Protected from external dangers, an elephant family roams peacefully in the Mikumi National Park in Tanzania. Credit: UN Photo/B Wolff

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 25 2015 (IPS)

The wildlife trade monitoring network, TRAFFIC, is deploying a new forensic weapon – DNA testing – to track illegal ivory products responsible for the slaughter of hundreds of endangered elephants in Asia and Africa.

Widely used in criminal cases, forensic DNA examination (Deoxyribonucleic acid) can help identify whether the elephant tusk is from Asia or Africa.“The ability to use DNA and other forensic expertise provides great support to law enforcement." -- Adisorn Noochdumrong

Asked whether this is a first, Dr Richard Thomas, global communications coordinator at the UK-based TRAFFIC, told IPS: “It’s the first time I’m aware of when it’s been used to test ivory items for sale to prove their (illegal) provenance.”

However, he added, it’s worth noting that at the March 2013 meeting of CITES (the 1975 Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species), State Parties to the Convention were instructed that forensic information should routinely be gathered from all large-scale seizures of ivory (500kg).

Hence this is also an important demonstration of one technique that can be employed in the fight against the illegal trade in endangered species, he said.

The current project is a collaborative effort between Thailand’s Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation (DNP) and TRAFFIC, to battle the widespread illegal trade of ivory in Thailand.

Asked whether African countries have similar projects in collaboration with TRAFFIC, Dr. Thomas told IPS, “Not currently, although the scope of DNA and stable isotope analysis of ivory are being examined by others as means to determine the geographic origin of ivory within Africa.”

He also pointed out that any wildlife product, by definition, is associated with life and therefore open for DNA examination.

“So, in theory it could be a very widely employed technique in addressing wildlife trafficking.”

According to the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), the Sri Lankan and Sumatran elephants are on a list of endangered species, along with the black rhino, mountain gorilla, Bengal tiger, the blue whale and the green turtle, among others.

WWF says the global illicit wildlife trade is estimated at over 10 billion dollars annually and is controlled by criminal networks.

Specifically on the ivory trade, Dr Thomas told IPS, “We’re very wary about speculating over black market prices – in part, because they’re black market and therefore unverifiable, but more because of anecdotal evidence that high prices quoted in the media can lead to interest from the criminal fraternity in getting involved in trafficking.”

In a report released here, TRAFFIC said 160 items of small ivory products legally acquired by researchers, primarily from retail outlets in Bangkok, were subjected to DNA analysis at the DNP’s Wildlife Forensics Crime Unit (WIFOS Laboratory).

The aim of the exercise was to determine whether the ivory products were made from African elephant or Asian elephant tusks.

The African elephant Loxodonta africana is found in 37 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, and the Asian elephant Elephas maximas is found in Thailand and 12 other Asian countries.

The study also said forensic results show that African elephant ivory accounted for a majority of the items tested.

“Whilst the relatively small number of samples cannot be considered as representative of the entire ivory market in Thailand, it indicates that African elephant ivory is prominently represented in the retail outlets in Bangkok,” it noted.

This capability supports the enforcement component of Thailand’s revised National Ivory Action Plan (NIAP) submitted to CITES in September 2014.

The plan was developed to control ivory trade in Thailand and strengthen measures to prevent illegal international trade and includes a strong focus on law enforcement and regulation, including the execution of a robust ivory registration system, according to the report.

“The ability to use DNA and other forensic expertise provides great support to law enforcement,” said Adisorn Noochdumrong, acting deputy director general of DNP.

“We are deeply concerned by these findings which come just at the moment a nationwide ivory product registration exercise is being conducted pursuant to recently enacted legislation to strengthen ivory trade controls in Thailand,” he added.

The report said the Thai government last month passed new legislation to regulate and control the possession and trade of ivory that can be shown to have come from domesticated Asian Elephants in Thailand.

With the passing of the Elephant Ivory Act B.E. 2558 (2015), anyone in possession of ivory – whether as personal effects or for commercial purposes – must register all items in their possession with the DNP from Jan. 22 until Apr. 21, 2015.

