populations had barely recovered from the previous onslaught.

Furthermore, many African range States were in a worsening state of

political chaos with no hope of adequate law enforcement; automatic weapons

were easily procurable and many wildlife authorities were impoverished and

riddled with corruption. More sinister still, there were those that embarked

on a deliberate strategy of covering up poaching incidents either to

disguise their own shortcomings or because they had vested interests in the

illegal trade. *In April 2000,*The CITES Conference of the Parties met yet

again, this time in *Nairobi, Kenya,* amidst conflicting and confused

reports about whether, in fact, poaching for ivory was responsible for the

further demise of elephants, or whether, in fact, there had been a reduction

in numbers. TheCITES Secretariat was quite openly biased in favour of the

Southern African pro-trade lobby and Kenya and India found themselves alone

in admitting a serious escalation in poaching and pressing for the fully

protected Appendix I listing to be reinstated. Other range States, known to

have been under poaching pressure, saw fit to again conceal the facts for

the same reasons as before; yet others were either " bought " or intimidated

and in the end a compromise emerged – a two year moratorium on the sale of *

all* ivory in exchange for the *downlisting to Appendix II of the South

African population,* thereby sanctioning the trade in all elephant

by-products, except ivory, but *including live elephants.* Yet again, the

thorny question of what is, and what is not, a* suitable *destination failed

to be adequately defined. Worse still, within just a month or two, Zimbabwe

deliberately flouted the Convention's ruling and went ahead with the sale of

a large quantity of ivory to China! Nor is there any doubt that in two

years' time, the pressure to open the Ivory Trade will be even greater, so

the The Millennium Cites gathering will go down in history as being a no-win

situation yet again for the elephants. It would seem that only when the

Southern African populations are threatened with extinction will the

International Community respond by placing all ivory off limits forever,

since wealthy Southern Africa has more to offer the world in terms of trade

than other African range States.*Culling as a Management Option:-* The only

practical way of " culling " elephant herds is to gun down entire family

groups, first having immobilised the Matriarch from a helicopter so that the

family cluster around her, confused and rudderless. The drug commonly used

is scholine, banned for use on humans, since it collapses the muscles

causing total paralysis, yet leaves the victim fully conscious. An

anaesthetic would, of course, be far more humane, but it would contaminate

the meat and detract from its commercial value. Yet, no-one can deny that an

elephant cull is anything short of a brutal massacre that sickens even the

most seasoned men detailed to undertake this terrible task as part of their

conservation duties.

 

Significant, however, is the fact that artificial culling is undoubtedly

seriously flawed. With all age groups within the female herds still intact,

and pressure off the land by the removal of some, the breeding rate

inevitably rises. Culling therefore has to be ongoing and the problem of

" too many elephants " is never truly solved, serving, of course, the

interests of the commercial trade. But,culling as practised in Southern

Africa is fundamentally flawed for another very important reason,

expediently overlooked. It deprives Nature of evolution's most potent

genetic tool - *Natural Selection* - something that can never be duplicated

by man. The survival of the fittest ensures the strength of the genetic core

of wild populations so that only the best genes perpetuate. Natural

Selection is the powerhouse of evolution, crucial to healthy stock, and

vital for adaptation in an ever changing habitat, for Nature is *never* static;

it is a dynamic and volatile force with evolution constantly at work. The

term " Conservation " has been defined thus by one of the world's most eminent

ecologists, the late Sir Frank Fraser Darling:- * " Maintenance of the Energy

flux is conservation – reduction of it is the opposite to conservation " .*

 

No-one can argue that the removal of large numbers of elephant from the

environment for commercial purposes, is anything other than a reduction of

the energy flux and as such contrary to the fundamentals of conservation.

Neither should the contribution of the dead to the wellbeing of the living

be overlooked. A dead elephant feeds a great many predators for a long time,

and the recycling of its remains back into the environment returns nutrients

to the soil from whence they sprung, contributing to fertility. Even the

tail hairs of a dead elephant serve a useful function, plucked out by the

birds for nests; bones are chewed and scattered by predators, gnawed by

rodents or weathered back into the soil by the elements. A study done in

Tsavo recorded 84,700 insects in just 3 kilos of elephant dung, so ponder

for a moment the forces at work to recycle what once was a living elephant.

