23,000 elephants killed - why - chinese chopsticks

nobody@vox.com(karlos) — Fri, 02 May 2008 14:38:17 +0100

This report is from the Times on-line.......... Rangers in the Democratic Republic of Congo believe that rising demand for ivory in China is to blame for an unprecedented wave of elephant poaching in one of the country's war-torn national parks. 14 elephants have been slaughtered in as many days as government soldiers and militias use ivory to raise money for guns. Conservationists believe that the ivory is being smuggled from Virunga National Park through Uganda and Burundi en route to China.

South Africa has lifted a 13-year moratorium on elephant culling, aimed at tackling a surge in population numbers, despite the protestations of animal rights activists. Alexandre Wathaut, provincial director of the ICCN, the Congolese wildlife authority, said that a solution to the region's political instability was crucial to protecting the elephants. “This is the worst month we have seen in a long time in terms of recorded elephant deaths,” he added.

The DRC has been racked by years of civil war. A United Nations peacekeeping force has helped to bring a degree of stability to much of the country but the east remains in the grip of fighting between militias and government forces. They have turned Virunga which is home to a population of extremely rare mountain gorillas into a battleground. Populations of hippos, elephants and antelope in the park have nearly been wiped out by gunmen who kill them for food. Part of the park is under the control of the rebel commander Laurent Nkunda, making it inaccessible to rangers.

african elephant

A report by the conservation charity WildlifeDirect says that the militias, which include armed Hutu groups responsible for the Rwandan genocide, have killed 14 elephants for their tusks in a two-week period, 4 were killed by the FDLR militia, comprising members of the former Rwandan Interahamwe, 5 by the Congolese military, 3 by the local Mai-Mai militia, and 2 by villagers. It is a high toll for a population estimated in 2006 to be no more than 350 but is probably far less. Emmanuel de Merode, director of WildlifeDirect, said that the elephants were the victims of international pressures. “The upsurge in elephant killings in Virunga is part of a widespread slaughter across the Congo Basin and is being driven by developments on the international scene: the liberalisation of the ivory trade, being pushed by South Africa, and the increased presence of Chinese operators on the ground who feed a massive domestic demand for ivory in their home country,”

A report last year suggested that as many as 23,000 elephants were being killed across the continent to meet soaring demand from a growing Chinese middle class. Much of it ends up in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, where it is turned into chopsticks bought by Chinese oil workers. [source:times]

Elephants are on the threatened species list already and there is a really simple solution, make chopsticks out of another material, there is no need to use ivory at all. China will survive if plastic chopsticks replaced the ivory. I don't understand why these amazing animals have to suffer in this way.

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23,000 elephants killed - why - chinese chopsticks