Penalties for failing to do so could result in up to three years imprisonment and/or a maximum fine of Thai Baht 6 million (nearly 200,000 dollars).

“We remind anyone registering possession of raw ivory or ivory products under Thailand’s new laws that African Elephant ivory is strictly prohibited and ineligible for sale in Thailand,” said Noochdumrong.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

The writer can be contacted at thalifdeen@aol.com

Tanzania's Operation Tokomeza, ostensibly aimed at poachers, was terminated following widespread charges of human rights abuses against the local population. Credit: Kizito Makoye/IPS

By Kizito Makoye
DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania , Jan 6 2014 (IPS)

Ali Nyenge, a resident of Iputi ward in Tanzania’s northern Ulanga District, woke up as anti-poaching security officers surrounded his home. He says they accused him of illegal hunting and in front of his 11-year-old son, made him take his clothes off, poured salt water on his body and whipped him with a cane.

“I had no choice than to obey their orders,” Nyenge told IPS by phone from Ulanga. “I sustained severe injuries. I could hardly sit down. I begged them for mercy but they kept on hitting me.”

The 38-year-old farmer, who has publically accused security forces of assault, claims the ordeal caused him severe physical and emotional torture. At one point, Nyenge said his captors forced him to draw a python on his thigh using a razor blade."The anti-poaching operation had good intentions, but the reported murders, rapes and brutality are totally unacceptable."

Nyenge’s story is one of many to emerge as the government investigates an anti-poaching campaign aimed at reducing the illegal ivory trade, but which has also brought allegations that security forces committed rape, murder, torture and extortion of locals. A parliamentary inquiry found 13 people were murdered and thousands of livestock – the livelihood of many – were maimed or killed.

In October 2013, President Jakaya Kikwete ordered more than 2,300 security personnel from Tanzania’s People’s Defence Force, local police and special anti-poaching militias, and wildlife rangers to step up enforcement of a ban on elephant and rhinoceros poaching, which has been growing in recent years. But in November, Kikwete was forced to end the campaign, dubbed Operation Tokomeza, under heavy criticism.

“The anti-poaching operation had good intentions, but the reported murders, rapes and brutality are totally unacceptable,” Prime Minister Mizengo Pinda told the parliament in December.

Pinda said wildlife poaching has reached alarming dimensions in the country’s national parks, especially Selous Game Reserve, whose elephant population has dwindled from 55,000 to 13,000.

During the final two months of last year, the government estimates 60 elephants were killed in the country, compared to only two in October, when the operation was in effect.

Neema Moses, also a resident of Ulanga, told a parliamentary committee formed to investigate human rights abuses that she was stripped naked, made to insert a bottle into her vagina and forced to have sex with her in-laws by security forces.

Presenting a report on the abuses in parliament, the chairman of the committee, James Lembeli, said his team proved beyond doubt that members of security forces spread terror and committed “untold” atrocities against innocent civilians.

“Honourable Speaker, some women claimed to have been raped and sodomised. In Matongo ward in Bariadi district, for instance, one woman alleged to have been raped by three soldiers at gunpoint.”

Lembeli said victims included local government leaders who were humiliated in makeshift interrogation camps in front of their constituents. He cited the case of Peter Samwel, councilor for Sakasaka ward in Meatu district, who complained he had his arms and legs tied with a rope and was hung upside-down for hours.

According to Lembeli, the raids forced some people to abandon their homes for fear of being harmed.

Eyewitness accounts say suspected poachers lost thousands of animals and other property, including cash, when they were seized or outright stolen by officers.

In Minziro village in Kagera region near Lake Victoria, residents recall a stunning blow they suffered on Oct. 13, when a group of soldiers invaded the village, beat up locals and set ablaze homes of people they suspected to be illegal immigrants.

Abraham Kafanobo, the deputy chairman of the village, told IPS that most residents had since fled and said they feared to return even after the operation had been suspended.

The scandal has led to the sacking of four government ministers – of tourism, defence, livestock development and home affairs – for failure to rein in the ministries they were leading.

Tourism minister Khamis Kagesheki said in October that poachers engaging in the ivory trade should killed “on the spot”.

