Elephants are being killed in outrageous numbers that their entire population in Africa cannot statistically nor biologically sustain. The elephants will all be killed in less than 10 years if the ivory trade does not come to a complete halt, there is a surprising lack of foresight from China considering that the object they are in a frenzy to obtain will all disappear in just a decade.
There appears to be a lot of ignorance in China, even now, despite huge awareness efforts from around the world, however that is not the worrying part as much as the growing number of people who have been enlightened and still do not seem to care.
It is hard to fathom for someone in the wilderness of Kenya who has grown up with elephants, why any person would cold-heartedly “brush off” the poaching of elephants and think only of getting their hands on the “White Gold” that is produced by elephants. Call it what you want, poaching is a crime and anyone involved in poaching is a criminal. That is in fact sugar coating it…anyone involved with ivory purchasing and trading is a murderer.
“I dislike it when people think that poachers deserve pity, because they don’t. At least not the poachers I know,” says 21 year old Ranger Lilanka of Elephant Aware.
“People think that poachers have harder lives than people like me. The difference is, these people who kill elephants have chosen that path and before I became a wildlife ranger I did not even think of poaching as a career. To me it was not only a crime but a taboo. I have worked hard to get to where I am now but never once have I resorted to breaking the law.”
“I view poachers as terrible, shameless individuals who would kill an elephant just as willingly as they would a fellow human. They are also seen by society as bad people not to be associated with,” adds Ranger Leposa.
Ranger Lilanka and Ranger Leposa have been rangers for nearly three years now. Lilanka recalls what his life was like before that. “I would wake up early every morning and I would take my family’s herd of cows out to graze, it involved a lot of walking but I was used to it. My family are not wealthy by western standards and by Maasai standards they are middleclass. Most “poachers” are richer than people like me and yet there is this misguided concept that poachers only kill elephants to feed their families and to survive.”
He uses the term “poachers” loosely to refer to not only those doing the killing in the bush but also the corrupt official or wealthy businessman sitting in an office somewhere.
Lilanka agrees that if poachers can be converted into wildlife protectors that is a good thing but the trust factor will always create a rift.
“It would be difficult for me to work with a notorious poacher even when they claim to have changed. I would never be able to turn my back on them especially with the acute memory of when they did not hesitate to attack my colleagues and I in the past.”
That however is not the only issue when trying to convert poachers, back in the 70s-90s during the last poaching rampage, converting poachers into wildlife rangers was a great initiative and it worked well on quite a large scale too. Today poachers are making a sight more from their “work” and the temptation must be carefully considered. If ivory is going for around 20,000 Kenyan shillings (£140) per kilo, how can it not be embedded in the poacher’s mind that he can get rich quick through poaching compared with wildlife rangers generally far more humble incomes.
When asked what he would say if he had a way to send a message to the entire nation in China, Ranger Lilanka says this: “China, I am painfully aware that elephants are running out of time, it sounds like they have just a few years left. I work everyday to protect elephants, they give me a livelihood and I have a proud career because of elephants. If all elephants are finished because of the demand for their tusks in your country know this, you will have left my country (Kenya) bereft of a national treasure and you will have destroyed thousands Kenyans’ rights to a voice, our rights to conserve our heritage. But most of all, you will be denying the world a future with elephants…and that is the most heinous act of all.”
2 Comments
We cannot forget what is going on in the other side of the planet. There is no ignorance in China by the carvers. They know good and well what they receive when they handle the bloody tusks coming in from Africa. China can change its ivory culture, as it did with footbinding and pandas, but first it must CLOSE THE CARVING FACTORIES. This is what needs to be screamed in any article about poaching, the extinction of elephants. This connection must be made for China to take responsibility. When there is no place for the tusks to be processed, when there is nothing “lucky” to buy and that is – when the carving stops, the killing will too.
I would love to see how the Chinese people would react if we sent our people to poach their precious pandas………maybe we would like to pull out their claws and pound them up as a cure for aids and malaria, ignorant, cruel people……shame on you China, get a grip