{"id":8319,"date":"2023-05-16T07:22:46","date_gmt":"2023-05-16T07:22:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/?p=8319"},"modified":"2023-05-16T07:22:46","modified_gmt":"2023-05-16T07:22:46","slug":"elephants-rhinos-and-donkeys","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/2023\/05\/16\/elephants-rhinos-and-donkeys\/","title":{"rendered":"Elephants, rhinos and donkeys"},"content":{"rendered":"

I wrote the other day about celebrity and conservation<\/a>; about dogoodery, the liberal conscience, and the ignorance that sometimes informs it. \u00a0It took me back to a chapter that Paul Vare and I wrote in our 2018 book: The World We'll Leave Behind<\/a>. \u00a0Here it is in a pre-publication form.<\/p>\n

In early 2016, a census of African elephant populations was carried out for the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), an authority on the status of the natural world and the measures needed to safeguard it.[i]<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0The census contributed to IUCN\u2019s African Elephant Status Report, which was launched at the 2016 CITES meeting in Johannesburg (CITES is the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species).[ii]<\/a>\u00a0 The BBC\u2019s headline on this report was: \u201cGrim outlook for elephants\u201d and its lead news item was that the elephant population had declined by about 111,000 over the past 10 years, with around 30 to 40,000 now being killed every year by poachers working for organised crime networks.<\/p>\n

The picture from the census was, indeed, grim.\u00a0 For example, elephant populations have declined by 22% in Angola since 2005 and by 53% since 2011 in Mozambique. The census also recorded carcass ratios where a ratio of 10% means one dead elephant was seen for every 10 live ones.\u00a0 These ranged from 0.5% in Uganda to 85% in Zambia, with typical figures being around 20 to 30%.\u00a0 High ratios are taken to be evidence of poaching, and IUCN\u2019s conclusion was that, overall, Africa\u2019s elephant population was experiencing its worst decline in 25 years, mainly due to poaching, although habitat loss remains a significant factor as well.<\/p>\n

Overall, it\u2019s reckoned that there are still about 415,000 elephants in Africa, although this figure could be an under-estimate owing to the difficulty of counting them.\u00a0 Of these, Southern Africa has the largest number \u2013 about 293,000 (70%).\u00a0 Eastern Africa has around 86,000 (20%) and Central Africa about 24,000 (6%).\u00a0 West Africa only has approximately 11,000 (under 3%).\u00a0 IUCN says that Eastern Africa is the region most heavily affected by poaching, with a more than 60% decline in Tanzania since 2010.\u00a0 Despite this, numbers have been stable or increasing since 2006 in Uganda, Kenya, and Rwanda.<\/p>\n

Poaching has not yet had the same impact in Southern Africa.\u00a0 Although population declines have been observed in Mozambique, major populations in Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe are stable or increasing, and there is evidence of elephant range expansion in Botswana.\u00a0 The elephants in Central Africa, have been massively affected by poaching since the 1990s, and West Africa\u2019s elephant populations are now mostly small, fragmented and isolated.\u00a0 Whilst the international demand for ivory continues, it\u2019s thought that poaching will as well.<\/p>\n

The same picture can be painted for the Rhino populations, for much the same reasons.\u00a0 According to the Save the Rhino charity, a hundred years ago there were some 500,000 rhinos in Africa and Asia, but this had fallen to around 70,000 by 1970.[iii]<\/a>\u00a0 Save the Rhino says that, by 2016, there were only 29,000 left in the wild.\u00a0 In Asia both the Sumatran and Javan rhinos are listed as critically endangered, as is the African black rhino but this population across Eastern Africa recovered from around 2,300 in 1993 to between 5,000 and 5,500 in 2016.\u00a0 The southern white rhino has fared rather better.\u00a0 The population is said to be around 20,000, although increased poaching since 2008 is a serious threat to all rhino species.<\/p>\n

Donkeys have never been high on any list of endangered species, but a number of African countries have put export bans in place to prevent the export of animals to China where they have long been a key part of rural life as beasts of burden and transport.[iv]<\/a>\u00a0 It\u2019s not that China needs more donkey power these days, but now that there are 50% fewer donkeys in the country because of its rapid industrialisation, there is a shortage of donkey skin.\u00a0 This is valuable when boiled as it produces ejiao<\/em><\/a>, a form of gelatine, which is part of popular Chinese tonics and medicines with the power, it seems, to cure coughs, relieve insomnia, and revitalise the blood.\u00a0 Whilst all this might seem pretty insignificant when compared to the plight of the rhino and the elephant, such shifts can have marked economic consequences.\u00a0 In Niger in 2016, for example, the price of donkeys rose from $34 to $147, which prompted an export ban.\u00a0 The response in more economically liberal and globalised Kenya, was to see the opening of a dedicated donkey slaughterhouse for the Chinese export market.<\/p>\n

