Speaker 1:

Come this close to such a magnificent creature, and it's easy to understand why the world has been trying so desperately to save the African elephant. For those of us who don't live here in Africa, the answer's always been clear. To save the elephant, we've had to ban the ivory trade. It's been a neat, simple and morally sound solution. Unfortunately, it might not have worked everywhere. In fact, in Zimbabwe, the common view is that rather than helping to save the elephant, the ivory ban may be leading to its destruction.

Dr Rowan Martin:

One thing we're absolutely certain about, is that any form of ban on wildlife products doesn't contribute positively to anything to do with conservation.

Speaker 1:

Teeming with wildlife, Mana Pools National Park is Zimbabwe's frontline in the war against poachers. Only the Zambezi River separates the elephants here from the mountains of Zambia, a popular hideout for ivory hunters.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, go ahead.

Speaker 4:

Roger. We have picked a score of three poachers. Copy.

Speaker 3:

You have picked a score of three poachers, copy, go ahead.

Speaker 4:

Roger, I'm still going on, direction due west.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, okay. Standby, I'm going to check on the map.

Speaker 1:

Zimbabwe's anti-poaching record is one of Africa's finest, in terms of men on the ground, ivory seized and poachers killed. One hundred and fifty, since 1984.

Speaker 4:

Copied.

Speaker 3:

[inaudible]

Speaker 1:

As a result, Zimbabwe's problem is not too few elephants, but too many. Numbers have grown from 5000 at the turn of the century, to 77,000. 32,000 more elephants than Zimbabwe estimates it can comfortably sustain. In Kenya, however, it's a different story.

Poachers decimated Kenya's elephant population. On average, 30 elephants died each day between 1973 and 1989, most were killed for their ivory. Kenya's experience was not unique, by 1989 Africa's impending disaster had become the Western World's cause. And upfront, galvanising public opinion was Kenya's Richard Leakey.

Richard Leakey:

We are appealing to the nations of the world, particularly the consumer countries, the North American countries, the European countries, Japanese and the Far East. To stop buying ivory and we cannot ask them not to buy, if at the same time we are selling. So we are destroying Kenya's stock, once and for all. And we will continue to destroy it hereon after. We will not trade in ivory again.

Speaker 6:

There is no question [crosstalk]-

Speaker 1:

In October 1989, CITES delegates voted in a ban on the ivory trade. It was roundly greeted as a victory for Kenya, and the African elephant. Today, Richard Leakey claims the ban has saved the African elephant.

Richard Leakey:

As a result of the ban, and the publicity that went with it amongst the consumer nations, poaching and the illegal trade in ivory has virtually stopped. Not only in Kenya, but in a number of other African countries.

Dr Rowan Martin:

The illegal trade in ivory out of Africa is as alive and well as it could ever be, right now.

I think that's a very short term view [crosstalk]-

Speaker 1:

Doctor Rowan Martin, an Assistant Director at Zimbabwe's Parks and Wildlife Department, was not convinced in 1989 that the ban would succeed. Today, he's adamant it hasn't.

Dr Rowan Martin:

It's a fallacy to believe that the ban is really working. All that will happen, if everybody subscribes to the ban, is the trade will remain underground. Will probably escalate from its present underground level, to its likely higher level. And, we will know less and less about what is happening.

Speaker 1:

Julius [Chenerenday] leads one of Mana Pool's 13 anti-poaching units. A former Army commander, he runs his patrols as if they were a military operation. And that means, shooting to kill. Despite the ivory ban and the harsh penalties, Julius says business is booming. Barely a week passes without his team spotting evidence of poachers, and at least three times during the past two years, Julius has come face-to-face with the enemy.

Julius:

First of all, I heard their shots. [inaudible] Eastern side of [Yamagizikan]. Then immediately, I took action from there, there in there. I went there with at least four chaps, including myself. Then we just took the ferry, where I heard the shots. After a K, then I heard them calling each other, then we freeze to listen for their movement. Then immediate from myself, I was turning behind a tree, and I saw a hunter passing through us. Immediately, I opened fire to him and I gunned him down.

Speaker 3:

As I said, the ban on the ivory trade was very significant against the poaching. I think it was effected in about October, 89. By the beginning of 1990, we saw less collection of the elephant poaching. By the end of 1990, we lost more elephants than we had lost in the previous seven years, from 1984 to 89.

Speaker 1:

To [Krispen Jakopa], the reason was obvious. The ban pushed the ivory trade underground, and prices on the Black Market rocketed. An increasing number of poachers were willing to take their chances against squads such as his. But an effective anti-poaching effort requires big dollars, ironically the ivory ban deprived Zimbabwe of the very money it needed to fight the ivory war.

This tusk is worth $6000, around me in this storeroom in Harare, is 19 tonnes of ivory. That's about $3.8 million worth. Money which Zimbabwe says, could be used for elephant conservation. It took 1000 dead elephants to get these tusks here, and Zimbabwe says if they stay here unsold, many more elephants will die.

The ban caused another problem for Zimbabwe. Unlike other African countries which were losing elephants before the ban, Zimbabwe's herds were growing. Thanks to its anti-poaching teams. To deal with these increasing numbers, Zimbabwe conducted regular culls. Expensive operations, which were financed by the sale of ivory on the lucrative world market. With the ban, the money ran dry and culling virtually stopped. Elephant numbers grew, and now Zimbabwe needs to find more room for them.

[Esther Shamboko] works a few acres of land at [Motondo], a communal farming area in Zimbabwe's north. Her modest crop of maize and millet, must feed seven mouths. Too often, it feeds only one. One very big one.