When nothing is removed from the habitat, nothing is lost, and the

environment is the richer for it.

 

*The Tsavo Example:-* The thorny issue of what to do about an over

population of elephants in a confined area continues to simmer. Attempts at

birth control through pill implants have proved problematical and are still

in the experimental stage. Who, in fact, is qualified to determine how many

is too many, when there are too many, and which ones should die? Only Nature

can do this, and the example is there within Kenya's Tsavo National Park,

the only Park in Africa where natural processes and vegetational progression

has been allowed to proceed to a natural conclusion devoid of human

intervention. In Tsavo elephant/vegetational cyclical patterns have been

carefully monitored over time and a natural elephant die-off that took place

in the early seventies has been scientifically documented. There man stood

aside to look and learn rather than to crash in clumsily where angels feared

to tread.

 

The argument most commonly used to justify the large-scale killing of

elephant herds is that they destroy the habitat, threatening the survival of

other life forms. But, where is the evidence to support this premise? In

Tsavo what at one point in time appeared to be wholesale " destruction " of

the woody plant community, turned out to be something quite different. Nor

did the predicted demise of many species due to the activity of elephants

occur - rather the reverse; the habitat was improved and became more

productive benefiting biodiversity. There the ability of Nature to adjust

elephant numbers was illustrated and the reason for the female bonding

within elephant society also became clear. Added to this, human failings

such as corruption and greed illustrated the pitfalls of " commercial

utilisation " of wild free ranging populations, where Nature imposes its own

controls through predation, disease, and food and water availability, no

provision allowed in the system for human predation on a commercial scale.

 

It so happened that Naturalists, as opposed to Scientists, were at the

wildlife helm at that point in time. They viewed things not in isolation,

but as a whole, since Naturalists do not specialise but consider the big

picture. Sympathetic handling of wild populations and compassion for the

orphaned and injured is not seen as a weakness but rather an essential

element of sensitive conservation husbandry. A Naturalist has the advantage

of vision unblinkered by scientific constraints and an intrinsic passion for

wild unspoilt places where Nature and natural processes rule supreme, and

where wild animals enjoy *a quality of life* untroubled by intrusive

management. Naturalists understand that Nature holds the answers to many

puzzles and that humans should take the time to look and learn rather than

blunder in where angels fear to tread. Nature is complex and every living

organism, whether large or small, is intertwined contributing, each in its

own way, to the wellbeing of the whole. It has the ability to best correct

imbalances caused by artificial boundaries with species adapting to change,

and finding their own optimum levels within habitat conditions prevailing at

the time. What can exist naturally within artificial boundaries will, and

what can't, wont, such limitations being preferable to artificially

manipulated situations that impact negatively both on quality of life and

the sense of wilderness, quite apart from usually being too costly for Third

World resources. Above all, Naturalists bow to the significance of natural

selection, viewing it as a vital and necessary process that contributes to

the wellbeing of the species. After all, no one knows better than Nature as

to who should live and who should die.when the time comes. In other words,

when it comes to intrusive management, less is always best.

 

Tsavo National Park is 8,000 sq. miles in extent. It was established in

l948, not because of its wealth of wildlife, but simply because it was a

large chunk of country not suitable for either pastoral or agricultural

purposes - an inhospitable arid thirstland with an average annual rainfall

of between just l0 and and 20 inches; its barren wastes tsetse infested

" commiphora " scrub served by only two permanent rivers; the malarial

parasite and tsetse borne trypanosomiasis a deterrent to both humans and

domestic livestock. Grasses were sparse or absent altogether beneath the

dense entanglement of barbed scrub and sanseveria that dominated at that

time, and as a result water runoff during the wet seasons produced flash

flooding in sand luggas that lay dry for the rest of the year. Then, the

habitat favoured the browsing species such as elephant, and black rhino,

both of which were present in very large numbers, as were dikdik, lesser

kudu and gerenuk. Grazers were few and sparse, but diverse nevertheless.