Lawyer and human rights activist Issa Shivji criticised the military involvement in a civilian operation, saying the way the operation was implemented was a great shame on Tanzania.

Professor Shivji called for a swift investigation of the alleged abuses and said criminal charges should be brought against security personnel who took part in the operation irrespective of their rank.

“It’s not only the shame, it’s a big tragedy to the nation which requires a collective assessment of the people to ask ourselves, where are we going? What prompted security organs, which have the mandate to protect lives, dignity and respect of the people to act [so] irresponsibly?”

A poached elephant carcass in Bouba Ndjida National Park in Cameroon. Credit: U.S. Fish and Wildlife/cc by 2.0

By Carey L. Biron
WASHINGTON, Nov 14 2013 (IPS)

The United States has become the first developed country to destroy its stock of seized ivory, a move being widely lauded by conservation groups pushing for an outright ban on domestic ivory sales.

“Efforts like this are motivated by social change, and through this destruction the U.S. government is saying that ivory has no value – that it is a shameful product,” Jeff Flocken, North American regional director for the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), told IPS from the sidelines of the ivory crush.“As long as ivory can be openly purchased, there will be an opportunity for illegal ivory to be laundered." -- Jeff Flocken

“In order for any lasting change to take place, we need to see consumer demand go away, and making ivory products be seen as shameful is the way to address this problem.”

On Thursday, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service crushed some six tonnes of African and Asian elephant ivory, the result of seizures that have taken place mostly over the past 25 years. Importing commercial or private ivory of any kind is a criminal act under U.S. law, unless the item has been certified by an international group, although its domestic sale remains legal.

The government says the destroyed ivory, which includes both full tusks and carved items, likely represented “a couple thousand” dead elephants, and notes this figure could be far higher.

“We want to send a clear message that the United States will not tolerate ivory trafficking and the toll it is taking on elephant populations, particularly in Africa,” the Fish & Wildlife Service notes in a factsheet released ahead of Thursday’s ivory crush.

“Destroying this ivory tells criminals who engage in poaching and trafficking that the United States will take all available measures to disrupt and prosecute those who prey on and profit from the deaths of these magnificent animals.”

The ivory destruction comes just a day after the U.S. State Department announced its first-ever reward – a million dollars – for information leading to the dismantling of an alleged wildlife trafficking syndicate called the Xaysavang Network. On Wednesday, Secretary of State John Kerry noted that the group, based in Laos but with affiliates in Africa, Southeast Asia and China, “facilitates the killing of endangered elephants, rhinos, and other species for products such as ivory”.

Elephant poaching is currently at its worst point in a decade, with an estimated 95 elephants being killed every day, particularly in Africa. Activists say a two-decade-old international anti-trafficking regime, known as CITES, is unable to withstand new pressures increasingly brought by militant groups slaughtering elephants and rhinoceroses as a money-making enterprise.

Consumer demand is also spiking in Asia, particularly in China. According to a U.N. report released earlier this year, large seizures of ivory bound for Asia have more than doubled since 2009.

“We’re hoping the government’s destruction of this ivory sends a strong message that wildlife poaching will not be tolerated and that ivory shouldn’t be considered an investment commodity,” Lisa Handy, a senior policy advisory with the Environmental Investigation Agency, a global watchdog group, told IPS from the ivory crush.

“We’re also hoping this will send a signal to – and we call on – other CITES parties to take similar actions. Currently some other CITES countries are still seeking a legal sale of their stockpiled ivory, while others are stockpiling it for its value.”

Shaming consumers

Under current international agreement, seized ivory cannot be resold.

Yet with this action, the United States joins just three other countries to have destroyed state ivory stockpiles. The Philippines did so in June, while both Kenya and Gabon have also destroyed seized ivory in the past two years.

Both of the latter countries have large elephant populations and have faced significant poaching problems. Like the United States, on the other hand, the Philippines is a major destination country for ivory, and thus these actions could potentially impact on the critical consumer demand that continues to create a value for ivory, legal or illegal.

