A WILDLIFE CONSERVATION SOCIETY PROGRESS REPORT
ELEPHANTS FALL 2014
W
ildlife Conservation Society Progress Reports provide you, our generous supporters, with updates and insights on core conservation activities. Together, we are securing a future for wildlife and wild places. WCS saves wildlife and wild places worldwide through science, conservation action, education, and inspiring people to value nature. WCS envisions a world where wildlife thrives in healthy lands and seas, valued by societies that embrace and benefit from the diversity and integrity of life on earth. Executive Editor: Mary Deyns Brandão Managing Editor: Christine Westphal Writer: Christine Westphal Art Direction: Drew Albinson Staff Photographer: Julie Larsen Maher
Editorial Support: Sarah Walker With deep appreciation to: Elizabeth Bennett, James Deutsch, Simon Hedges, Aili Kang, and Joe Walston
Photos: Front and Back Covers, Inside Front Page, P. 1 (bottom), P. 2 (bottom), P. 5, P. 7 (bottom), P. 9 (bottom) © Julie Larsen Maher/WCS; P. 1 (top) © WCS; P. 2 (top) © Joe Mercier/Shutterstock; P. 3 © Donovan van Staden/Shutterstock; P. 4 © Cristián Samper/WCS; P. 6 © Pichugin Dmitri/Shutterstock; P. 7 (top) © WCS China; P. 8 © Mary Dixon/WCS; P. 9 (top) © Mark Atkinson/WCS AHEAD
WCS Progress Report: Elephants ▪ 1
MAJOR POACHING ARRESTS IN MOZAMBIQUE A paper published in the August 19 issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences demonstrated that poachers slaughtered 100,000 elephants in Africa from 2010-2012. These grim numbers are why the Wildlife Conservation Society is more committed than ever to recruiting, training, and supporting rangers in elephant range states to stop the killing at its source. September 2014 saw two significant arrests of suspected elephant poachers and ivory traffickers, representing a major crackdown on the five well-organized groups alleged to kill elephants in Niassa National Reserve, Mozambique. Officials estimated that one particular group killed 39 elephants this year alone. In a joint operation on September 7, WCS rangers, rangers from the Luwire tourism concession within Niassa, and local police captured six suspected poachers following 10 months of vital on-the-ground investigation. Two of the 12 tusks confiscated in this arrest weighed some 57 pounds each from an elephant about 40 years old—their worth was estimated at over US $150,000. On September 22, two more suspected poachers in the same region were arrested and five illegal firearms seized. If convicted, all suspects face serious fines and jail time. WCS has worked with the Government of Mozambique since 2012 to co-manage Niassa National Reserve. Also home to lions, leopards, buffalo, sable antelope, and African wild dogs, the reserve is Mozambique’s most important elephant stronghold.
Niassa National Reserve is home to some 13,000 elephants.
Confiscated guns, ammunition, and elephant tusks found in the raid assisted by WCS scouts on September 7, 2014.
WCS Progress Report: Elephants ▪ 2
STRENGTHENING GLOBAL IVORY POLICY Closing All Markets Far more elephants are now killed each year than are born. Since 2007, the total amount of ivory being illegally traded globally has more than doubled in size. This devastating trend is causing dramatic population declines and losses of elephants across large parts of their range. Dr. Elizabeth Bennett, Vice President for Species Conservation at WCS, authored a high-profile essay for the August 2014 issue of Conservation Biology arguing that even a better-controlled legal ivory trade could not stop the decline in elephant numbers, since deep-rooted government corruption would continue to allow illegally obtained ivory to enter the market. As Bennett has stated, “To save elephants, all ivory markets must close and all ivory stockpiles must be destroyed.” Additionally, in September 2014, Simon Hedges—WCS Elephant Coordinator and Ivory Trade Policy Analyst—contributed a hard-hitting article to China Environment magazine which quantified the detrimental effects the current crisis will have on elephants if we do not stop the killing, stop the trafficking, and stop the demand. China Environment has high visibility among Chinese government officials who could be crucial to strengthening anti-ivory policies. In October 2014, Hedges followed up on the article by giving public lectures in Guangzhou and Beijing on the ivory crisis and the need to reduce demand.
