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Although environmental and animal rights activists have advocated for stronger anti-poaching efforts for the last several decades, their efforts never attracted sustained media attention outside of a few notable campaigns during the late 1980s and various periods throughout the 1990s. This all changed with reports about the death of Cecil the Lion, a significant tourist attraction at Zimbabwe’s Hwange National Park. Cecil was killed several weeks ago by American dentist Walter J. Palmer of Minnesota, who is said to have paid $50,000 for the ability to hunt and kill an African lion. The incident created a firestorm of international outrage, with people blasting Palmer on Twitter and many donating funds to wildlife and anti-poaching groups. However, the question remains over whether the outrage over Cecil’s killing will be a turning point in terms of attention paid and resources diverted to strengthening global anti-poaching efforts and protecting threatened species. Over the last fifteen years, African nations have struggled to maintain their existing wildlife and international controls on the ivory trade have weakened. Fixing both problems will be necessary if poaching efforts can be curtailed and threatened species such as lions, elephants, rhinos, and tigers can be protected more effectively.
This topic brief will summarize the effects of poaching on threatened wildlife around the globe, steps that governments are taking to deal with the poaching problem, and then explain the impediments to making some of these anti-poaching plans work.
Readers are also encouraged to use the links below and in the related R&D to bolster their files about this topic.
Effects of Poaching
The center of anti-poaching efforts is the African continent where abundant wildlife can serve as a vital tourist attraction for many countries. The film Out of Africa in the 1980s, which depicted British rule in Kenya and won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 1985, helped promote such tourism and today, according to The New York Times on July 25, tourism is 12% of the Kenyan economy. Take Part, a digital news magazine, writes on July 24 that tourism brought $36 billion to sub-Saharan African nations in 2012. However, security problems and the endangering of wildlife is posing a threat to Africa’s tourism industry, with Kenya threatened by the al-Shabab militant group from Somalia and political unrest bothering other nations such as Zimbabwe.
The incentive for poachers is the riches that can be gained from killing animals and selling their parts on a lucrative international market, either legally or illegally. The Center for Strategic and International Studies reveals on July 14 that rhino horn is worth $65,000 per kilogram on the black market, whereas elephant ivory fetches $3,000 per kilogram. The figure for rhino horn, according to The Global Post on July 30, makes it worth more than other items such as gold, diamonds, and cocaine. Along with the poaching of elephants and rhinos, other animals are at risk. The Global Post notes that tigers have been hunted for their skins, bones, teeth claws, and whiskers. Sea turtles are hunted for their meat and for various parts that can make jewelry, glasses, or ornaments. And gorillas in Africa have been hunted and their hands used for ashtrays.
Asia and North America are the primary markets for illegal animal parts. Asian nations such as China and Vietnam have peoples that believe ingesting parts of a rhino’s horn can help to cure cancer and hangovers. Also, the Center for Strategic and International Studies notes that China maintains the world’s illegal ivory market on its own as 70% of illegal ivory seizures are destined for the People’s Republic so poachers help to meet this demand. The Brookings Institution reports on July 22 that militant groups have benefited from the funds gained by poaching as Myanmar’s United Wa State Army traffics wildlife into Thailand, the Taliban hunts snow leopards for Saudi monarchs, Uganda’s Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) poaches wildlife, and the janjaweed in Darfur and Chad hunt elephants to maintain their operations. Even a terrorist group such as al-Shabab has benefitted from poaching by simply taxing the transport of ivory and forcing smugglers pay for access to their territory.