However, the viewing of anything was severely restricted due to the

impenetrable wall of bush that gave way reluctantly to every trail.

 

By fortunate geographical accident, however, the Park just happened to hold

a greater variety of different species than any other Park in the world, for

there the northern and southern forms of fauna just happened to meet,

doubling up on common species. It harboured Peters Gazelle as well as the

Common Grant, the Somali ostrich along with the Masai, reticulated forms of

giraffe merging into obvious Masai patterning, and, prior to the great

rinderpest epidemic of the late l800's which decimated the ungulates,

Greater kudu as well as the more common lesser variety and even Sable.

 

In l948 when the Park first came into being, human pressure had yet to

manifest itself along the boundaries, so elephants roamed an ecosystem of

l6,000 square miles, twice the size of the Park itself. By the late l960's,

however, human expansion and good Park protection brought most of the 45,000

elephants of the ecosystem within the Park's borders, and their impact on

the environment became glaringly evident. Damage to the woodland scrub trees

at a glance did appear catastrophic, but as the picture unfolded, it became

clear that what was first seen as " destruction " was, in fact, no more than a

rather untidy phase of a perfectly natural cycle in which scrubland was

being recycled to make way for a grassland regime which would benefit the

grazers hitherto suppressed. Only the elephant can trigger such change.

 

Inevitably, there was talk of " culling " , but ivory related corruption

endemic within the higher echelons of Government called for caution.

Furthermore, it had taken the Park authorities the previous two decades to

control the illegal poaching of elephants within the Park boundaries by a

traditional elephant hunting tribe known as the Waliangulu who would surely

have difficulty rationalising why the authorities had the right to slaughter

elephants when they had been prevented from doing so. Equally as important

was the fact that Kenya was a leader in the psychological aspect of wild

animals, and particularly of elephants, so the humane angle was a major

consideration. That elephants are essentially " human " in emotion was already

known as early as the fifties, (and has recently been scientifically proved

through a study of the components of both human and elephant breast milk,

both of which contain complex olichosacharides that promote complex brain

formation). Like us, elephants " bury " their dead, covering a body with

sticks and leaves; they grieve and mourn a lost loved one as deeply as any

human, returning to the remains to pay their respects periodically, and for

years afterwards. Like us, elephants remember - in fact, they never forget,

so they are constantly in touch with friends and loved ones throughout their

life.

 

As humans, we understand the trauma of death, and most of us are familiar

with grief. So, consider the grief wrought amongst elephants subjected to an

annual " cull " ; the trauma of forever being stalked by the threat of death,

of annually mourning friends and family and never knowing who is next. It is

unacceptable to believe that only humans are worthy of compassion or that

the world exists simply for the benefit of mankind. We need a more holistic

approach to Nature and the other creatures that have evolved in tandem with

us on this planet, all of which fulfil a specific function within the

environment.

 

Of course, The Wardens of the time had the benefit of the South African

example as well. They knew that with commercial culling inevitably come

Tanning and Meat Processing plants employing a work force that cannot easily

be dismissed; contracts and deadlines that have to be met and policy

decisions influenced by economics rather than environmental considerations,

not to mention the danger posed to visitors by traumatised and wounded

animals too fearful to stand for a photograph. Then there is the perennial

problem of corruption and greed creeping into the equation with disastrous

results.

 

Fortunately, however, in Tsavo, the controversial " Elephant Debate " was

overtaken by events in l970 when a worse than usual drought hit the Park and

Nature stepped in to sort things out ahead of man. Subjected to stress due

to the shortage of food, natural adjustment of the birth rate began to

inhibit recruitment. The cows simply did not conceive. Furthermore, the

oldest females of the cow units, the Matriarchs, were the first to feel the

affects of malnutrition and as strength ebbed, they took the female family

within easy reach of permanent water. There conditions during drought

conditions are inevitably harsher, affecting all members of the female herd.

