Elephant Poaching in Kenya Increasing
7/8/98
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Title: Elephant Poaching in Kenya Increasing
Source: Reuters
Status: Copyrighted, contact source to reprint
Date: 7/8/98
JOHANNESBURG, July 8 (Reuters) -Elephant poaching has increased in
Kenya since three other African states were given the green light to
resume ivory exports, a leading conservationist said on Wednesday.
``There is evidence that since the lifting of the ban on ivory
exports, there has been an increase in the killing of elephants,''
conservationist Richard Leakey told Reuters in an interview.
``Given that the trade has not got under way yet, we may see an
escalation of poaching,'' said Leakey, a former head of Kenya's
Wildlife Service and member of the country's parliament.
In June last year, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered
Species (CITES) agreed to lift a strict seven-year global ban on the
ivory trade and allow the southern African states of Namibia, Botswana
and Zimbabwe to sell ivory to Japan in 1999.
The agreement worked out by the 138 member states of CITES said that
elephants could be culled for ivory selectively in the three countries
provided strict controls were implemented.
The three countries' combined herd of about 150,000 was ruled not to
be in grave danger.
But Leakey, one of the leading figures in the campaign that led to the
total ban in 1990, said that once ivory was legally allowed to enter
the market, poachers had every incentive to swing back to action.
``According to the wildlife department, there is evidence that between
50 and 100 elephants were poached in Kenya this year, compared to less
than 20 for all of last year,'' said Leakey, who was in Johannesburg
for a public lecture on conservation issues.
While the numbers were a cause for concern, Leakey said there was no
need for alarm.
``This is by no means a desperate situation,'' he said. ``There are
about 30,000 elephants in Kenya now, which is probably about the
number that the country can sustain.''
But when the ivory trade was booming, the numbers fell from around
70,000 in the mid-1960s, Leakey said.
``Other countries are seeking permission to have their export bans
lifted, including Tanzania...once the doors are open, others will want
to go through it,'' Leakey said.
He described Kenya's position on the issue as ambivalent. It has not
yet applied to have its ban on ivory trade revoked.
Kenya's elephant population has enjoyed a couple of years of heavy
rainfall, providing plenty of food. But drought could loom on the
horizon, putting more pressures on the animals.
``We may go quickly from a habitat of plenty to one of dust,'' he
said.
Such a scenario could also raise tensions between farmers in eastern
Africa and elephants.
The elephants' best hope for survival probably lies in restricting
them to fenced game parks and nature reserves, Leakey said.
Elephants are the largest living land mammals on earth and pressures
on land in sub-Saharan Africa, which has one of the world's fastest-
growing human populations, are intense.
``Elephants and farming are not compatible...Free roaming elephants
will become a thing of the past,'' said Leakey. ``If...people and
elephants interact on a daily basis, the elephants will lose.''
He added that a host of species in the rain forests of West and
Central Africa were under far greater threat at the moment than the
elephants of continent's east and south.
``In West Africa there is wide-scale logging, encouraged by EU
subsidies to former dependencies,'' he said.
Copyright 1998 Reuters Limited.