“To save elephants, all ivory markets must close and all ivory stockpiles must be destroyed.” —Dr. Elizabeth Bennett, WCS’s Vice President for Species Conservation
YOU CAN HELP US SAVE ELEPHANTS To sign the petition to support moratoria on ivory sales, go to: 96elephants.org
WCS Progress Report: Elephants ▪ 3 Global CITES Initiatives While WCS continues to implement targeted on-the-ground strategies to stop the killing and stop the trafficking, as well as launch social media initiatives to stop the demand for ivory, we know a major requirement to ending ivory trafficking along the international trade chain is coordinated, global political action. In 2013 and 2014, we saw many great victories for elephants at CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora), including the landmark decision to require development and implementation of National Ivory Action Plans (NIAPs) in the countries most heavily implicated in failing to address the illegal ivory trade. WCS has been assisting several of those countries to develop and implement their NIAPs. The Elephant Protection Initiative The Elephant Protection Initiative (EPI) was initially announced in February 2014 as a collaboration of five African elephant range states with the aim of stopping all ivory trade—international and domestic—for at least 10 years and thereafter until elephant populations are no longer threatened by poaching. This initiative also aims to provide both immediate and longerterm funding to address the elephant crisis through implementation of the range countries’ African Elephant Action Plan (AEAP). EPI is evolving into a broader coalition of states with elephant populations, private partners, international organizations, and local organizations, all working together to catalyze trade bans, support countries in destroying their ivory stockpiles or removing them from any possible future sales, and implement the AEAP. WCS is acting as a partner and advisor to this initiative. Domestic Ivory Bans The federal ivory ban enacted by the Obama Administration is an excellent step in stopping trade into the U.S. and across state lines, but it cannot control ivory trade within states. To close this loophole, on August 5, New Jersey became the first U.S. state to sign a bill banning ivory sales within the state. New York State followed on August 12. WCS is now exploring how best to ensure that the existing ban in California can become stronger and more effective, and our 96 Elephants campaign aims to secure U.S. legislation that will create moratoria on ivory sales across the nation. To date, nearly half a million people have signed our petition to support such moratoria. This robust support and the strength of the bans in New York and New Jersey give us hope that there is political will to end the ivory trade in this country for good, and that the U.S. can act as a model for other countries to follow, especially in East Asia where demand for ivory is greatest.
THE 96 ELEPHANTS CAMPAIGN: BY THE NUMBERS To date, the 96 Elephants campaign has engaged more than 170 coalition partners, including 122 Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) member institutions. This has resulted in nearly 452,301 constituent actions taken on behalf of WCS and/or the 96 Elephants campaign, including sending a combined 759,641 emails to NY State legislators, Governor Andrew Cuomo, Congress, President Barack Obama, and Interior Secretary Sally Jewell. This number also includes 86,000 social media mentions in 142 countries around the world, and 33,274 petitions, drawings, and letters collected in and around the WCS zoos and aquarium.
WCS Progress Report: Elephants â–Ş 4
PROTECTED AREAS CRUCIAL FOR ASIAN ELEPHANTS A new study published in Biological Conservation by lead author Varun R. Goswami, WCS India Senior Research Fellow, confirms the importance of strong protected areas (PAs) in saving endangered Asian elephants from loss of habitat, increased poaching incidents, and other dangerous human-elephant conflict in India. Asian elephants have experienced increased conflict with humans in recent years, largely as a result of conversion of elephant habitat into agricultural land in areas where elephants used to roam. In many countries, this often results in retaliatory killing, and in Indonesia and Malaysia, removal of elephants from the wild. In India, the electric fences farmers build to protect their crops claim 40-50 elephant victims per year. Indian communities with an eye toward conservation have sought to implement wildlife-friendly farming and other practices in order to reduce the conflict. In recent years, a political debate has arisen as to whether these wildlife-friendly practices can replace PAs as the most practical, sustainable solution to reconcile growing human activity with wildlife conservation. To answer this debate, Goswami and his co-authors observed Asian elephants living at the interface of wildlife-friendly human communities and PAs to determine which environment the elephants preferred to use. The study found that while community-managed forests and wildlife-friendly agriculture can prove useful in protecting and providing resources for wildlife such as elephants, there is no substitute for the undeveloped wilderness and cover that PAs provide. Simply put, the elephants prefer protected areas.