Currently, the United States remains second only to China as the primary destination country for ivory. While applauding the U.S. administration’s new moves on the issue of trafficking, Flocken and others are now pushing for legislative action.

“We’re hoping the U.S. Congress will now introduce a bill to ban the sale of ivory in the United States, or a moratorium for 10 or 15 years until it can be shown to be effective,” he says.

“As long as ivory can be openly purchased, there will be an opportunity for illegal ivory to be laundered. Currently the U.S. laws on ivory are so riddled with loopholes that they are almost impossible to enforce. A clear-cut ban, on the other hand, would remove the U.S. as a major demand country.”

Legal versus illegal ivory, Flocken notes, is almost impossible to differentiate.

Closing loopholes

According to the White House, worldwide wildlife trafficking could be bringing in upwards of 10 billion dollars a year. In Africa, environmentalists point to such high-profile groups as Al Shabaab in Somalia and Boko Haram in Nigeria as increasingly turning to this relatively easy and lucrative illegal trade.

This confluence, and the illicit funding it enables, has clearly caught the attention of U.S. officials. Over the past year the administration of President Barack Obama has significantly stepped up its engagement on the issue of global wildlife trafficking, and today the issue is receiving higher priority than ever seen at the upper echelons of U.S. government.

In July, President Obama issued an executive order that made available millions of dollars for new coordination and training, including 10 million dollars earmarked for Africa. In September, the White House announced the formation of a high-level advisory council on wildlife trafficking, which is now tasked with coordinating federal government agencies on anti-poaching efforts both domestically and internationally.

Also at that time, Interior Secretary Sally Jewell announced the government’s plan to destroy its ivory stocks, depicted as the first of a series of related actions in coming months. The department is now reportedly preparing to propose multiple changes to close loopholes in U.S. law and regulation that currently facilitate the smuggling of ivory and other wildlife products.

“The United States is part of the problem, because much of the world’s trade in wild animal and plant species – both legal and illegal – is driven by U.S. consumers or passes through our ports on the way to other nations,” U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Dan Ashe says. “We have to be part of the solution.”

Chinese greed for ivory is taking its toll on the African elephant. Credit: Richard Ruggiero/USFWS/CC By 2.0

By Baradan Kuppusamy
KUALA LUMPUR , Aug 12 2013 (IPS)

A distance of nearly 9,000 kilometres separates Malaysia from Africa, but that hasn’t stopped the Southeast Asian nation from becoming a key staging post in the illegal trade of ivory from Africa to China.

“Between June 2011 and March this year, we managed to seize over 10 cases of smuggled ivory,” Khazali Ahmad, director-general of the Malaysian customs department, told IPS.

Close to 50 tonnes of elephant tusk, for which 1,500 elephants would have been killed in Africa, have been recovered in the country since June 2011.

The biggest such haul took place in September of that year, when 695 elephant tusks weighing close to two tonnes were seized in Port Kelang, one of Malaysia’s busiest container ports, 38 km southwest of the capital, Kuala Lumpur.

Two other seizures in January this year from the ports in the northern state of Penang and the southern state of Johore yielded 1.4 tonnes and 492 kg of ivory respectively.

The tusks come hidden under a variety of shipments, be it crates of salted fish, sawn timber or even peanuts. Marked as ‘Export to Malaysia’, local agents, knowingly or unknowingly, declare that the cargo is bound onward to China, making it difficult for the authorities to trace the eventual recipient there. The caches are also accompanied by multiple documents, obfuscating the trail even further.

“All the ivory comes from Africa and is headed towards China,” said Ahmad.

Traditionally, ivory is used to make intricate, expensive collectibles like chopsticks, bookmarks, Chinese cultural figurines as well as ornaments. These find enormous favour with the neo-rich in China as well as among the significant minorities of wealthy people of Chinese descent in outlying countries like Vietnam, Thailand and the Philippines. They are willing to pay a considerable price for the objects of their desire.

Consequently, ivory sells at more than 10,000 dollars per tonne in some markets. The humongous profits from the trade go towards sustaining several wars waged by military or rebel groups in central Africa like the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), which are compounded by freelance poachers, smugglers and organised crime syndicates across the continent.