The death of Cecil the Lion was outside of the purview of these “normal” poaching operations, but it can be partly blamed on the Zimbabwean government for continuing to allow the trophy hunting of lions as long as hunters purchase a permit. Palmer claims that he had purchased a permit, but Zimbabwean officials argue that his kill was not legal because the two men that helped him – professional hunter Theo Bronchorst and landowner Honest Trymore Ndlovu – illegally lured Cecil outside of the bounds of the Hwange National Reserve and onto Ndlovu’s land, reportedly by placing a dead animal on top of their vehicle, where he was then shot with a compound bow, hunted for an additional forty hours, and then finally killed with a gunshot. Also, Ndlovu is in trouble because he reportedly did not have a lion allocated to his hunting quota for 2015, meaning that a lion could not be killed on his property. “Trophy hunters” like Palmer, who seek to kill animals for the glory of doing so, are not in large numbers and constitute the financially privileged class of society. They justify their hunts by alleging that the fees that they pay are used to help conserve wildlife, but critics allege that governments that are handing them out are not doing an effective job overseeing the process. CNN writes on July 29 that Hwange National Park had a hunting moratorium between 2005-2008, during which time there was a 50% increase in its lion population. The granting of hunting permits was renewed in 2009 after Oxford University in Great Britain partnered with Zimbabwean officials to see if such hunts could be made sustainable. In fact, Cecil was wearing an Oxford GPS collar when he was killed. However, Oxford has been critical of the “trophy hunting” process in Zimbabwe, noting that “territorial vacuums” are created in the Hwange National Reserve as male lions move to the periphery of the park and that makes them vulnerable to other poachers. South Africa has also been criticized for the trophy hunting of rhinos. Hunters there can pay the government $100,000 for the right to kill one rhino a year and keep its horn. Conservationists note that rhino poaching is up 21% in South Africa as of last year and that trophy hunting will continue to compound the loss of rhinos in the country.
Obviously, poaching is taking a toll on wildlife in Africa and elsewhere in the world. World Politics Review notes back on January 27 that nearly 100 elephants were poached in Africa every day last year and 1,020 rhinos were killed in South Africa. The Center for Strategic and International Studies finds that 8% of the entire elephant population in Africa was killed in 2011 and that fewer than 500,000 elephants exist now, with the possibility that they could go extinct unless drastic steps are taken over the next decade. Furthermore, National Geographic writes on July 13 that Tanzania’s elephant population has fallen by 60% over the past five years to 43,000 and some think that the government may be overestimating the number of elephants that currently exist in the wild. The CNN article previously cited from July 29 highlights how the African lion population has fallen 60% over the last three decades, with fewer than 32,000 remaining in the wild compared to 75,000 in 1980. Similarly, The Conversation of Africa points out on July 29 that only 4,800 black rhinos live in the wild versus 16,000 that existed in the wild in 1970. The Global Post article previously cited adds that tigers in Asia are on the decline with fewer than 4,000 existing in the wild today. In fact, more tigers now exist in China and Vietnam on so-called “tiger farms” where they are raised and harvested for their parts than they do in the wild. African lemurs, hunted by hungry villagers in Madagascar and losing their habitat to deforestation, are the “most endangered mammals on the planet.” And the International Union for Conservation of Nature argues that by 2050 more than 80% of all western gorillas might be dead, largely due to poaching.
The Growth of Anti-Poaching Efforts
Much like the “war on drugs” of the 1980s, the “war on poaching” has a supply and a demand side, both of which have to reduced in order to make a sizable impact on poaching levels. On the supply side, conservationists argue that poachers have to be stopped at their source and that more security is needed for animals in the wild. On the demand side, conservationists have pressed for governments to enact legislation banning the transportation of poached animal parts and installing more monitoring protections to disrupt illicit trading networks and better educate consumers.
To combat poachers, African governments have taken a variety of steps to provide better oversight for wildlife. CNN writes on August 1 that Zambia has assigned security guards to patrol and oversee specific groups of rhinos in order to guard them against poachers. Other African nations, according to The World Politics Review, have enhanced the military powers of park rangers by enacting “shoot-to-kill” policies and increasing the weaponry available to them. Providing better training for park rangers, as well as better pay, is also heralded as a priority as it can help to dissuade rangers from becoming corrupted by militant groups and criminal syndicates.
