Voldemort

The Loxodonta Africana, more commonly known as the African elephant, are the largest animals currently walking the earth. Weighing an immense 6 tons, the African elephant’s distinct features like the long trunk, the huge ears and strong tusks help them adapt to their surroundings. They are usually found in Tropical and Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests, Flooded Grasslands and Savannahs, Miombo woodlands, Acacia savannahs.

These magnificent creatures affect their ecosystem in numerous ways through their mass translocation and humongous size. Some examples are-

•       The African elephants feed on a range of vegetation from grasses to trees and forage over large areas. This makes them excellent seed dispersers, depositing seed-laden dung as they travel.
•       Their dung helps fertilize seedlings and enrich the soil with nutrients, thus supporting plant and tree renewal across the elephants’ range. Their dung is also an important, and abundant, source of food for various forms of dung beetles.
•       They trample forests and dense grasslands, making room for smaller species to coexist. Elephants also create water holes used by other wildlife as they dig dry riverbeds when rainfall is low.
•       In forests, African elephants, with the help of their large size, create clearings by trampling vegetation. This allows more sunlight to reach the forest floor, giving lower-lying plants more enrichment. Forest elephants thus actually increase the amount of carbon stored by the rainforest by tilting the biological balance in favor of certain types of trees. This unique ability earns them the name ecological engineers.

All African elephant populations are a part of CITES Appendix I, excluding populations of the three southern African countries home to 61% of the continent’s elephants. They are Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe. Funnily enough, despite the high population of elephants inhabiting these regions, they are listed under CITES Appendix II making way for ivory trade and poaching with the help of loopholes in the system.  

We believe that the populations of Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe must be moved to Appendix I. The elephant populations have been reduced by around 30% over the past seven years, mainly due to poaching for ivory. Despite the dwindling population around the last weeks of july 2022, Zimbabwe hosted what it called an ‘Elephant Summit’ for itself and several other African nations – including Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania and Zambia – with the aim of restarting the legal international trade in ivory and selling off their stockpiled elephant tusks (eia podcast). The countries stated that there have been deaths of numerous people due to elephants entering regions with human settlements in search of water.

While this is an issue that should be dealt with, a point of consideration is the growing population resulting in encroachment of forests in search of land. So the solution to the problem isn’t to kill more animals as we continue to harm our environment and worsen living conditions but instead control the population and practice a sustainable lifestyle. This solution will provide results even in the long term unlike restarting trade of elephant parts to curb its population. This wasn’t the only attempt to legalize trade of ivory in the past and sooner or later the people are going to employ illegal methods to achieve their goal, making the dire need to move the elephant population in these regions to Appendix I much more apparent. This will not only reduce ivory trade in general but also prevent illegal killing of elephants by people who encroach forested areas.

The current laws have also not completely prevented trade. We see this especially in Japan. Japan has been unsuccessful in restricting ivory flow in the markets due to the major loopholes in the system that are thoroughly exploited by traders. In addition to facilitating ivory laundering, Japan’s open market stimulates demand and makes effective enforcement impossible. The open market is also affecting the flow of ivory in countries abroad.

It is understood that ivory trade is a major contributor of revenue in many parts of the world, but we should also take into consideration the grave impact the reduction of African elephants will have on the environment. Instead of completely legalizing ivory trade the government should focus on selective sale of ivory, where ivory is collected from elephants that died of natural causes and sold. Though this is easier said than done, it is a necessary action that should be employed by more governments to bridge the gap between revenue collected from ivory trade and protection of elephant populations. For example, Zimbabwe has an enormous stockpile of ivory that the government has either collected from elephants that have died from natural causes and poachers. This ivory can be sold by the government itself and revenue collected can be put to further developments in the country.

 – Zimbabwe Ivory Stockpile

No matter how strict the laws get, ivory trade will never completely stop until the demand is cut off, so we as consumers must break off buying products made of any animal parts for that matter and remember the lives lost behind the tiny decoration we are fascinated by.

As the saying goes: “Ivory belongs on elephants; in national heritage, not in markets or ornaments.”