Then came the quiet mass die-off of selected female age groups throughout

the entire population - a one-off event that saw the loss of almost 9,000

mainly female elephants of specific age groups. This created the generation

gaps necessary to relieve the pressure on the land, immediately plunging the

elephant population into a long slow decline which relieved the pressure on

the land and made way for the regeneration of a new generation of trees.

These had, of course, been planted by the elephants themselves in their long

range wanderings, deposited far and wide in their dung. The reason that

Nature has ordained that female elephants stay bonded together for life now

becomes obvious, for in order to put a population into decline, it is the

breeding females that must be targeted.

 

It was all over within three months, at no cost, and with no disruption to

other wild communities - no profiteering - just a cataclysmic natural

tragedy soon obscured by the mists of time. Only the ivory was removed from

the carcasses. In a perfect world this too should have remained where it

was, to be recycled back from whence it came. The removal of females from

the Tsavo population set the stage for the elephants to achieve a natural

equilibrium with the food resource now available to them, bearing in mind

that the population had been swelled by unnatural immigration induced by

human expansion.

 

This now poses a question. Surely, in this day and age of sophistication, it

must be possible to repeat a natural die-off artificially, using anaesthesia

rather than scholine and to remove a selected number of females of selected

age groups, as did Nature? A natural die off has to take place, at the most,

only once in an elephant's lifetime and this surely must be more humane than

an annual cull. Could mankind not sacrifice the meat once in an elephant's

lifetime in the interests of good conservation, particularly as there is an

over-abundance of domestic livestock badly in need of a cull for

environmental reasons. These are the issues that Science should be

addressing and especially now that the lay public are better informed about

the nature of elephants. Inhumane handling of elephants, and indeed all

animals, is becoming anathema.

 

Elephants are essentially fragile; huge eating machines that require not

only a great quantity of vegetation in a day, but also a wide selection of

different plants including the bark of trees to provide the trace elements

and minerals essential for such a large frame. They are delicate in infancy

and by design have been equipped with a surprisingly inefficient digestive

system, passing 6% protein in their dung. Once denied the essentials in

their diet, they weaken rapidly, which forces them to retreat to sources of

permanent water where conditions are inevitably worse. Before all others,

they are the first to feel the affects of malnutrition, inducing a condition

known as *ketosis, *which is a painless lethargy caused by lowered blood

sugar levels, even when there is food in the stomach. What that food lacks,

however, is the quantity and nutritional components needed to maintain

strength. The elephants become comatose, spending a lot of time asleep,

devoid of energy to move far from water. Inevitably, one day, they simply

cannot get up and then the end comes quickly and quietly. They die

surrounded by their loved ones who bring comfort and love right up until the

end, and who then have time to mourn as they " bury " their dead, comforting

each other in their bereavement. (It is this natural die-off that in the

past gave rise to the legendary myth of " the elephants' graveyard " when the

bones of many elephants were found near sources of permanent water).

 

Hot on the heels of the Tsavo die-off came the rampant poaching of the

seventies and eighties, and this pushed the population rapidly below the

optimum downward swing of the natural vegetational seesaw, foreshortening

the grassland cycle. This then is the only unnatural event in Tsavo, and one

that could impact negatively on the grazers in the long-term since they may

not be afforded the time they need to proliferate to the point when they can

withstand another woodland cycle. The woodlands are regenerating, and

regenerating rapidly, so Tsavo will revert to what it was like when the Park

was first proclaimed – dense scrub thicket. Thus, within just l5 years,

Tsavo's once over population of elephants became an under population

threatened with annihilation. The poaching was now fuelled by in-house greed

and corruption forcing the elephants to abandon huge swathes of the Park,

too fearful to return for the next 30 years. Ironically they sought shelter

around human habitation where the AK 47 and G3 wielding killers could not

easily get at them, but this created a different set of problems – that of

the so-called " problem elephants " . Only the imposition of the Ivory Ban in

l989 brought a reprieve and only now, thirty years later, are the elephants

beginning to venture back into the interior of the Park.

