Ivory poachers decimate Congo elephant population

Joe Bavier, Reuters 22 Aug 08;

KINSHASA (Reuters) - Poachers in Congo have killed a fifth of the elephants in Africa's oldest national park this year as China buys more ivory, the park's director said on Friday.

Rwandan rebels have killed seven Savannah elephants in the past 10 days alone in the Virunga National Park, along Congo's eastern border with Rwanda and Uganda, Emmanuel de Merode told Reuters.

"We've definitely lost 20 percent of the population this year and probably more," he said. "We have rangers with them, and we're trying to reinforce them. But (the rangers) are outnumbered 20 to one."

The 790,000-hectare (2 million-acre) reserve was home to one of central Africa's largest Savannah elephant herds in the 1970s numbering around 5,000.

But a brutal 1998-2003 war, heavy poaching, corruption and mismanagement of the park have taken a heavy toll. Today conservationists believe no more than 300 elephants remain.

China, among the world's main destinations for illegal ivory, was granted permission last month to buy 108 tonnes of ivory stocks from Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.

De Merode singled out China's growing appetite for ivory as one of the root causes of this year's increase in elephant killings, as poachers attempt to launder their illegal ivory for legitimate sale.

"It's very difficult to distinguish between legal and illegal stocks," he said.

Despite the official end of the conflict in Congo, the eastern borderlands remain a volatile patchwork of rebel strongholds and militia controlled zones.

Armed clashes between rival armed groups are a regular occurrence, limiting the rangers' ability to patrol, and providing cover for poaching.

The Savannah elephant is a sub-species of the African elephant, which is classified as a vulnerable species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources.

(Editing by Alistair Thomson/Tony Austin)

Elephants Decimated in Congo Park; China Demand Blamed
Zoe Alsop, National Geographic News 29 Aug 08;

Since the beginning of this year, armed groups, soldiers, and poachers have killed 10 percent of the elephants in Congo's troubled Virunga National Park—allegedly driven by rising Chinese demand for ivory—park officials say.

The announcement raises fears that elephants could disappear forever from Africa's oldest and largest national park, which has recently made headlines for its gorilla murders.

Rangers plying the lawless central sector of Virunga have discovered the bodies of seven elephants in the past two weeks alone.

In one case they came upon Rwandan militia members hovering over the bodies of two elephants. The rangers managed to drive the men away before they could remove the animals' tusks.

In all, 24 elephants are known to have been killed in Virunga so far this year.

"We believe that less than ten were killed last year," said Samantha Newport, spokesperson for Virunga National Park. "Undoubtedly this year is a lot, lot worse. It's catastrophic."

Chinese to Blame?

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is one of the primary sources of illegally trafficked ivory in the world, according to TRAFFIC, a group that monitors the wildlife trade.

Recently, the tiny elephant population of Virunga in the conflict-riven east of the country has become the target of gunmen hoping to unload the illegal ivory into a thriving international black market, park officials say.

Virunga's elephant population is small—thought to number between 200 and 300 animals—and isolated. It will not be able to sustain itself if killings continue at this rate, said Noelle Kumpel, program manager at the Zoological Society of London, which is working to support the rehabilitation and management of Virunga.

There's been a surge in the volume of illegal ivory since 2004, said Tom Milliken, regional director of TRAFFIC for eastern and southern Africa. Experts attribute the trend to thriving and overt domestic markets in the contraband throughout central Africa, in combination with a newly tapped appetite for ivory among China's rising middle class.

"We are hemorrhaging elephants out of central Africa and the Congo Basin," Milliken said.

One study Milliken worked on estimated that unregulated ivory-carving industries in Africa and Asia could be handling as much as 83 tons of ivory every year, most of it from central Africa. That could be the equivalent of around 12,000 elephants, he added.

Tiny Population in the Crossfire

Virunga sits at the heart of one of the most deadly conflict zones on the planet, with at least four heavily armed and rarely paid factions fighting for control of the park.

"It's incredibly challenging for the rangers to do their job on the ground when, at every turn, they are confronted by an armed group that is obviously more powerful than they are," Virunga National Park's Newport said.

"Over the last ten years about 120 rangers have been killed doing their jobs. It's an African miracle that Virunga National Park still exists—and a credit to the rangers."

Surveys carried out in the 1960s found 2,889 elephants in the park. By 2006 that number had dropped to 400. Just two years later it's estimated there are as few as half that number.

For those protecting the park, elephant numbers are a litmus test for survivability of the park itself.

"Elephants are an indicator species," Newport said. "And now to have the elephants killed off—it's a black mark against conservation in Virunga."

Noelle Kumpel, Virunga program director at the Zoological Society of London, said, "The loss of the elephants will have very dramatic impact on the park.

"They act as ecosystem engineers by removing trees and thus opening up savannas. And in the forests trees rely on them for seed dispersal and other species rely those trees, and so it will have a knock-on effect."

Refuge … For Militias

Virunga's animal populations have survived over a decade of civil wars that have left more than five million people dead and have displaced hundreds of thousands more in eastern DRC.

"For militias, Virunga National Park is a refuge," park spokesperson Newport said. "It's a place to rest, to eat, to sleep, to train."

Many members of the warring factions moonlight as poachers, surviving off bush meat and, in at least one case documented by the BBC, trading ivory for ammunitions.

Black Market and Controversial Legal Trade

Trade in illicit ivory is on the rise, conservation groups say.

The Elephant Trade Information System, an ivory-monitoring body, reported that the volume of illegal ivory confiscated in 2006 was more than twice what had been discovered two years earlier.

And last month the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) certified China to pursue a one-time purchase of ivory, granting the country permission to bid on 108 tons of stockpiled ivory from four southern African countries: Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, and Zimbabwe. Japan has also been authorized to buy government-held ivory from those countries.

Some conservationists argue that the legal sale of ivory—even when the proceeds go toward conservation, as they must under current CITES regulations—destroys the taboo around buying ivory, which encourages demand.

On the ground in Virunga, that may mean poachers are more confident they'll find a market for their spoils.

"The perception on the ground from poachers and armed militias is that it's OK, because China wants the ivory and is allowed to have the ivory," Newport said.

But, TRAFFIC's Milliken said, "The market is already there—there's nothing to create."

And, he said, "by allowing China to participate in a legal ivory trade, it could undermine black market products."

Still, the ivory trade begins at the local level, where it often goes unprosecuted—a fact easily exploited by foreigners looking to ship it overseas.

"DRC has to do more if you can buy and sell ivory with no impediments within walking distance of the police headquarters in Kinshasa," Milliken said.