Death whisperers: Elephant poaching for ivory remains unabated

Poachers kill 41 jumbos in 5 yrs; activists warn against India taking a softer stance on international ivory trade

The heartwarming Indian documentary The Elephant Whisperers won the Academy Award for showing the true story of a lovely human-elephant friendship and the pursuit of protecting the latter. Beyond this, however, the reality becomes considerably harsher, with elephants in India still being poached and slaughtered for a piece of 'status symbol': Ivory. 

Despite a nationwide ban on ivory trafficking in India since 1986, the illegal trade of tusks thrives. According to Wildlife Crime Control Bureau data, around 475 kg of raw ivory and 385 ivory artefacts were confiscated from poachers or traders in the country over the past five years (2018-22). 

Since 1976, when India became the 25th party to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), it has been involved in worldwide elephant conservation efforts. Since joining the Convention, India has taken many initiatives, including restricting domestic ivory sales, forbidding the import of African ivory, and launching Project Elephant. However, elephant poaching and the ivory trade continue to flourish in the Indian black market.

Around the world, ivory is used for status symbols and religious purposes. The ongoing demand for ivory imposes a massive ecological cost, particularly on the elephant population. According to a Lok Sabha reply, poachers killed 41 elephants between 2018 and 2022 -- Meghalaya (12) and Orissa (10) accounted for more than half of such elephant deaths. Aside from poaching, 25 elephants have been poisoned in the past five years. 

Underreporting of cases

Though the recorded number of poaching instances is still in the double digits, experts believe the figures are misleading since many poaching cases go unreported. “The recorded numbers of poaching are just the tip of the iceberg,” Asad R Rahmani, member of Wetlands International South Asia's governing board, told Business Standard. 

While hearing a PIL concerning the discovery of a burnt elephant carcass -- which the Similipal Tiger Reserve forest personnel reportedly lit on fire to cover up a poaching incident -- in December last year, the Odisha High Court stated that 2022 was one of the worst years for jumbos in the state.

At least three forest department personnel working in the same area were arrested in February this year for allegedly killing an eyewitness of the poaching incident.

According to Save the Elephants’ data, the black-market price of ivory has started to gather up steam in recent years, with the wholesale price in China -- one of the main ivory markets -- doubling in 2020 from $750 a kg in early 2017.

According to PoachingFacts, the major final destinations and transit points for unlawfully obtained ivory are China, Japan, Thailand, Hong Kong, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Vietnam. 

For hundreds of years, tusks and worked ivory have been kept in India as ornamental trophies and a sign of wealth, but the ivory carving industry in India is said to date back 4,000 years. “India is well-known for its ivory artisanship. It is difficult to put a stop to illegal trade. The government has been able to control the ivory trade, but awareness and administrative reforms are still required,” Rahmani said.

Global problem

According to The World Wildlife Fund (WWF), which leads international efforts to protect endangered species and their habitats, as many as 10 million wild elephants roamed vast swaths of the African continent in 1930.

However, decades of poaching and conflict have decimated African elephant populations. Experts estimated in 2016 that Africa’s elephant population had declined by 111,000 elephants in a decade.

There are only 415,000 elephants in Africa. There are only 29,964 elephants in India. Though the Indian government has had great success in its efforts to save elephants, it came under fire from environmentalists all over the world last year when it decided to abstain from a vote seeking to reopen the ivory trade – for the first time since joining CITES. The proposal to allow a regular form of controlled trade in ivory from Namibia, Botswana, South Africa, and Zimbabwe was defeated 83-15.

Experts are concerned that any shift in the country’s decades-long anti-ivory advocacy will result in a softer stance against the international ivory trade. “If India does not support the ban and decides to allow the trade of ivory, decades of hard work will be undone,” an expert said.

Human-elephant conflict 

The Indian government started Project Elephant in 1991-92 as a centrally-sponsored scheme to protect elephants, their habitat and corridors, prevent human-elephant conflict, and to ensure welfare of captive elephants in India. However, according to the MoEFCC (Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change) data, 2,544 people died in the human-elephant conflict from 2018 to 2022. The government has decided to celebrate Gaj Utsav at Kaziranga National Park on April 7-8 to commemorate 30 years of Project Elephant.

On the government’s efforts to prevent human-elephant conflict and protect them from man-made disasters, Ramesh Kumar Pandey, director of Project Elephant said, the department is training all the stakeholders and creating infrastructure to avoid accidents. 

“Capacity enhancement of state forest departments through structured, rigorous field and off-field training along with national level capacity building workshops/training for elephant reserve managers, veterinary doctors, railway officials and Mahouts are provided in the country,” Pandey added.

Details of ivory seized from poachers/ traders during the past 5 years are as follows:

Year	Quantity of ivory seized
2018	77.146 kg raw ivory and 21 ivory artifact
2019	47.133 kg raw ivory and 126 ivory artifacts
2020	32.39 kg raw ivory and 32 ivory artifact
2021	212.972 kg raw ivory and 87 ivory artifacts
2022	105.89 kg raw ivory and 119 ivory artifacts

Source: Lok Sabha; Wildlife Crime Control Bureau