 

*The role of Elephants *is a very crucial one, crucial to the survival of

many other species both large and small. They are Nature's Bulldozers, their

most important function that of recycling the nutrients and trace elements

locked in wood, drawn up out of soil by tree roots over decades. Only when

the trees themselves are felled are these rare earths released back into the

environment to become available to other plant and animal life less well

equipped. No other animal can, for instance, recycle the precious minerals

of the giant Baobab, a long lived colossus extremely rich in calcium and

trace elements. The debris of trees felled by elephants shield pioneer

grasses and shrubs from trampling; deep rooted perennial grasses follow, the

grazers proliferate and browsers decline. Natural selection ensures that the

gene pool is honed and that the strongest survive in readiness for another

thicket phase as elephant numbers fall. Then, if the elephants can be

adequately protected, their numbers will rise again in tandem with the

regeneration of the woodlands, and this then is the natural order of events

- a cyclical vegetational seesaw of woodland to grassland and back to

woodland inextricably intertwined with elephant numbers.

 

It is the elephants who create the trails that benefit all others, roads

that not only select the best alignment over difficult terrain, but also

unerringly point the way to water, acting as conduits for run-off rainwater

directing it to the waterholes and ensuring that they fill more surely and

rapidly. Elephants create the waterholes in the first place and enlarge them

every time they bathe, carrying away copious quantities of mud plastered on

their huge bodies. The puddling action of their giant feet seals the bottom

against seepage, so that water lasts longer in the dry seasons benefiting

all life and relieving feeding pressures near permanent sources. Elephants

also have the ability to expose hidden subsurface supplies buried deep

beneath the sands of the dry riverbeds, making it accessible to others by

tunnelling at an angle with their trunks. Their sheer weight compresses the

sand bringing water closer to the surface as dozens of elephants patiently

await their turn to drink from these holes. Were the elephants not there to

fulfil this function, all water dependent species would not be able to exist

in such places - a case in point being the Tiva river in Tsavo, which

literally died faunally when the elephants left.

 

Elephants provide in other ways too, breaking down branches to bring browse

to a lower level, thereby making it accessible to the many smaller creatures

that share their world. By felling trees they create the space that allows

seedlings to take root and grow uninhibited by their parents' shadow. The

very rapid metabolism of an elephant ensures copious quantities of dung, the

very life support for the largest scarabs, who roll it into balls and bury

it deep below the ground, thereby enriching the soil. The dung also attracts

the insects that nourish a host of insectivorous birds, mammals and reptiles

and because elephants have such an inefficient digestive system, it is

particularly rich.

 

*The Future:-* Tsavo provides an example of how Nature controls elephant

populations. Whilst the natural die- off of elephant and the build-up to it

has been well documented, unfortunately, no in-depth study of the subsequent

sequence of events was undertaken, simply because gun brandishing poachers

proved a deterrent. However, records and photographic evidence does exist

within the Sheldrick Trust's Archives making a retrospective study feasible.

 

One thing is sure, and that is that CITES which should have prevented the

demise of the elephant by controlling the trade has failed in its mandate.

Instead it has evolved into a political lobby bent on trade and the

endangered species have become mere pawns in a money game. In fact, in the

past CITES agents themselves orchestrated the laundering of illegal ivory

into a stockpile in Burundi, accepting bribes as a pay-off for the CITES stamp.

Now, more than ever, when the elephants are so very vulnerable, their social

family fabric torn to tatters, should the world *SAY NO TO IVORY,* no matter

in what form. Each and every one of us can, and should, at least do that.

Every piece of ivory is a haunting memory of a once proud and majestic

animal, that should have lived three score years and ten; who has loved and

been loved, and was once a member of a close-knit family akin to our own;

but who has suffered and died in unspeakable agony to yield a tooth for a

trinket. Something so symbolic of death and suffering can never be

beautiful.

 

*

 

*

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United against elephant polo

http://www.stopelephantpolo.com

http://www.freewebs.com/azamsiddiqui

 

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http://www.stopelephantpolo.com

http://www.freewebs.com/azamsiddiqui