Esther:

[foreign language]

Speaker 1:

Zimbabwe says, if the ivory ban were lifted, money from the sale of culled ivory could be used to convince people like Esther, to risk sharing their land with the elephant.

Dr Rowan Martin:

The benefits of a trade in ivory are, firstly the State Agencies have the necessary money to put back into maintenance of State Protected Areas. Secondly, the rural communities are deriving income from the animal, and that is an enhancement to their conservation.

Richard Leakey:

Well yes, but that's rather like saying that if you allow people to sell narcotics, they could make a lot of money in Central America, or in Thailand. I mean, yes of course. Our concern is not the use of ivory, our concern is that the opening of the ivory trade again now would undoubtedly lead to the reopening of the illegal killing of elephant. That, nobody wants.

Speaker 1:

Zimbabwe argues that Southern Africa has the measures in place to ensure illegal ivory would not make it onto a re-opened World market. All ivory would be registered before being sold only to authorised dealers.

The watchdog would be SACIM (the Southern Africa Centre for Ivory Marketing), formed last year by Zimbabwe, Malawi, Namibia, Zambia and Botswana. But, Kenya has reservations about SACIM.

Richard Leakey:

I think the problem with it, is it would send a message to the World community. That there was some ivory that was legal, and some ivory that was illegal. Immediately, the trade would open across Africa, because everybody knows that African customs authorities and African borders are not impenetrable. I think we would simply sound the death knell for elephants across Africa, and I don't believe that's the right thing to do at this time.

Speaker 1:

Despite the public slinging match between Kenya and Zimbabwe, their problems in some regions are similar. So similar, in fact, that several years down the track, Kenya may find itself having to make the same decisions as Zimbabwe.

Here in Amboseli National Park, in Southern Kenya, there are 780 elephants. More than two for every square kilometre. What the elephants haven't eaten, they've trampled, and that's had a devastating effect on the park, and the people on its perimeter.

Dr David W.:

We've lost some 90-95% of all woodland trees, in an area which was really known as a wildlife and woodland spectacle. But over the years that scene, which you see there, has been literally trashed. The trees have been taken [crosstalk]-

Speaker 1:

Doctor David Western, has been studying the plant and animal life in Amboseli since 1967. And he's seen a total change in the park's landscape.

Dr David W.:

We have lost certain species, like bush buck and lesser kudu, which were found only in the woodlands. Other species like giraffe, have declined from 200 to less than 20. Baboons from 2500, to less than a few hundred.

Speaker 1:

The elephant has also come into conflict with the Maasai, who live and farm on the park's edge. As in Zimbabwe, the solution to the overcrowding has been to give the elephant an economic value, so it's allowed to move out of the National Park onto Maasai land. In Kenya, that value comes not from dead elephants and their ivory, but from those very much alive.

Speaker 10:

Look at that one, doing pee-pee. Like a pic?

Speaker 1:

The Maasai now receive 25% of the gate takings at Amboseli. This year, that will amount to 300,000 US dollars.

Speaker 11:

Oh look, there are a whole family of elephants. One is moving [crosstalk]-

Speaker 1:

But Doctor Western says this only a temporary fix for elephant population problems.

Dr David W.:

I think we're simply buying time, to look for other solutions. Whether it is selective control of elephant numbers through fertility control, or culling, or whatever. We're simply buying time for the time being.

Speaker 1:

David Western says that culling in Kenya is inevitable. So, is it likely, a few years down the track, that you will be facing the same sorts of decisions Zimbabwe is now facing?

Richard Leakey:

It's a possibility, I don't think it's inevitable. I think, in the absence of an alternative it is inevitable. But we are exploring that alternative, I think fertility regulation of elephant herds through dart induced drugs is a perfectly viable possibility. Nobody has done any work on it, and we will look at it. If we can't do it, then we will accept culling as an inevitability.

Speaker 1:

It's clear that no matter which route Kenya or Zimbabwe follows, getting the balance right between humans and elephants, is a delicate business. Zimbabwe has decided that the best way to achieve that balance, and save the elephant, is to sell its ivory.

Dr Rowan Martin:

We're not cowboys. We're not likely to run around throwing tusks at every shady dealer who comes in our direction. We've already stated the manner in which we'd choose to trade, it would be as perfectly controlled as any trade could be. And we'd be absolutely certain that it would not contribute to the downward trend of elephant, in any other part of Africa.

Richard Leakey:

Dr Martin was in the Wildlife Department of Zimbabwe at a time when illegal exports of ivory reached an all time high. Dr Martin was in Zimbabwe at a time when they lost some 900 elephant in one of the national parks, Gonarezhou. And Doctor Martin was the official at the CITES meeting who said Zimbabwe hadn't lost any elephants. Now, if Doctor Martin knowing that they had lost 900 elephants was able to say they had lost no elephants, why should I believe him today more than I believed him then?

Speaker 1:

Despite such scathing attacks, Doctor Leakey acknowledges Kenya may be forced down the same path.

Richard Leakey:

I think it would be premature to lift the ivory ban now, because I don't think we've got the controls in place to prevent the ivory trade getting out of control. The minute we are satisfied that the controls are in place, both on the demand and the supply side, we would have no objections.

Speaker 1:

This week's decision by CITES delegates, to continue the ban on the ivory trade, will be greeted by many as yet another reprieve for the African elephant. It may have soothed Western sensibilities, but according to Zimbabwe, it won't save the elephant. If anything, Zimbabwe says the ivory ban will deny elephants a real economic value. Thereby, shortening the life of this, one of Africa's oldest creatures.