Furthermore, CNN explains that the United States has moved to combat poaching in recent months. On the supply side, the United States has thought about working more closely with African nations in order to enhance anti-poaching efforts. For example, U.S. military commanders argue that their experience in tracking and intelligence can assist their African counterparts when going after poachers. On the demand side, the Obama administration has made tackling the black market in poached animal parts a priority. The Center for Strategic and International Studies reveals that the Obama administration’s National Strategy for Combating Wildlife Trafficking calls for using development assistance, law enforcement assets, and diplomatic resources to suppress the illegal trade in ivory and rhino horns. According to The New York Times on July 25, the administration also recently took steps to better combat the ivory trade by restricting the sale of African elephant ivory across state lines which will also apply to foreign trade. Under the regulations, the sale of ivory that is less than a century old and that has been modified with species after December 27, 1973 is prohibited. States are also looking to enact their own ivory bans, with New Jersey, New York, and California having enacted bans on the sales of ivory in recent years. In Congress, the House Foreign Affairs Committee is looking at passing the Global Anti-Poaching Act that, among other measures, would withhold development assistance from nations that are measured to have “failed demonstrably” to uphold international agreements on threatened species. The Take Part article previously cited mentions how the U.S. could better assist African nations by intercepting poached products using X-ray machines and sniffer dogs at major ports that are primary exporting facilities for poached materials in Mombasa, Kenya; Dar es Salaam, Tanzania; and Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Other measures that the U.S. government could take would be to classify elephants and lions on a higher standard under the Endangered Species Act which could suppress the ability of buyers to trade in the parts of these animals. For example, The Hill explains on July 31 that if lions were classified as endangered that would prohibit hunters from shooting them and then bringing trophies from those hunts into the United States. And the Obama administration explains that it has improved funding for fighting wildlife trafficking to more than $50 million as of 2014 over $13 million that was allocated for such efforts in the 2012 fiscal year.
Of course, finding a way to fight poaching will require some international cooperation as the parts of poached animals find their way into international trading networks. The New York Times writes on July 30 that the UN General Assembly passed a resolution last week that would pledge more international cooperation to fight money laundering, something that is significant since the illegal trafficking of animal and plant products brings in $10 billion per year. Finding ways to provide financial assistance to African nations can also be effective, especially in terms of technology. The Washington Post notes on July 31 that drones could one day provide a vital tool to monitoring wildlife and that groups such as the British conservation group Protect are pioneering a Real-time Anti-Poaching Intelligence Device (RAPID) that can monitor the heart rate of a rhino and can implant a camera on its horn. Detecting an increased heart rate could allow rangers to access the camera on the rhino and go after poachers. There is also the controversial idea of providing funding to local communities not to poach. The Guardian argues on July 30 that local communities should be educated about ways that they can keep wildlife protected and then should be allowed to harvest the parts of protected animals such as elephants when they die. This would provide a financial incentive to these communities to manage wildlife and better fight poachers that intrude into their territory.
The Limitations of Anti-Poaching Efforts
While there are a lot of initiatives floating around to stop poaching, there are some significant limitations that exist when it comes to reducing the practice, especially in Africa. The first significant barrier is corruption and a lack of government guidance regarding wildlife management. Public International Radio reports on July 28 that Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, one of the most war-torn places on the African continent over the last several decades, has had to confront these problems. The park is currently supervised by Belgian prince Emmanuel de Merode (the DRC used to be a Belgian colony) and after a 2008 massacre of silverback gorillas by poachers, Merode was brought in and went to work cleaning up the ranger system. One of Virunga’s problems prior to that point was that rangers were aligned with rebel groups and assisted in poaching. Merode has eliminated rebel-affiliated rangers, but fighting poachers has nearly cost him his life. In fact, the park has overseen the death of 150 rangers in fights with poachers since 2004. Corruption has also harmed the transfer of hunting funds for conservation efforts as CNN explains on July 29 that only 3-5% of the proceeds from hunting licenses in Zimbabwe help local communities. Furthermore, ecotourism is not immune to corruption as the Brookings Institution points out that 95% of the profits of ecolodges are being channeled into traditional political institutions as the owners of lodges are linked to public officials and they use the funds to enrich their tribes or patronage networks. As a result, governments in countries such as Kenya are doing a poor job policing illegal grazing, logging, charcoal and poaching operations. Corruption and poor governance is also undermining wildlife management in Zimbabwe, where Cecil was killed. Time writes on July 30 that Zimbabwe has continued to allow elephant hunting because it generates $14 million for the country each year and it has tried to get the U.S. to reverse an import ban on its ivory products. In addition, The Zimbabwean Standard explains on August 3 that land management has eroded since 2000, which is when Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe enacted a controversial land reform program that seized land from thousands of white landowners and gave small tracts to black Zimbabweans. Corruption infused that process as high-ranking political officials received sizable chunks of land for themselves. The nationalization of this land not only did grave damage to Zimbabwe’s agricultural sector by turning the country from a food exporter into a food importer, but it also harmed wildlife management programs. The country saw an 80% reduction of animals that lived in safari camps from 2000-2003 and as of 2007 only fourteen private game farms exist in the country versus 620 before 2000. These farms were estimated to be a great way to protect wildlife as landowners had a financial incentive to ward off poachers, maintain existing wildlife stocks, and limit aggressive hunting on their premises.
