Issue No. 124

In July 1989 Kenya implemented an ivory ban, when the elephant population dwindled to just 16,000. The ban restricted ivory poaching, transportation, trade, and export. Despite extensive praise of Kenya’s wildlife law enforcement efforts, corruption, neglected training programmes, and minimal funding significantly curtail these prevention methods. During a poaching resurgence between 2010 and 2012, it was predicted that one elephant was killed for its ivory every 15 minutes. Today, a significant quantity of seized ivory originates from Tanzania, the DRC, Zambia, and South Sudan. Traffickers take advantage of Kenya’s porous borders and lax security checks, transporting illicit raw materials to Kenya’s international sea port and airports, ready for export into the international market.

Recent crackdowns on illicit smuggling in East African countries have pushed transport and trafficking hubs further West; IWT organisations are highly adaptive and quickly redirect trafficking routes to take advantage of poor technology or increased opportunity for corruption. Increasingly, reports have shown that exports of ivory and other illicit goods have been transported via West and Southern Africa to Asia. However, smuggling routes through the Horn have not been forced out of the picture; ivory from the same animals have been intercepted in shipments in both East and West Africa, indicating that traffickers distribute risk across multiple export routes. A study of 23 seizures of ivory showed 26 genetically identical pairs were found among 11 of the seizures. These matches were all sent out of the same port within 10 months of each other, and the origin of the tusks has a significant geographic overlap. Ivory trafficking in Africa is organised in a centralised way, with a few major international cartels operating across the continent. Foreign nationals from Asia (mainly Japan and Vietnam), operating through Africa-based transnational criminal syndicates, have reportedly taken almost total control of the illegal ivory supply chain from Africa to Asia.

Wildlife crimes are likely linked to other organised crime networks, including narcotics, weapons, and human smuggling, often sharing trafficking routes, facilitators, and markets. IWT also finances more violent and destructive activities due to the major financial benefits gleaned from relatively little time and financial investment. Poaching and IWT in warzones is also used to create funds for ongoing conflicts; taking advantage of preexisting gold smuggling routes, forces in war-torn (and thus unpoliced) areas of Chad and the CAR are able to move poached ivory to Khartoum, where the ivory can be traded for weapons. Across central Africa, an increase in poaching was observed as wars raged in the region. In 2012, 22 elephants were found dead and tusk-less in Garamba National Park; opportunist Ugandan soldiers became the primary suspects as a Ugandan military helicopter departed the site soon after. More recently, M23 rebel groups were linked to the poaching of hundreds of elephants in eastern DRC. 

Militia men and soldiers are not the only opportunists; subsistence poaching attracts destitute rural individuals looking to make some money to satisfy the immediate needs of their family, adding another troubling social dynamic to the trade. Some may target an animal with the knowledge that they will be able to sell it to a trafficking network. These individuals may face punishment if they are caught, but the wider web of the trafficking syndicate remains unharmed as the individual is paid based on his success.

Notwithstanding efforts by the 1975 Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), ivory trade is legal in countries including Japan, Vietnam, Thailand, and a selection of States in the US. Seen as a luxury item across Asia, licit and illicit ivory trade thrives; Asian markets pay between USD 600 and USD 700 per kilogram for raw ivory, making Kenya's elephants prime targets for trafficking rings. The ‘super-tuskers’ - large tusked bulls - who commonly carry in excess of 100 kilograms of ivory, have been driven to extinction by human demand; only small-tusked elephants are born today and, increasingly, elephants will grow no tusks at all. 

China has long been accused of driving the staggering 90% decline in elephant populations in the past century. Referring to China’s role, Traffic declared “indeed, not since colonial times, have foreign nationals played such a decisive role in Africa’s ivory trade.” However, since China’s 2016 ivory ban, and the subsequent drop by 50% in recorded trade, China cannot take sole blame. The ban pushed the ivory trade into Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam. Japan now boasts one of the world’s largest legal domestic ivory markets. Whole ivory tusks must be registered before sale, but lenient regulations do not require verifiable proof of how, where, or when the elephant tusk was acquired. Carved ivory items are traded without regulation. Although most legal ivory markets only allow the trade of existing ivory, loopholes and poor enforcement allow for significant injections of new ivory into the market, thus retaining the demand for poaching. Albeit on a much smaller scale, some countries, notably in the MENA region - including Egypt and the UAE - are understood to facilitate the trading and transport of ivory throughout the region. 

Closer to home in East Africa, the problem is similarly endemic. Unlike Kenya who destroyed significant quantities of impounded ivory 1989 (12 tons), 1991 (6.8 tons), 2011 (5 tons), and 2016 (105 tons), Tanzania maintains one of the largest recorded stockpiles of ivory worldwide, claiming that - should a buyer come forward - the value is destined for conservation initiatives. Evidence suggests that the government-held cache houses more than 90 tons of ivory, valued at over USD 50 million.

A legal loophole further aggravates the situation: Tanzania permits the licenced hunting of elephants and other large prized game. In northern Tanzania, decades of Maasai pastoralist evictions have made space for wealthy buyers from Gulf countries to purchase land under the guise of ‘conservation’. In reality, permits are issued to the land-owners, allowing for the hunting of wild game, as well as the legal export of hunting trophies and captured live animals to the Middle East.

Kenya’s elephant population remains stable thanks to largely successful conservation efforts, with the rate of population growth predicted to be around 5% each year; but this is not the case across the continent. Opportunists and professionals alike take advantage of established smuggling routes and unpoliced regions, allowing them to target elephants undisturbed. 

In an epic display of hypocrisy, continued flouting of international laws has fuelled the relentless hunting of elephants and other wildlife, driving populations towards the brink of extinction. Loopholes in national and international laws have encouraged ivory poaching to continue for financial gain. Desperation creates opportunists, and prevention efforts crumble in the face of corruption; to stop the IWT would be to end corruption. And curbing the demand for ivory is a similarly mountainous task. Conservationist Lawrence Anthony described our struggle to cohabit with other life forms as a “malady that pervades the human soul.” To eradicate the illegal wildlife trade may require more than simple policy remedies, but instead a change to human nature.

​The Horn Edition Team