Community-run, wildlife-friendly practices are essential to lessen conflicts between local communities and Asian elephants and other endangered species, but they are no substitute for protected areas.
WCS Progress Report: Elephants ▪ 5
WCS AWARDED “REVERSE THE DECLINE” SPECIES GRANTS FROM DISNEY This year, WCS received three Disney commitments—one each for Sumatran tigers, sharks and rays, and Kenyan elephants—as part of Disney’s 10-year “Reverse the Decline” initiative focusing on saving 10 species from extinction. The initiative funds collaborative conservation efforts and aims to design and deploy a strategic plan for each species. The grant awarded to WCS for elephants will enable us to lead the development of a strategic plan for elephant conservation in Kenya focused on controlling poaching and ivory trafficking, protecting elephant habitat, and reducing human-elephant conflict; working with in-country partners to guide implementation of the resulting strategic plan (especially the vital monitoring and evaluation aspects); and allocating funds within Kenya to best deliver on the plan’s priority actions. In the future, WCS, in collaboration with our extensive network of government and other partners across Africa, will use Kenya as a model to scale this work to promote strategic conservation in other key elephant countries. Disney’s “Reverse the Decline” funding mechanism has the potential to bring in more than $7.5 million to WCS over the next 10 years for the three species programs, which could truly be a game-changer for the conservation of tigers, sharks and rays, and elephants.
WCS Progress Report: Elephants ▪ 6
TAKING ON THE DEMAND If we want to save elephants, it is simply not enough to target the poachers and traffickers. As long as there is demand for ivory products, elephants will remain in constant danger. In China and other Asian countries where ivory is seen as a traditional symbol of wealth and success, it is crucial to eliminate the product’s prestige factor by engaging the public in a movement, encouraging them not to buy ivory themselves, and working with the government to improve policy that will further guide consumers’ behavior. WCS is advancing our policy and online initiatives in China to end the escalating demand for ivory, which includes providing key messages to the public about where ivory comes from, the implications of purchasing it, and how they can help.
The results of our efforts to stop the demand for ivory are tangible and promising. To date, WCS China and our in-country partners: ▪
Generated over 151,648 online interactions on elephants and ivory-related issues as part of various online campaigns in China, including thousands of photographic commitments made in response to the “Bring No Ivory Home” project. The photos were shared via various social media networks and were also generated by intensive offline campaigns targeting key audiences such as Chinese travelers within major international airports in China (see photo at right).
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Generated more than five feature reports in national media, with a reach of over one million. A series of videos about Africa, elephants, and anti-ivory facts will be launched on “Top Fashion,” one of Travel Channel China’s top programs reaching over two million viewers. WCS and the Tanzania National parks (TANAPA) provided technical support for the programs, produced by Poly Technology and the Travel Channel.
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Launched a Chinese-language website on elephants and ivory, the first such resource available in China. Jiudaxiang.org now serves as the go-to site for the Chinese public, decision-makers, NGOs, and academics seeking authoritative Chinese-language information on elephants and ivory.
In September 2014, WCS reported on these and other successes at the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) Annual Meeting. Last year, CGI announced its Commitment to Action in partnership with WCS and 15 other NGOs to halt the decline of African elephants by the end of 2016; anti-demand efforts are vital to fulfilling this commitment.
WCS Progress Report: Elephants ▪ 7
The ‘Bring No Ivory Home’ Project: Participants snapped and shared “selfies” via Sina Weibo (the Chinese equivalent of Twitter) solidifying their promise not to buy ivory. The powerful pictures and pledge are still being shared across the most popular Chinese social media outlets where the movement can continue to multiply.
ELEPHANT ALLIES: HILLARY AND CHELSEA CLINTON In 2014, Secretary Hillary Clinton and Chelsea Clinton continued to spread the word about the plight of elephants. Secretary Clinton has secured commitments from other influential leaders in Africa, Asia, and the United States to protect elephants and support ivory sales moratoria. Chelsea Clinton, as Vice Chair of the Clinton Foundation, led the formation of the commitment made at last year’s Clinton Global Initiative Annual Meeting: the Partnership to Save Africa’s Elephants. The success of the Partnership has led to this year’s launch of CGI’s Elephant Action Network, which now includes 21 different commitments made by 16 individual organizations, reaching 58 different countries with our three-pronged strategy: stop the killing, stop the trafficking, stop the demand.