“It’s very disheartening,” WWF-Malaysia executive director Dr Dionysius S.K. Sharma told IPS. “The price of ivory is making the situation insane.”

The greed for ivory is taking its toll on the African elephant, whose numbers are declining steadily, so much so that scientists fear the species is becoming close to endangered.

Concern over Malaysia’s role as a transhipment hub for illegal ivory was highlighted for the first time at a meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) in July. Ivory trade is banned under CITES.
The country, a party to the convention since 1975, was asked to report on what action it has taken to address the issue.

Within Malaysia, there is a growing realisation that the recorded seizures could just be the tip of the iceberg. “How much more African ivory is slipping through our ports?” said Kulasegaran Murugesan, a Malaysian lawmaker and a vocal campaigner for wildlife protection.

The question is, he told IPS, “Do we let this happen and blame others for the illegal trade or do we act proactively and decisively to arrest the ivory trade?”

Murugesan is determined to raise the subject in Parliament, and also intends to apply pressure on port operators, customs and wildlife officials to deny international traffickers the use of Malaysian ports.

The officials say there is little they can do, besides tough action at ports and airports, including the use of scanners. Malaysia’s porous borders allow people and goods to come and go as they please, making the country a preferred outpost for traffickers.

Commending the customs department on its vigilance, William Schaedla, the Southeast Asian director of wildlife trade monitoring network TRAFFIC, said they hoped “to see it pursue all leads towards finding the criminals that are using Malaysia as a transit point for ivory.”

“We also urge authorities to ensure proper systems are in place to catalogue and stockpile the seized ivory,” Schaedla told IPS.

Seized ivory must be destroyed publicly, but activists say this has not been done yet. It could well have found its way back into the market.

“We are in the midst of doing an inventory of the ivory seized,” said Malaysian environment minister Palanivel Govindasamy. He added, however, that it was a new thing for them. “We have to develop internationally accepted protocols,” he told IPS. “It will take some time, but we are working on it.”

Malaysia had not had a single ivory seizure in nearly a decade till the middle of 2011. This did not mean there was no ivory passing through its ports and airports, but it did not have the demand that it does today.

There is no demand for ivory in Malaysia itself. “Our people are not willing to pay so much for ivory and the country is absolutely against the illegal trade,” said Ahmad.

So, while Malaysia too has elephants in its jungles and its zoos, there is no trade in elephant tusk. If elephant numbers are dwindling here, it is because of loss of habitat to oil palm, deforestation and the growing hunger for land to cultivate food crops.

Ahmad called for an international initiative, led perhaps by regional trade block ASEAN, to combat ivory trafficking. “We need the best efforts of other countries as well.”

With 2011 marking the deadliest year for poaching-related elephant deaths in Africa since an international ivory ban went into effect in 1989, a new investigative report released here Friday points to the ongoing impact of religious custom as well as the newfound economic might of China.

Elephant head with tusks removed by poachers, Voi area, Kenya. Credit: cc by 3.0

The situation also underscores the questionable efficacy of the international regime charged with overseeing the global ivory trade, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), a treaty signed in 1973 that covers 176 countries. Early next year, CITES is scheduled to consider re-opening the regulated trade in ivory.

“The parties to CITES must recognise that in the current climate of poor enforcement, lack of resources, failure of political will and corruption, there is no likelihood that any form of regulated trade is workable,” Mary Rice, the executive director of the London-based Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) and the head of its elephants campaign, told IPS by e-mail.

“CITES remains, for the moment, the main mechanism through which illegal trade in ivory can be addressed … However, unless CITES applies its authority (it has teeth if it chooses to use them) and adopts a more transparent and open approach, it is open to abuse and gaming for sovereign political and commercial agendas and interests.”

Over its first 20 years, CITES was credited with a dramatic reduction in the ivory trade and a rebounding of elephant populations, especially in Africa. Over the course of the 1980s, some 600,000 elephants are estimated to have been killed in the continent.

For now, the successes of CITES appear to be in the past.