What to do about poaching divides both conservationists and those with interests in trade.\u00a0 These divisions were apparent at the 2016 CITES meeting where over 3,500 people met and where 152 governments voted on 62 proposals<\/a> to change the CITES protocols.\u00a0 As you might expect of a conference devoted to international trade in endangered species, not everyone there was a conservationist.\u00a0 Alongside such people from international agencies and NGOs, were hunters, animal-rights activists, scientists, and politicians who all wanted to save endangered species from extinction, although not for the same reasons.\u00a0 For example, private sector owners of herds of rhino argued that creating a legal trade in horn would stop the criminal gangs while conservation groups say that legalising the trade would likely lead to extinction.<\/p>\n

A significant part of the business of the conference was focused on elephant ivory and rhino horn.\u00a0 Most elephants are listed under Appendix I of CITES, which prohibits all trade in animal parts. \u00a0In southern Africa, however, they fall within Appendix II, which allows some regulated trade.\u00a0 Despite this, there is still a complete ban on the sale of ivory, although Namibia, Zimbabwe and South Africa want to allow limited ivory trading.\u00a0 They argue that their elephant populations are large, growing and causing problems.\u00a0 But 12 African countries (supported by Sri Lanka) attempted to have the elephants in these Southern African countries moved to CITES Appendix I (from Appendix II) to prevent the possibility of trade.\u00a0 This was narrowly rejected in a vote.\u00a0 Swaziland tried to change the CITES protocols to permit a limited regulated trade [i] in white rhino horn which has either been collected in the past from natural deaths, or recovered from poached rhino, and [ii] to allow horn to be harvested in a non-lethal way from a limited number of white rhino in the future in Swaziland.\u00a0 This was also turned down.\u00a0 Late in 2016, the Chinese government announced that it would outlaw the domestic sale and processing of ivory by the end of 2017.\u00a0 As China has the world\u2019s largest ivory market, this might just make a difference, it the ban is both implemented and enforced.<\/p>\n

Private rhino owners, some of whom own well over a thousand animals and have tonnes of horn stockpiled ready for sale (like fingernails, horn grows back) want a legal trade as well.\u00a0 They say that this would deter poachers, and one rhino farmer is quoted in the Economist: \u201cI breed and protect rhinos. That\u2019s what I do.\u00a0 And I think that\u2019s what we need to do to save them.\u201d\u00a0 Inevitably, not everyone agrees.\u00a0 Many conservationists think a legal trade in ivory and horn is inherently risky.[v]<\/a>\u00a0 They fear that the criminal product might turn out to be cheaper than the legal one. Further, effective marketing might lead to increased demand and even more poaching.\u00a0 Those who support what they term the sustainable use of wildlife, by which they mean regulated hunting and trade, say that unless governments allow this, the animals will die out in the wild.\u00a0 Conservationists, meanwhile, say that will happen unless governments listen to them.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, in the middle of all this are the African people who live alongside these animals, and many of whom are very poor.\u00a0 The Economist quotes Ross Harvey, a researcher at the South African Institute of International Affairs, who says it\u2019s important that conservation should provide them with economic benefits.\u00a0 Otherwise, he says, saving endangered animals \u201cis going to be seen as a very middle-class issue\u201d.[vi]<\/a><\/p>\n

Indeed it is. \u00a0A recent Spectator article<\/a> explores the issues.<\/p>\n

.........................................................................<\/p>\n

[i]<\/a> Details of the 2016 Great Elephant Census can be found on its website: greatelephantcensus.com<\/p>\n

[ii]<\/a> IUCN\u2019s African Elephant Status report can be downloaded from its website: www.iucn.org<\/a> by putting \u201cAfrican Elephant Status report\u201d into the search line.<\/p>\n

[iii]<\/a> The Save the Rhino website has data on current rhino population.\u00a0 Web link: ow.ly\/tCit308Q2PQ<\/a><\/p>\n

[iv]<\/a> Allison, S. (2016, September 9). The Great African Donkey Rush<\/em>. Daily Maverick. Web link: ow.ly\/V8k9308Q33g<\/p>\n

[v]<\/a> The Guardian. (2016, October 1). Debate: Would a legal ivory trade save elephants or speed up the massacre?<\/em>\u00a0 Web link: ow.ly\/eBCk30at40H<\/p>\n

[vi]<\/a> The Economist. (2016, September 29). To sell or not to sell<\/em>?\u00a0 Web link: ow.ly\/AcdX308Q3w4<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I wrote the other day about celebrity and conservation; about dogoodery, the liberal conscience, and the ignorance that sometimes informs it. \u00a0It took me back to a chapter that Paul Vare and I wrote in our 2018 book: The World...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":237,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comment"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/237"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8319"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8319\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}