WCS Progress Report: Elephants ▪ 8
Niassa National Reserve, Mozambique—home to one of the largest remaining populations of elephants in Africa.
THE GREAT ELEPHANT CENSUS To conserve Africa’s dwindling elephant populations effectively, we need to know exactly where they are being slaughtered, where they still occur, and how many remain. Having more comprehensive estimates of elephant numbers would allow us to better allocate our resources in the most critical areas in order to protect elephants. Counting elephants is the best way to tell whether our conservation efforts to protect them are successful, but it is an increasingly difficult task due to their dwindling numbers, their learned fear of open spaces due to poaching, and the dense vegetation often comprising their habitat. Starting in October 2014, with funding from and in collaboration with Paul G. Allen, USAID, and the country’s government, WCS began a nationwide survey of the savannah elephants of Mozambique to determine exactly how many remain and in which areas. The survey is part of the Great Elephant Census, a multi-partner project with the goal of establishing universal baseline data that can inform elephant conservation approaches across sub-Saharan Africa. Using three Cessna aircraft to fly over six protected areas and three other regions, WCS experts are surveying live elephants as well as carcasses from the air, noting numbers as well as locations in order to hone in on poaching hotspots in Mozambique. By the end of 2014, the Great Elephant Census will have surveyed elephants in 18 countries, covering more than 80 percent of the total savannah elephant range with the aim of counting at least 90 percent of Africa’s savannah elephants. The results from WCS’s survey in Mozambique are expected to be available in early 2015. As poaching has escalated since 2008 when Mozambique’s last elephant survey put the total population at 22,000, our current survey’s results could be shocking, but are especially crucial in turning the crisis around.
WCS Progress Report: Elephants ▪ 9
LOOKING BEYOND FENCES IN SOUTHERN AFRICA Transfrontier conservation areas (or TFCAs), which incorporate a mosaic of protected areas as well as communal lands, provide extraordinary wildlife conservation and sustainable development opportunities. One of the most ecologically important TFCAs is Kavango Zambezi (KAZA), which is home to the world’s single largest remaining population of elephants. While ecotourism within KAZA and other TFCAs helps to alleviate poverty, other forms of income generation are also essential, including traditional livestock farming which is culturally important to millions of people who have lived in these areas for generations. Unfortunately, subsistence farmers sharing the land with wildlife in these TFCAs cannot sell their healthy, free-range beef to the lucrative export market due to international trade practices dictating that cattle must be physically separated from wildlife because of disease concerns. Farmers are therefore faced with a dilemma: If they want to export their beef, they have to eliminate wildlife such as buffalo (a natural reservoir for foot and mouth disease), or put up miles of environmentally-damaging disease control fences, thereby threatening ecotourism opportunities and endangering wildlife including elephants. Thankfully, there is a potential win-win solution. With support from USAID, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Rockefeller Foundation, and private donors, WCS’s AHEAD (Animal & Human Health for the Environment And Development) program is working with regional and international partners such as the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) to ensure that farmers do not have to make this choice. AHEAD’s Beyond Fences project is researching new science-based approaches to the safe trade of beef, based on the safety of the meat production process itself rather than focusing on where a particular cow has come from. This work is leading to new, non-fence based ways to manage commercially important diseases, thus lessening the conflict between livestock agriculture and wildlife conservation. Currently, OIE is reviewing WCS’s recommendations for policy changes that directly relate to these fenceless methods to control foot and mouth disease as related to beef exports, with a final vote by all 180 OIE member countries scheduled to take place in Paris in May 2015. Beyond Fences has important implications for the approximately 250,000 elephants in the KAZA TFCA. This prime conservation real estate spans five countries (Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe), and at more than 175,000 square miles, is similar in size to the northeastern United States. As elephants are in the midst of such an alarming poaching crisis, AHEAD’s Beyond Fences project aims to protect these animals from the additional threat of losing access to precious habitat.
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