100 elephants being slaughtered every day by poachers – 20 years after ivory ban

There is some evidence emerging that sales of ivory stockpiles lead to increase poaching.Photo credit D Willets/IFAW

October 2009. Even though the ivory trade was banned 20 years ago, a shocking 104 elephants are still being killed every day for their tusks. This alarming level of illegal hunting could drive the African elephant to extinction across much of Africa in just 15 years.

End to one-off sales needed
The International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) is calling for urgent action to protect elephants. It calls on the European Union and all CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species) parties to stop supporting one-off ivory sales, legal ivory trade and elephant down-listing proposals. Instead, they are urged to support Kenya's proposal to extend the current "resting period" on elephant and ivory decisions from nine to 20 years when it is introduced at the next meeting of CITES in March 2010. IFAW also calls on the EU to help range states that are requesting assistance to fight poaching.

IFAW's UK Director Robbie Marsland said: "Most people will be shocked to hear that, 20 years on from a ban on international ivory trade, elephants in Africa are still threatened by commercial poaching. The ivory trade must be banned once again, and comprehensively, if we want to prevent the extinction of elephants."

Ivory sales lead to ivory poaching
Initially, the ivory moratorium worked. Elephant poaching dropped in most African range states and ivory market prices plummeted around the world from 1990 until discussions over one-off ivory stockpile sales started in 1996. Since then figures have shown that domestic ivory markets, or limited ivory sales, lead directly to increased poaching - even if not necessarily in the same country.

Illegal wildlife trade worth $20 billion
The international illegal trade in wildlife is second only to the illegal trade in drugs and arms and worth an estimated $20 billion (£12.5bn) annually, according to Interpol.

Funding wars
Illegal ivory is now being used in conflicts in east Africa in much the same way as ‘blood diamonds' were in civil wars across west Africa in the 1990s. Demand for ivory in the Far East, particularly China, has reached record levels. The Sudanese Janjaweed cross into Chad to poach ivory and then take it back across the border to Khartoum where it is sold on to China.

Because the fate of an entire species is at stake, we cannot continue experimenting with limited ivory markets, one-off sales or population down-listings. A mistaken belief in the power of ‘free markets' is driving elephants to extinction.

Mr Marsland added: "Sadly, the truth is that ivory trade anywhere is a threat to elephants everywhere. On the 20th anniversary of the ban, let's do all we can to end the ivory trade and safeguard elephants for the future."

More about IFAW

Sales boost poaching Elephants poached in Tsavo. Photo credit IFAW. Anecdotal evidence of increased seizures of illegal ivory and of elephant poaching incidents indicates that poaching increased in and around the time of the first ivory stockpile sale to Japan in 1999 and again around the time of the second stockpile sale in November 2008, because these legal sales stimulated consumer demand and opened up opportunities for illegal traders to launder their ivory.

3000 elephants and 11 rangers kileld in Chad The majority of elephant range states in Africa, among them some of the poorest countries in the world, call for a stop to all ivory trade. These countries need our full support - legal, financial and moral - to protect their elephant populations. African elephant range states do not have the capacity or resources to combat poaching conducted by major crime syndicates. Europe needs to provide meaningful assistance to curb the killing. As an example, Chad's Zakouma National Park contained 3,885 elephants in 2005. By 2009 that figure had plummeted to only 617 elephants and 11 rangers had been killed by poachers in the four-year period. According to officials in Chad the chief suspects were fighters from neighbouring war-torn Sudan.