Earlier in this brief, it was mentioned that African nations have also taken to heavily arming park rangers to confront poachers, but the results of these initiatives have been mixed. As noted above, Virunga National Park has seen the deaths of more than 100 rangers within the last decade in violent confrontations with poachers. Also, there is the argument that engaging in an arms race with poachers is a fool’s errand. Mimicking arguments made against arming merchant vessels against Somali pirates several years ago, critics allege that poachers will just acquire more weapons to fight park rangers and will not be deterred. Also, World Politics Review warns that African states already struggle enough with private armies operating in their borders so making park rangers a quasi-paramilitary force to confront poachers will further compound their problems with possessing a monopoly on the use of force. Human rights groups have also voiced concerns over the use of such aggressive tactics.
Technology is heralded as an effective way to fight poachers, but conservationists remain skeptical that it will make a significant impact. The Washington Post article previously cited reveals that the use of the RAPID device to track the movements of rhinos will probably be unworkable because the cameras are likely to break after a few hours or become obscured by dirt as the rhinos go about living their normal lives. The use of drones may have long-term potential, but as of now a drone loaded with camera equipment would only be able to fly for several miles at a time, something that would not solve the problem of policing hundreds of miles of park territory. Also, staffing the centers that would pilot the drones would require more funding which not all African countries have access to. Other technologies may have some promise, though. The Rhine Rescue Project advocates poisoning rhino horns so that if they are ingested they would sicken someone, but critics allege that there are ethical qualms of harming another human being and that poachers may not care if horns are poisoned since they are only concerned with selling them. Also, South Africa is building a DNA database called RhoDIS that will collect live samples from rhino horns so that if horns are seized by officials in other countries at a later date they can be traced to their point of origin.
However, arguably the biggest limitation to curtailing poaching is working with the communities that live near the wildlife that needs to be protected. Most of the peoples who live near reserves are poor and are susceptible to the temptations of poaching wildlife out of pure necessity. The Conversation of Africa points out that many of these communities were also forcibly relocated to compensate for the establishment of wildlife reserves and resent the presence of animals who they blame for causing their plight. Much like tensions in the United States over wildlife protection, peoples believe that killing wildlife may allow them to return to older lands so they do not see the value of ensuring that the elephants, rhinos, lions, and other creatures near them continue to survive. There are also legal tensions over wildlife protections as Brookings explains that Ethiopia allowed indigenous peoples to remain inside of its natural reserves so as to protect their land rights, but now the populations of these groups are growing and competing with animals for space and resources. In theory, it would make sense for international organizations to work with peoples in or near reserves and compensate them to not work with poachers, but such conditional money transfers, according to Brookings, will only work if there are monitoring systems in place to ensure people are doing what they are supposed to and the penalties are put in place for those that err. Corruption problems in many African countries make this difficult right now, though. The more radical solution of allowing villagers to harvest dead lions, elephants, and rhinos in return for protecting them would require a relaxation of international controls on the sale of ivory, something that conservationists, who are primarily stationed in the Western world, are not supportive of. This sets up a culture clash, with “neo-imperialist” arguments being inserted into the environmental protection discourse where some accuse Western activists of trying to dictate the policies that African countries and peoples need to adopt. Some of the same tensions play out with regards to protecting the Amazon rainforest today. In the end, one question dominates the discourse over poaching: Does the wildlife of Africa belong to its respective nations or does that wildlife belong to the entire world?
The death of Cecil is likely to create renewed attention toward conservation efforts, but it is not yet certain that this momentum will be sustained in the years ahead. If faced with a question on this issue, extempers should focus their attention on anti-corruption efforts, ways that nations can get community buy-in, and international efforts to fight the illegal trafficking of animal parts. Make sure to show the intricacies of protecting wildlife and how political and economic factors can take an issue that many can agree with (in this case the need to prevent the extinction of elephants, lions, tigers, and other species) and make it quite contentious. Remember, Cecil is the rallying cry for an issue, but not the issue as ending trophy hunting alone will solve the poaching of African wildlife. The problem goes well beyond what Dr. Palmer did or did not do and is really about what African nations can do to better protect their territory and their resources.