According to CITES own estimates, some 25,000 African elephants were killed by poachers in 2011, though others have suggested that this figure could be far higher. In January this year, in Cameroon, hundreds of elephants were killed by scores of poachers on horseback bearing high-powered weapons – one of the worst such single incidents since the 1989 ban went into effect.

According to Bryan Christy, an investigative reporter who spent the last three years looking into the issue and writes about the Cameroon event, elephant poaching is currently at its worst level in a decade, and the CITES ban “is under constant attack”.

Chinese maw

In a story published Friday, Christy discusses how pressure from several southern African countries eventually led CITES officials to allow certain countries to sell off stockpiled ivory in two “one-off” sales – first to Japan in 1999 and, second, and more controversially, to China in 2008.

While the idea was to allow these sales to flood black markets with cheaper, legally sold ivory, that is not what happened. Not only was there little evidence to show that the first sale had any significant impact on either poaching or smuggling levels, but following the 2008 sale the Chinese government proceeded to increase the price of domestic ivory substantially and then to monopolise its trade.

The effect, Christy reports, has been catastrophic for anti-poaching efforts worldwide, with the Chinese market drawing in increasing amounts of poached ivory.

“The Chinese government is the real puppet master here,” Christy told IPS, noting that Beijing has recently funded a new fleet of technical schools training a new generation of ivory carvers. “Now that China has the buying power to go into the ivory trade, the country with the biggest, most dynamically growing population is saying, ‘We want more; feed us ivory.’”

Meanwhile, Christy points to a central structural problem with CITES’s ability to regulate such a situation: as currently set up, the only metric that the Convention uses to asses ivory-related crimes is the number and size of seizures of illegal ivory.

“When they do that, they’re asking the same government officials who are often part of criminal syndicates to report on this,” he says.

“So, if China reports too many big seizures, it makes government officials look like criminals. Instead, they report lots of little ones, and no one gets hurt – but that doesn’t work. The CITES system relies on the very people who are parts of these criminal networks.”

Core principles

The new Chinese influence in the illicit ivory trade is taking place in parallel to a far older trend, though one that has not gained as much notoriety – the ongoing centrality of ivory in several religious traditions.

“This story began with a rumour that ivory was being smuggled from Africa to the Philippines – I had never heard of that. The Philippines is not considered a major ivory-consuming or -trafficking country,” Christy says.

“But in the Philippines, I found that the exclusive use for ivory was religious purposes. In fact, in both of the widely accepted dominant countries in this trade – Thailand and China – there is a strong religious underpinning.”

While Christy says the public understanding of the environmental implications of engaging in the ivory trade remains relatively undeveloped in countries such as the Philippines and China (Thailand is a bit different), the hierarchical and moral nature of religious communities offers a potent opportunity to turn the tide.

“All the core principles of Catholicism and Buddhism can be applied to fix this problem pretty quickly,” he says. “But these religions have clear leaders, and these leaders can lead. The key to solving these problems is to find and motivate local civil society – local Filipinos, local Thais, domestic Chinese.”

For advocates, the need for such involvement could now be more significant than anytime in recent decades. At the next CITES summit, in Bangkok in March, member states are slated to discuss proposals, tabled at a lead-up meeting this summer, that would seek to “systematise” the trade of ivory.

Not only are several African countries planning on requesting permission to sell their ivory stocks, but for the first time several Southeast Asian countries say they will do so as well, including Thailand and the Philippines. For many, the question is whether these countries are actually committed to the ban, as they say they are, or whether they’re just waiting for the ban to erode.

“It is imperative that the E.U. takes a strong position to oppose further sales and trade. With 27 member states, the E.U. vote is a deal-breaker,” the EIA’s Rice says.

“The U.S. also plays a pivotal role in how the issue gets dealt with in the international arena – many parties follow their lead. Currently, the sales of ivory are being held up as a ‘model’ for how other wildlife products could be traded.”

Yet Bryan Christy notes that Western countries, including the United States and those in the European Union, are inherently more disinterested than are countries that stand to gain financially from any renewed ivory trade.

“A growing number of African countries want to sell their ivory,” Christy says, “and, unfortunately, it’s often the interested parties that make the difference.”