Our World

The Poaching Problem

When I think of issues in Africa I either think of AIDS or poaching. Since a blog has already been done on the former, I decided to learn a little more about the latter. Poaching was a huge problem between 1979-89 because of the demand for ivory. The market was up and the elephant numbers were down. Finally groups became aware of the severity of this issue did something about it. The 1990 Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species banned international ivory sales. But the poaching continued, regardless. In 1996, an elephant researcher was flying in his small airplane over a rural part of Africa when he saw some dead elephants on the ground below. He wanted to investigate further and returned the next day only to find the tragic scene of over 300 elephants killed and their tusks gone. There were males, females and baby elephants alike. And two months later the same man found another 1,000 of these creatures killed nearby. At the injustice of the poacher's actions, he became angry and ran the poachers out of the area and destroyed their camps. With the help of the village leaders, he stopped poaching in that area. In 1997, the ban was partially lifted to allow some trade of ivory with Japan where the market is really demanding. But elephants are not the only poacher-endangered animal in Africa. Rhinos, hippos, gorillas, lions, hyenas, leopards, even giraffes are being killed by poachers. Their meat is sold to restaurants and their hides are very valuable. This is a huge problem in Africa and an interesting topic to read about. The numbers are horrible and the facts ugly. If you want to know more about this topic here are a few good sites to check out:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=912962

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/elephants/poaching.html

http://www.ccds.charlotte.nc.us/History/Africa/save/browning/browning.html

posted by Anonymous @ 3/12/2006 02:48:00 PM